The country we passed through, however, is destitute of water, and consequently barren, as is all that which borders on the lakes. The only buildings in the neighbourhood are three convents, inhabited by a few religious of the Coptic church; two of which are about a mile and half, the third about six miles from the eastern lake. There are some vestiges of other buildings, which also seem to have been convents that have long since ceased to exist. The antelope and the ostrich are seen rarely here, and they appear to be the only wild animals that frequent that part of the country. No vegetation appears, except reeds on the margin of the lake, which is very irregular in its form; so that it is not very easy to say what may be the quantity of ground covered with water, nor to discern the extremities. It is higher in winter than in summer; and, at this period, I could no where observe that the breadth of it exceeded a mile: its length may be nearly four. The Arabs told me, that the water during the last winter had been remarkably low. There seem to be marks of its having occasionally risen about four feet higher than at present; which must greatly change the appearance of the whole. Towards the end of the summer, it is said, these lakes are almost dry; and the space that the water has retired from is then occupied by a thick deposition of salt. Not far removed from the eastern extremity, a spring rises with some force, which much agitates the rest of the water. Close to that spring the depth was far greater than my height, in other parts it was observable that it did not generally exceed three feet. The thermometer near this spring stood at 76, while in the open air it was 87. The more western lake differs not materially from the eastern in size, form, or productions. The colour of the water in both is an imperfect red, and where the bottom is visible, it appears almost as if covered with blood. Salt, to the thickness of five or six inches, lies constantly in the more shallow parts. The surface of the earth, near the lake, partakes more or less generally of the character of natrôn, and, in the parts farthest removed, offers to the foot the slight resistance of ploughed ground after a slight frost. The soil is coarse sand. The water of the lake, on the slightest evaporation, immediately deposits salt. There is a mountain not far from the lakes, where natrôn is found in insulated bodies, near the surface, of a much lighter colour than that produced in the lake, and containing a greater portion of alkali. This kind more resembles the natrôn of Barbary, and what I have since observed in the road to Soudân.