It is not on every occasion that time can be allowed, or materials found, for dressing victuals: in the anticipation of such an exigency, the traveller provides a food called _simitée_: it consists of barley boiled until it swells, then dried in the sun, and then further dried over the fire; and lastly, being ground into a powder, it is mixed with salt, pepper, and carraway-seed, and put into a leather bag: when it is to be used, it is kneaded into a dough, with just water enough to give it consistency, and is served up with butter or oil. If further diluted with water, then dates are added to the meal, and it is called _rouin_. Such is the food of the traveller when there is a scarcity of fuel or of water; and none can be expended in boiling. I was often, for days together, without other food than this cold farinaceous pap, mixed with a few dates. Onions and red Spanish pepper are the general and the only seasonings of each meal, with the addition of salt. On the seventh day, after a march of four hours, we reached _Biljoradec_, commonly called _Jahudie_, a term implying that the water is bad, or that other water is not to be found but at a considerable distance. The three following days, travelling occasionally in the night, we were forty hours in actual journey. On the first of these, (being the ninth day since leaving the vicinity of Cairo,) we reached the chain of mountains which bounded the uniform desert through which we had passed. On the tenth, mounting these hills, I observed the plain on their summit to consist of a saline mass spread over so large a tract of surface, that in one direction no eye could reach its termination, and what might be called its width, I computed at several miles. The clods of salt discoloured with sand lay thick and close, and gave to this vast plain the appearance of a recently ploughed field. On the summit of this eminence, and almost in the middle of this saline tract, (on computation of its width) I discovered a spring; and the passage of Herodotus[2] occurring to my mind, in which he mentions springs of fresh water on the salt hills, I eagerly made up to its brink. I found it edged with salt: some poor pilgrims attending me tasted the water, but it was so saturated with saline matter, as to be wholly unfit for drink. On the eleventh day (September the 15th), we came to an inhabited spot; after five hours march arriving at the small village of _Ummesogeir_. SECTION II. _Observations on the Desert, from the Valley of Natron to the Mountains of Ummesogier._