Meanwhile the persecuted Christians had made off, accompanied by some of the Kél-owí; and at length the whole caravan collected together. The valley was here very beautiful, and having crossed some smaller hollows, we reached the fine valley of Selúfiet, rich in trees and bushes, but without herbage; while at the distance of less than a mile on our left the high peak of the Tímge stood erect. Towards the west the valley forms a deep gap behind a projecting mass of granite blocks, and it was here that I met again my old acquaintance from the Sʿaid and Nubia, the dúm-tree or _Cucifera Thebaïca_, here called gáriba, after the Háusa name góreba. From the Kél-owí I could not learn the proper Berber name of this tree, but the Western Imóshagh call it akóf. Even the _Capparis sodata_ seems to be called, by the Berber conquerors of this country, only by the Háusa name abísga, while their western brethren call it téshak. Besides the _Cucifera_, or fan-palm, there were here also a few isolated specimens of the date-palm. The village of Selúfiet itself, consisting of sixty or seventy grass huts of peculiar shape, lies on the southern side of a broad valley running here from east to west, and richly overgrown with górebas, abísgas, and talha-trees, but without any grass, for which the ground seems too elevated and stony. Our camping-ground also was of this bare character, and not at all pleasing; it was protected in the rear by large buttresses of rock. We had not yet enjoyed much tranquillity and security, and we here felt its want the more keenly as, our camel-drivers having been hired only as far as this place, we had henceforth to take charge of all our things ourselves. A large mob of lawless people came about us in the course of the night, howling like hungry jackals, and we were obliged to assure them, by frequent firing, that we were on the watch. We had been obliged to leave our camels to the care of the Kél-owí; but the freebooters having succeeded in dispersing the camels in every direction, our friends were unable in the evening to collect either their own animals or ours, and in the night they were all driven away, as we were told, by the Merábetín themselves, who so repeatedly assured us of their protection. In the letters which we sent to Europe during our next day’s halt in this place, by a caravan of Arabs and Kél-owí, the largest part of which was already in advance, we were unable to give a perfectly satisfactory account of our progress; nevertheless we had made a great step in advance, and were justified in hoping that we should be able to overcome whatever difficulties might still await us, and the more so as we were now able to place ourselves in direct communication with the chief of Tin-téllust, from whom we might soon expect to receive an escort. [Illustration]