Having taken here a sufficient supply of very good water from hollows scooped in the sand, we continued our march over rocky ground thickly covered with herbage, and surmounted on our right by the angular outlines and isolated sugar-loaves of a craggy ridge, while on our left rose the broad, majestic form of Mount Eghellál. As evening came on I was greatly cheered at the sight of a herd of well-fed cattle returning from their pasture-grounds to their night quarters near the village of Eghellál, which lies at the foot of the mountain so named. They were fine, sturdy bullocks, of moderate size, all with the hump, and of glossy dark-brown colour. In the distance, as the Eghellál began to retire, there appeared behind it, in faint outlines, Mount Bághzen, which of late years has become so famous in Europe, and had filled my imagination with lofty crests and other features of romantic scenery. But how disappointed was I when, instead of all this, I saw it stretching along in one almost unbroken line! I soon turned my eyes from it to Mount Eghellál, which now disclosed to us a deep chasm or crevice (the channel of powerful floods), separating a broad cone, and apparently dividing the whole mountain mass into two distinct groups. [Illustration] At six o’clock in the evening we encamped in the shallow valley of Eghellál, at some distance from the well, and were greatly delighted at being soon joined by Háj ʿAbdúwa, the son of Fátima (Ánnur’s eldest sister), and the chief’s presumptive heir, a man of about fifty years of age, and of intelligent and agreeable character. I treated him with a cup or two of coffee well sweetened, and conversed with him awhile about the difference between Egypt, which he had visited on his pilgrimage, and his own country. He was well aware of the immense superiority even of that state of society; but on the other hand he had not failed to observe the misery connected with great density of population, and he told me, with a certain degree of pride, that there were few people in Aïr so miserable as a large class of the inhabitants of Cairo. Being attacked by severe fever, he returned the next morning to his village, Táfidet, but afterwards accompanied the chief Astáfidet on his expedition to Ágades, where I saw him again. I met him also in the course of my travels twice in Kúkawa, whither he alone of all his tribe used to go in order to maintain friendly relations with that court, which was too often disturbed by the predatory habits of roving Kél-owí. [Illustration]