In the course of the day I had a rather curious conversation with a man from Táfidet, the native place of Háj ʿAbdúwa. After exchanging compliments with me, he asked me, abruptly, whether I always knew where water was to be found; and when I told him that, though I could not exactly say in every case at what depth water was to be found, yet that, from the configuration of the ground, I should be able to tell the spot where it was most likely to be met with, he asked whether I had seen rock-inscriptions on the road from Ghát; and I answered him that I had, and generally near watering-places. He then told me that I was quite right, but that in Táfidet there were many inscriptions upon the rocks at a distance from water. I told him that perhaps at an earlier period water might have been found there, or that the inscriptions might have been made by shepherds; but this he thought very improbable, and persisted in his opinion, that these inscriptions indicated ancient sepulchres, in which, probably, treasures were concealed. I was rather surprised at the philosophical conclusions at which this barbarian had arrived, and conjectured, as was really the case, that he had accompanied Háj ʿAbdúwa on his pilgrimage and on his passage through Egypt, and had there learned to make some archæological observations. He affected to believe that I was able to read the inscriptions, and tell all about the treasures; but I assured him that, while he was partially right with regard to the inscriptions, he was quite wrong so far as regarded the treasures, as these rock-inscriptions, so far as I was able to decipher them, indicated only names. But I was rather sorry that I did not myself see the inscriptions of which this man spoke, as I had heard many reports about them, which had excited my curiosity, and I had even sent the little Fezzáni Fáki Makhlúk expressly to copy them, who, however, brought me back only an illegible scrawl. [Sidenote: Friday, October 18th.]