_June 19._—While the greater part of the caravan took the direct road to the well Sháraba, Mr. Overweg and I, with the remainder, chose the road to Tessáwa, or rather, more accurately, Tasáwa; but though our party formed but a small body of people, yet it presented a very animated spectacle. The lazy Arab mode of letting the camels go singly, as they like, straggling about right and left, strains and fatigues the traveller’s attention; but his mind is stimulated and nerved to the contemplation of great distances to be traversed when he sees a long line of camels attached one to the other, and led by a man at a steady pace without any halt or interruption. As for myself, riding my own méheri, I was quite at liberty to go before or fall behind, just as the circumstances of the road called for observation, or presented something worthy of attention. Having passed some tolerably deep sand-hills accumulated in the wady, we obtained a sight of an advanced spur of the plantation of Aghár to our left, when the ground became firm, and the country more open. Then, keeping along the southern border of the principal plantation, we passed the village and our former camping-ground, and having left further on some deserted villages and a few scattered huts of palm-leaves, still inhabited, a little on one side, about noon we again entered a sandy region with a few detached palm-groups. Here I observed a specimen of a very rare sort of bifurcated or divided palm-tree (not the dúm, which is generally so), with two distinct tufts hanging down on the opposite sides: this is the only specimen I ever saw. We then passed the village of Tasáwa, which, with its clay walls and towers, looks much more considerable from afar than it appears when viewed from among the deserted houses within it; still it is one of the more wealthy and important places in the country. A little beyond it we encamped on the open sandy ground, when, as our small tent had by mistake gone on in advance, and our large tent was too bulky to be pitched for one night’s rest, we contrived a very tolerable airy shade with our carpets.