The view from the rocky hill which reaches its greatest elevation just over the town, and, together with a cistern, offers a few Berber and Arabic inscriptions to the curious traveller, proved far less extensive and picturesque than that from a sand-hill a little distance westward from the house of Háj Ahmed. I ascended this little hill in the afternoon of the 22nd, and, screened by an ethel-bush, sketched the whole oasis—the separate strips of palm-trees, the wide desolate valley, bordered by the steep slope of the Akakús-range, with its regular strata of marly slate and its pinnacled crest of sandstone; the little town on the left, at the foot of the rocky hill, contrasting with the few and frail huts of palm-branches scattered about here and there; the noble and spacious mansion of the industrious Háj Ahmed in the foreground, on the northern side of which was the flat dwelling assigned to us. When descending from this hill towards the south, I was greatly pleased with the new improvements added by Háj Ahmed to his plantation. The example of this man shows how much may be achieved by a little industry in these favoured spots, where cultivation might be infinitely increased. In the southernmost and most recent part of the plantation a large basin, about 100 feet long and 60 feet broad, had been formed, receiving a full supply of water from the northern side of the sand-hills, and irrigating kitchen-gardens of considerable extent. Thus the wealthy Governor makes some advance every year; but, unfortunately, he seems not to find many imitators. Our negotiation with the Tuarek chiefs might have been conducted with more success if a letter written by Her Majesty’s Government to the chief Jabúr had not been produced at the very moment when all the chiefs present were ready to subscribe the treaty. But their attention was entirely distracted from the object in view. This letter made direct mention of the abolition of the slave-trade; hence it became a very difficult and delicate matter, especially as Mr. Richardson’s supplies of merchandise and presents at that moment were entirely in the hands of the merchant Háj Ibrahim, who, even if liberal enough to abstain from intrigue against admitting the competition of English merchants, would be sure to do all in his power to prevent the abolition of the slave-trade.