It was across a belt of this kind that our route now lay, a belt about 70 miles wide between Safé, the last village of Guimer, and Rémélé, the first of Dar Four. On June 26 a long morning march brought us to the wells of Délébé, situated at the crossing of an important route chiefly used by native traffickers on their way to barter the grain of Massalit for the salt of Dar Four at the market of Diellé, some 20 miles north of Kebkebia. The site was pleasant and covered for a space of several miles in length and 200 or 300 yards in breadth with fine harazes and kournas, which gave us the illusion of a great shady park at home; but the lack of water in the well and the way our store of eatables was running short did not allow us to yield to the temptation of resting there a day. We had to start again in the afternoon and march till dark in order to reach, early next morning, the wells of Chibéké, whose immediate neighbourhood, so our guide told us, was infested by lions; but we had not the pleasure of seeing any. A further stage of a score of miles at last permitted us to get out of the uninhabited region and reach the Wadi Gueddara, at the point where it comes out of the mountains that mark the watershed between the basins of the Chad and the Nile. _Western Dar Four._—These mountains seemed to be much more important than the maps and descriptions of former travellers had led me to suppose. They formed a long and rather confused chain, running approximately from north to south; and their chief summit, mount Dourboullé, some 30 miles to the east, rose to more than 7000 feet above sea-level. I spent June 28 at the village of Rémélé, where I received a very kind letter of welcome from Lieut.-Colonel Savile Pasha, governor of the province, who put at my disposal an escort of six soldiers of the native police. I wanted to ascertain the exact position of this village, but rain fell at intervals throughout the evening and night and prevented me from observing the indispensable stars. If I was vexed, the natives were delighted, for the damp soil would enable them to sow seed for the first time that year. Next day I had only a dozen miles to cover in order to arrive at the advanced post of Kebkebia, the furthest west of the military posts in Dar Four, and during that short march I enjoyed the happy and restful feeling of the sailor who, after a long voyage, sees shining on the horizon, across the calm of the spent waters, the cheerful harbour lights. We advanced along the western foot of the chain, gradually nearing it, and noticing that it seemed to connect with the massif of Djebel Marra, of which from time to time I could see for a moment the highest peak, more than 50 miles to the south-south-east. We went along through a smiling and prosperous-looking country, already covered with springing grass, dotted with green trees, and broken here and there by rocky heights that did not rise higher than 400 feet.