After having passed a small defile, we at length emerged into the north- west branch of the valley of Mizda, called here Wadi Udé-Sheráb, the channel of which is lined with a considerable number of batúm-trees. Crossing the stony bottom of this plain, after a stretch of three miles more we reached the western end of the oasis of Mizda, which, though my fancy had given it a greater extent, filled me with joy at the sight of the fine fields of barley, now approaching maturity—the crop, owing to the regular irrigation, being remarkably uniform—while the grove of date-trees encompassed the whole picture with a striking and interesting frame. So we proceeded, passing between the two entirely-separated quarters, or villages, distinguished as the upper, “el fók,” and the lower, “el utah,” and encamped on the sandy open space a little beyond the lower village, near a well which formerly had irrigated a garden. People going to Tripoli encamp at the other end of the oasis, as was done by a caravan of Ghadamsi people with slaves from Fezzán, on the following day. Mizda, most probably identical with the eastern “Musti kome” of Ptolemy, appears to have been an ancient settlement of the indigenous inhabitants of North Africa, the Berbers, and more particularly of a family or tribe of them called “Kuntarár,” who even at present, though greatly intermixed with Arabs, have not entirely forgotten their Berber idiom. The oasis lies in the upper part of Wadi Sofejín, or rather a branch of it, stretching out from SW. to NE., which has in some parts a great breadth. The natural advantage, or productive principle, of the locality seems to lie in the circumstance that the humidity carried down by the Wadi Sheráb is here arrested by a hill, and absorbed by the clayey soil. This hill is of a lengthened form, and consists entirely of gypsum. From its summit, which affords the best prospect of the whole locality, I made a view of the western village; while from a more elevated height further west, called Madúm, I made the accompanying sketch of the whole locality. [Illustration: Drawn by J. M. Bernatz, from a Sketch by Dr. Barth. M. & N. Hanhart, lith. et impt. MIZDA. April 8th. 1850.]