We halted, after dark, at a place called Mull. Feb. 2.—Our road, as yesterday, was an extensive valley, bounded to the right and left by low hills; about noon we descended slightly, and found ourselves in a productive plain of great extent, thickly planted with trees and underwood, not unlike a preserve in England. About an hour before sun-set, we came to what had the appearance of the bed of a lake, and here was the wished-for well of water. The horses had not drank since noon on the 31st, and although ready to drop on the road from faintness, were, on reaching the well, quite unmanageable. The name of the well was Kofei. On the 31st, Boo-Khaloom had thought it right to send on a Tibboo with the news of our approach to the sheikh El-Kanemy, who, we understood, resided at Kouka, and one was despatched with a camel and a man of Mina Tahr: the Gundowy accompanied him on the arrival at Kofei of the Arabs, who preceded us for the purpose of clearing the well. The Tibboo who had been despatched was found alone and naked; some Tibboo Arabs, of a tribe called Wandela, had met them near the well on the preceding evening and robbing him even to his cap, and taking from him the letters, saying, they cared not for the sheikh or Boo-Khaloom, tied him to a tree, and then left him. In this state was he found by our people; and Mr. Clapperton coming up soon after, gave him, from his biscuit-bag, wherewithal to break his fast, after being twenty-four hours without eating. Eighteen men had stripped him, he said, and taken off the camel and Mina Tahr’s man, who, they also said, should be ransomed, or have his throat cut. Mina Tahr represented these people as the worst on the road in every sense of the word: “They have no flocks,” said he, “and have not more than three hundred camels, although their numbers are one thousand or more; they live by plunder, and have no connexion with any other people. No considerable body of men can follow them; their tents are in the heart of the desert, and there are no wells for four days in the line of their retreat. Giddy-ben-Agah is their chief, and I alone would give fifty camels for his head: these are the people who often attack and murder travellers, and small kafilas, and the Gundowy, who respect strangers, have the credit of it.”