Figs and olive-trees adorn its upper part, which is said to stretch out as far as Erhebát, a district one day and a half beyond Zintán; barley is cultivated in its middle course, while wheat, from which the favourite dish ʿajín is made, is grown chiefly in its lower part near Tawárgha. The valley seems worthy of better fortune than that to which it is reduced at present; for when we marched along it, where it ran S. 20 W. to N. 20 E., we passed ruins of buildings and water-channels, while the soil exhibited evident traces of former cultivation. I listened with interest to the Zintáni, who told me that the valley produced an excellent kind of barley, and that the Kuntarár, as well as the people of Zintán, his countrymen, and the Welád Bu-Séf, vied with each other in cultivating it, and, in former times at least, had often engaged in bloody contests for the proprietorship of the ground. When I expressed my surprise at his joining the name of his countrymen with those of the other tribes hereabouts, he gave me the interesting information that the Zintán had been the first and most powerful of all the tribes in this quarter before the time of the Turks, and held all this country in a state of subjection. Since then their political power and influence had been annihilated, but they had obtained by other means right of possession in Mizda as well as in Gharíya, and still further, in the very heart of Fezzán, by lending the people money to buy corn, or else corn in kind, and had in this way obtained the proprietorship of a great number of the date-trees, which were cultivated and taken care of by the inhabitants for a share of the produce. Formerly the people of Zintán were in possession of a large castle, where they stored up their provisions; but since the time of the Turkish dominion, their custom has been to bring home the fruits of their harvests only as they want them. In Wadi Sháti we were to meet a caravan of these enterprising people. While engaged in this kind of conversation we entered a smaller lateral valley of Wadi Sófejín, and reached the foot of a projecting hill on its western side, which is crowned with a castle. Here it was that I was to find marvellous ancient sculptures and drawings; but I soon perceived that it would be as well not to cherish any high expectations. The castle, as it now stands, is evidently an Arab edifice of an early period, built of common stones hewn with some regularity, and set in horizontal layers, but not all of the same thickness. It forms almost a regular square, and contains several vaulted rooms, all arranged with a certain degree of symmetry and regularity. But while we pronounce the main building to be Arab, the gateway appears to be evidently of Roman workmanship, and must have belonged to some older edifice which the Arab chieftain who built this castle probably found in the place,—a conjecture which seems to be confirmed by several ornamental fragments lying about. [Illustration]