The next day the country became more barren still, and the batoum disappeared. The patches of barley likewise ceased to cheer the eye; and little pools of water no longer sparkled in the rocky bottoms, as near Kaleebah. The geological formation was nearly the same as yesterday; but pieces of crystalline gypsum covered the ground, and the limestone here and there took the form of alabaster. Some of the hills that close in the huge basin-like valleys are of considerable elevation, and have conic volcanic forms. All was dreary, and desolate, and sad, except that some ground-larks whirled about; lizards and beetles still kept crossing our path; and a single chameleon did not fade into sand-colour in time to escape notice. No animals of the chase were seen; but our blacks picked up the dung of the ostrich, and a horn of the aoudad. Here and there we observed the broken columns of Roman milestones, some of them covered with illegible inscriptions. The sockets generally remain perfect. We saluted the memory of the sublime road-makers. About noon, as we were traversing these solitudes in our usual irregular order of march, a crowd of moving things came in sight. It proved to be a slave-caravan, entirely composed of young girls. The Gadamsee merchants who owned them recognised me, and shook me by the hand. Our old black woman was soon surrounded by a troop of the poor slave-girls; and when she related to them how she was returning free to her country under the protection of the English, and wished them all the same happiness, they fell round her weeping and kissing her feet. One poor naked girl had slung at her back a child, with a strange look of intelligence. I was about to give her a piece of money, but could not; for, the tears bursting to my eyes, I was obliged to turn away. The sight of these fragments of families stolen away to become drudges or victims of brutal passion in a foreign land, invariably produced this effect upon me. This caravan consisted of some thirty girls and twenty camel-loads of elephants' teeth. They had been seventy days on their way from Ghât, including, however, thirty-four days of rest. Most of these poor wretches had performed journeys on their way to bondage which would invest me with imperishable renown as a traveller could I accomplish them.