Exclusively of the two days that are requisite for the passage of the mountains, an allowance of twice that time is generally given to refreshment and repose; soon after which a fertile and beautiful country, as richly diversified as numerously peopled, opens to their view. Its inhabitants are herdsmen, and with the exception of a few Pagans who are intermixed among them, are Musselmen in their faith. Their dwellings are in tents which are composed of hides, and their wealth consists in the multitude of their cows and sheep. Four days are employed in crossing these fortunate districts: the sixth conducts the caravan to the entrance of the vast and burning Desart of Bilma. Surrounded by this dreary solitude, the Traveller sees with a dejected eye the dead bodies of the birds that the violence of the wind has brought from happier regions; and as he ruminates on the fearful length of his remaining passage, listens with horror to the voice of the driving blast, the only sound that interrupts the awful repose of the Desart. On the eleventh day from their entrance on these scorching sands, the caravan arrives in the fertile plains that encompass the Town of Domboo, the approach to which is enlivened by the frequent appearance of the majestic Ostrich, and of the gay but fearful Antelope. From thence, in about five days, they reach the City of Kánem, the capital of an extensive and fertile province, of which it bears the name, and in which the inhabitants, who are composed of Musselmen and Pagans, breed multitudes of cattle, and raise innumerable horses for the service of the King. A journey of ten days more concludes their labour, and brings them to the imperial City of Bornou.[13] _Bornou_, the name which the natives give to the country, is distinguished in Arabic by the appellation of Bernou or Bernoa, a word that signifies the land of Noah, for the Arabs conceive that, on the first retiring of the deluge, its mountains received the Ark. The _Climate_, as may naturally be expected in a kingdom which seems to be bounded by the 16th and the 26th parallels of latitude, is characterized by excessive, though not by uniform heat. Two seasons, the one commencing soon after the middle of April, the other at the same period of October, may be said to divide the year. The _first_ is introduced by violent winds that bring with them, from the South East and South, an intense heat, with a deluge of sultry rain, and such tempests of thunder and lightning as destroy multitudes of the cattle, and many of the people. During the rainy period (the continuance of which is from three to nine successive days, with short intervals from the occasional changes of the wind to the North or West) the inhabitants confine themselves closely to their dwellings; but the rest of the first season, however sultry and however occasionally wet, is not incompatible with the necessary labours of the husbandman and the shepherd.