valley, we had other Roman ruins on our right, a castle as it seemed, and near it something like a sepulchre; but the sand-storm hardly allowed us to look, still less to go in that direction. At three o’clock in the afternoon we turned off to the west into Wadi Tagíje, and encamped near the bed of a torrent eight feet deep, which amply testifies that, at times, a considerable stream is formed here, a fact confirmed by the fresh and luxuriant herbage springing up in many parts of the valley among thick bushes and brushwood. Nor was it quite desolate even now; for the flocks of the Welád Bu-Séf were seen, and their tents were said to be not far off. The upper part of the valley is called el Khúrub. This hot day proved a _dies ater_ to my Arab, who had gone to visit his family. Having brought his old father with him, together with a goat, as a present, and a skin of milk, he unluckily arrived too late in the morning at our last night’s encampment. He then sent his father back with the goat, and began to follow us in the hope of soon overtaking the caravan; but he was obliged to march the whole intensely-hot day without water, and he could not drink the milk in the skin, which became quite hot, so that he suffered greatly, and arrived in a very exhausted state. The fine herbage procured us a whole day’s rest, as the camel-drivers were in no haste to bring up their camels. Not knowing this, but yet convinced that we should not start at an early hour, as the well was at some distance, and following the information received from the Zintáni, who was himself too lame to accompany me, I had taken my gun and pistols at an early hour in the morning, and gone in the direction of the valley to look after a monument. After nearly two hours’ march I distinguished something like a high pillar, and, proceeding straight towards it, found it to be one of the richest specimens of this kind of monument bequeathed to us by antiquity, and an indisputable proof that these regions, now so poor, must have then supported a population sufficiently advanced in taste and feeling to admire works of a refined character.