A march of from eighteen to nineteen miles brought us from Sebha to the small town of Temáhint, and we encamped a little beyond the well, where a numerous herd of camels, belonging to a camp of Arabs, was being watered. I was greatly pestered during my halt by a number of Welád Slímán, who were anxious for information with regard to their relations in Kánem, and greedy for some presents. Making a short halt in the evening, and starting a little after midnight, we encamped the following day near Zíghen. Here I had to hire fresh camels in order to pursue my journey, and therefore did not set out again till the afternoon of the following day, when, through the barren desert tract by Óm el ʿabíd, and by a very rugged mountainous passage, we reached the important town of Sókna in the morning of the 2nd August. Here the difficulties of my journey, in consequence of the revolutionary state of the province, increased, and, after a long consultation with some friends to whom I had been recommended, the only possible way of proceeding was found to be that of leaving the usual track by way of Bónjem altogether, and taking an entirely different road by a series of valleys lying further west, the road by Ben-Gházi also having been found impracticable. Sókna, even at the present time, is a very interesting place, as well on account of its mercantile activity and of its fine plantations of date and other fruit trees, as owing to the peculiar character of its inhabitants, who still retain a distinct idiom of the Berber language[57]; but at the present moment, on account of the total interruption of the communication with the coast, the price of provisions was very high, and the natives scarcely knew what political course to pursue. There was especially a merchant of the name of Beshála, who showed me an extraordinary degree of kindness and attention.