If there yet remains any trace of a western branch of the Nile, as mentioned by ancient writers,[3] it is probably to be discovered in some part of this Desert. I observed no channel, or vestige of such course of river, on the route taken by the caravan. I would direct the researches of any future traveller specially to the tract of country round where we encamped on the nights when we halted at the foot of the sand hill west of _Wadey-el-Latron_, and in the district of _Muhabag_: these places we reached not till after sunset, and departing before day, I myself had no opportunity of examining the country. The term _Bahr-bella-ma_, commonly rendered _river without water_, by no means designates or points to any specific channel or tract in which any ancient channel may be more probably discovered: for if petrified trees fit for masts, or petrified timbers suited to other purposes of ship-building, said to be found in the _Bahr-bella-ma_, characterize and give the name (as we are told) to the tract of land throughout which they are to be found, then the appropriate translation is not river, but _sea without water_, for such petrifactions are scattered over the whole Desert. Indeed the general appearance of this vast and barren tract, well accords to the title of _sea without water_; its sandy surface resembling that of a leeshore, over which the waters streaming before the storm have, on their ebb, deposited timber, or what else was carried on by the tide. I say not wreck of vessels, for I saw no wood that had the least appearance of the tool, or of having been wrought for any purpose of man. Such as, by light observers, have been taken for fragments of masts, are merely trunks of trees of from thirty to forty feet in length, broken and shivered into large splinters, which lying near each other, shew in their forms and grain of timber, the mass they formerly belonged to and composed. To the north of the Desert runs a chain of steep and bare calcareous mountains, which were in constant view of our caravan travelling at the distance of three to seven miles in like direction. At the foot of these, runs a flat tract of moorish swampy land, from one to six miles in breadth, abounding in springs, and to which we resorted every second or third day for a supply of water; but at the period of our journey, the springs throughout the whole valley were nearly dried up. The water which remained, and run or spread on the surface, was _bitter_;[4] yet digging wells near to these rivulets or marshes, we found water at the depth only of five or six feet, which was sweet and palatable. SECTION III. _Ummesogeir, and further Journey to Siwah._