[Footnote 7: The town presented quite the same desolate character which I have described in my former journey, with the single exception that a new gate had since been built. Several statues had been brought from Medinet Ziyán.] [Footnote 8: This point is not without importance, as a great deal of dispute has taken place about the frontier. Having on my former journey kept close along the seashore, I have laid it down erroneously in the map accompanying the narrative of that journey.] [Footnote 9: I will here correct the mistake which I made in my former narrative, when I said that Zowára is not mentioned by Arabic authors. It is certainly not adverted to by the more celebrated and older writers; but it is mentioned by travellers of the 14th century, especially by the Sheikh e’ Tijáni.] [Illustration: DR. BARTH’S TRAVELS IN NORTH AND CENTRAL AFRICA Sheet No. 2. MAP OF THE ROUTE through the YÉFREN, GHURIÁN, TARHÓNA & MESELLÁTA MTS. 4 to 26 February 1850. Constructed and drawn by A. Petermann. Engraved by E. Weller, _Duke Strt. Bloomsbury._ _London, Longman & Co._] CHAP. II. TRIPOLI. — THE PLAIN AND THE MOUNTAIN-SLOPE; THE ARAB AND THE BERBER. In the Introduction I have given a rapid sketch of our journey from Tunis, and pointed out the causes of our delay in Tripoli. As soon as it became apparent that the preparations for our final departure for the interior would require at least a month, Mr. Overweg and I resolved to employ the interval in making a preliminary excursion through the mountainous region that encompasses Tripoli in a radius of from sixty to eighty miles. With this view, we hired two camels, with a driver each, and four donkeys, with a couple of men, for ourselves and our two servants, Mohammed Belāl, the son of a liberated Háusa slave, and Ibrahim, a liberated Bagirmi slave, whom we had been fortunate enough to engage here; and through the Consul’s influence we procured a shoush, or officer, to accompany us the whole way. Neither the instruments provided by Her Majesty’s Government, nor the tents and arms, had as yet arrived. But Mr. Overweg had a good sextant, and I a good chronometer, and we were both of us provided with tolerably good compasses, thermometers, and an aneroid barometer. Mr. Frederic Warrington, too, was good enough to lend us a tent. We had determined to start in the afternoon of the 4th of February, 1850, so as to pass the first night in Ghargásh; but meeting with delays, we did not leave the town till after sunset. We preferred encamping, therefore, in the Meshíah, a little beyond the mosque, under the palm-trees, little knowing at the time what an opportunity we had lost of spending a very cheerful evening. [Sidenote: February 5th.]