The appearance of Múrzuk is rather picturesque; but its extreme aridity is felt at once; and this feeling grows stronger on a prolonged residence. Even in the plantation which surrounds it there are only a few favoured spots where, under the protection of a deeper shade of the date-trees, a few fruit-trees can be cultivated, such as pomegranates, figs, and peaches. Culinary vegetables, including onions, are extremely scarce; milk, except a little from the goats, is of course quite out of the question. The town lies in a flat hollow, “Hófrah,” which is the appropriate native name of the district, but nevertheless at the considerable elevation of 1,495 ft., surrounded by ridges of sand; and in this hollow lies scattered the plantation, without the least symmetry of arrangement or mark of order. In some places it forms a long narrow strip extending to a great distance, in others a detached grove, while on the south-east side of the town the desert approaches close to the walls in a deep inlet. Towards the east a little grove apart forms as it were an advanced post. The densest and finest part of the grove is towards the north, where also are the greatest number of gardens and fields in which wheat, barley, gédheb (or rather kédheb), and a few vegetables, are cultivated with much labour. In the same quarter also the greatest number of cottages are to be found, including huts (large and small) made of palm-branches,—the former consisting of several apartments and a small courtyard, the latter having generally only one room of very narrow dimensions. In the midst of this plantation lies Múrzuk. It is situated so as not to face the cardinal points, but with a deviation from them of thirty degrees, the north side running N. 30° E., S. 30° W., and so on: it is less than two miles in circumference. The walls, built of clay with round and pointed bastions, but partly in bad repair, have, two gates, the largest on the east, and the other on the west side. There is only a very small gate on the north side, and there is none towards the south. This quarter of the town has been greatly contracted by ʿAbd el Jelíl, as the remains of the old wall of the time of Mukni clearly show; but the town is still much too large for its scanty population, which is said now to amount to 2,800, and the greatest part of it, especially in the quarters most distant from the bazar, is thinly inhabited and half in ruins. The characteristic feature of the town, which shows that it has more points of relation with Negroland than with the lands of the Arabs, is the spacious road or “dendal” stretching out from the eastern gate as far as the castle, and making the principal part of the town more airy, but also infinitely more exposed to the heat.