Crossing Mount Atlas, and proceeding directly towards the south, he entered the province of Segelmessa, extending from the town of Garselvin to the river Ziz, a length of about one hundred and twenty miles. Here commences that scarcity of water which is the curse of this part of Africa. Few or no inequalities in the surface of the ground, scanty traces of cultivation, human habitations occurring at wide intervals, and, in short, nothing to break the dreary uniformity of the scene but a few scattered date-palms waving their fanlike leaves over the brown desert, where at every step the foot was in danger of alighting upon a scorpion resting in the warm sand. The few streams which creep in winter over this miserable waste shrink away and disappear before the scorching rays of the summer sun, which penetrate the soil to a great depth, and pump up every particle of moisture as far as they reach. Nothing then remains to the inhabitants but a brackish kind of water, which they obtain from wells sunk extremely deep in the earth. Near the capital of this province, which is surrounded by strong walls, and said to have been founded by the Romans, Leo spent seven months; and except that the air was somewhat too humid in winter, found the place both salubrious and agreeable. As he advanced farther into the desert, he daily became more and more of Pindar’s opinion, that of all the elements water is the best,—the wells becoming fewer, and their produce more scanty. Many of these pits are lined round with the skins and bones of camels, in order to prevent the water from being absorbed by the sand, or choked up when the winds arise, and drive the finer particles in burning clouds over the desert. When this happens, however, nothing but certain death awaits the traveller, who is continually reminded of the fate which awaits him by observing scattered around upon the sand the bones of his predecessors, or their more recent bodies withered up and blackening in the sun. The well-known resource of killing a camel for the water contained in his stomach is frequently resorted to, and sometimes preserves the lives of the merchants. In crossing this tremendous scene of desolation, Leo discovered two marble monuments, when or by whom erected he could not learn, upon which was an epitaph recording the manner in which those who slept beneath had met their doom. The one was an exceedingly opulent merchant, the other a person whose business it was to furnish caravans with water and provisions. On their arriving at this spot, scorched by the sun, and their entrails tortured by the most excruciating thirst, there remained but a very small quantity of water between them. The rich man, whose thirst now made him regard his gold as dirt, purchased a single cup of this celestial nectar for ten thousand ducats; but that which might possibly have saved the life of one of them being divided between both, only served to prolong their sufferings for a moment, as