A little beyond the junction of the branch ravine the valley widens to about one hundred and fifty feet, and becomes overgrown with herbage, and ornamented with a few talha-trees, and after being joined by another ravine exhibits also colocynths, and low but wide-spreading ethel- bushes, and, what was more interesting to us, the ʿashur (or, as the Háusa people call it, “tunfáfia,” the Kanori “krunka,” the Tawárek “tursha”), the celebrated, wide-spread, and most important _Asclepias gigantea_, which had here truly gigantic proportions, reaching to the height of twenty feet; and being just then in flower, with its white and violet colours it contributed much to the interest of the scene. Besides, there was the jadaríyeh, well known to us from the Hammáda, and the shiʿa or _Artemisia odoratissima_, and a blue crucifera identical, I think, with the damankádda, of which I shall have to speak repeatedly. Having gone on a little more than three miles from the watering-place, we encamped; and the whole expedition found ample room under the wide- spreading branches of a single ethel-tree, the largest we had yet seen. Here the valley was about half a mile broad, and altogether had a very pleasant character. I was greatly mortified on reflecting that the uncertainty of our relations in the country, and the precarious protection we enjoyed, would not allow me to visit Jánet, the most favoured spot in this mountainous region; but a great danger was suddenly announced to us, which threatened even to drive us from that attractive spot. An expedition had been prepared against us by the mighty chieftain Sídi[86] Jáfel ínek (son of) Sakertáf, to whom a great number of the Imghád settled thereabouts are subject as bondmen or serfs.