The few fertile spots of scanty verdure, called “oases,” which now and then refresh the languid senses of the weary traveller, and which are desolate, beyond the wildest wastes of European land, are the tracts inhabited by the eastern Arabs. Masses of conglomerated sand obstruct the path which leads to these oases or wadeys; nothing relieves the eye, as it stretches over the wide expanse, except where the desert scene is broken by a chain of bleak and barren mountains: no cooling breezes freshen the air: the sun descends in overpowering force: the winds scorch as they pass; and bring with them billows of sand, rolling along in masses frightfully suffocating, which sometimes swallow up whole caravans and armies, burying them in their pathless depths! “Their hapless fate unknown!” [Illustration] FOOTNOTES: [Footnote 1: Benioleed, a rich valley, bounded on all sides by whitish brown hills, capped in many places with green stone and amygdaloid, or vesicular lava, rugged villages, and ruinous castles, on every point, some overtopping the columnar green stone, and scarcely distinguishable from it. The hills possess a very interesting structure. The height does not exceed 400 feet, and limestone is the prevailing rock. On the north side the whole of the range, till within a mile of the western extremity, is limestone: at that point above the limestone is a thick bed of columnar greenstone, with thick layers of vesicular lava. On the southern side, most of the hills have their tops covered with lava and columnar green stone, and have a structure similar to that of the one I have delineated. A little difference is here and there observable, but not so much as to be worthy of notice. The tops of the hills on this side form an extensive, black, dreary-looking plain, strewed over with loose stones, extending eastwardly as far as the eye can discern. The upper, or, as I would call it, the lavaceous crust, appears as if a layer left by a flowing fluid, and therefore of more recent formation than the rock on which it rests. This is seldom more than a few feet in thickness, and spread over the subjacent rock. The rocks dip in various directions, but generally at an angle of 18°.