But, notwithstanding all the importance attached to the dreary character of this region, I found it far less naked and bare than I had imagined it to be. To the right of our path lay a small green hollow, of cheerful appearance, a branch of which is said, probably with some degree of exaggeration, to extend as far as Ghadámes; but the whole extent of the Hammáda is occasionally enlivened with small green patches of herbage, to the great relief of the camel. And this, too, is the reason why the traveller does not advance at a rate nearly so expeditious as he would expect. In the latter part of our preceding journey we generally had made almost as much as two and a half miles an hour; but we scarcely got over two on this level open ground. Of course, the wider the space the wider the dispersion of the straggling camels; and much time is lost by unsteady direction. At the verdant hollow called Garra mtʿa eʾ Nejm the eastern path, which is called Trík el mugítha (_via auxiliaris_), and passes by the village of Gharíya, joined our path. At Wady Mʿamúra I first observed the little green bird generally called asfír, but sometimes mesísa, which lives entirely upon the caravans as they pass along, by picking off the vermin from the feet of the camels. In the afternoon we observed, to our great delight, in the green patch called el Wueshkeh, a cluster of stunted palm-trees. Hereabouts the camel-drivers killed a considerable number of the venomous lizard called bu-keshásh; and the Tarki in particular was resolute in not allowing any which he saw to escape alive. After a moderate march of little more than ten hours and a half, we encamped in a small hollow called, from a peculiar kind of green bush growing in it, el Jederíya. A strong cold wind, accompanied by rain, began to blow soon after we encamped. The tent, not being sufficiently secured, was blown down in the night; and we had some trouble in pitching it again. Continuing our march, we passed, about ten o’clock in the morning, a poor solitary talha-tree bearing the appellation of el Duhéda. Further on we found truffles, which in the evening afforded us a delicious truffle-soup. Truffles are very common in many parts of the desert; and the greatest of Mohammedan travellers (Ebn Batúta) did not forget them in relating his journey from Sejelmása to Waláta, in the middle of the fourteenth century. The sky was very dark and hazy; and the moon had an extraordinary “dára,” or halo. We slept this night without a tent, and felt the cold very sensibly.