Some of the stolen camels having been recovered, though fifteen were still wanting, we were enabled to move from this uncomfortable place the next day, leaving behind us, however, the boat and some other things, which were valueless to any but ourselves. Pleased as we were with our onward movement, we were still more cheered when we observed in the fine valley, which here seems to bear the name Érasa, or rather Érazar[102], some small fields with a fresh green crop of negro millet—a delicious sight to travellers from the desert, and the best assurance that we had entered cultivable regions. The fields or gardens were watered by means of a kind of khattára of very simple construction,—a simple pole with a longer cross pole, to which the bucket is fastened. A little further on, the whole valley was clothed with fine wide-spreading bushes of the abísga or _Capparis_; but it soon narrowed, while we marched straight upon the high pointed peak overtowering Tin-tagh-odé, which forms an interesting object. The valley of Selúfiet seems to have no connection with that of the latter place; at least, the principal branch, along which our route lay, was entirely separated from it by rocky ground. Here a broad gap dividing the mountain-mass allows a peep into the glens formed by the several ridges of which it consists, and which seem to rise to greater elevation as they recede. The slope is rather precipitous; and the general elevation of this mountain-mass seems scarcely less than 3300 feet above the bottom of the valley, or about 5000 feet above the level of the sea. [Illustration] We soon descended again from the rocky ground into a hollow plain richly clothed with vegetation, where, besides the abísga, the tunfáfia or _Asclepias gigantea_, which we had entirely lost sight of since leaving Égeri, appeared in great abundance. Here also was a new plant which we had not seen before—the “állwot,” with large succulent leaves and a pretty violet flower. The camels devoured it most eagerly, and, in the whole district of Aïr, preferred it to any other kind of food. It has a great resemblance to the poisonous damankádda, which in Sudán is often the cause of dangerous disease, and even of death, to the camel. After marching along this valley for two miles, we encamped on an open space encircled with the green spreading bushes of the abísga, a little beyond Tin-tagh-odé, the village of the Merábetín or Aníslimen[103], which is spread in a long line over the low offshoots of the mountain- range, and contains about a hundred light huts, almost all of them being made of grass and the leaves of the dúm-palm, a few only being built of stones.