is very well flavoured, tasting like good gingerbread, but the rind is very hard, and the little that is eatable is so difficult to get at, that it is really not worth the trouble. This tree has rarely, if ever, branches springing up from the root, like the palm tree. The small round and full yellow flower of the acacias emits a most delightful odour. The size of these trees is here very great, compared to those we see in Europe. The first two hours this morning I noticed porphyry rocks appearing above the sand, and fragments of the same disseminated; afterwards hornblende rock. Near here the rocks are of quartz. _Abou-Hashim.—Feb._ 25. We left Gagi this morning at seven, and encamped here at half past three P.M.—eight hours and a half. At half past ten we passed the village of Atmoon, situated on the opposite side of the river. It is inhabited entirely by Berbers. There are eleven sakkeas there. I am told that there are generally seven persons, including children, employed at each. At this village, and in the Island of Mero opposite, are twenty-three sakkeas, which pay ten dollars 150 piastres, and four ardebs of dourah each, equal to 210 piastres. Cailliaud has marked two islands, one Meri, the other Mero; but there is, in fact, only one, called Mero. The Island of Kourgos, we slept opposite to last night, extended until ten A.M. At half past ten we passed an isolated mountain, three miles on our left. During the greater part of the day we have passed over sandy flat plains; rocks of coarse granite, hornblende, and gneiss occasionally appearing above the surface, and fragments of the same and of quartz being also disseminated. I also remarked rocks and fragments of sandstone much charged with iron. At twelve we visited, close to the river, the ruins of a Saracenic castle of crude, that is, unbaked, bricks. The Arabs, by their description, had led us to expect antiquities. Our track this day has generally been a mile and a half distant from the river. (For the bearings, see the Map.) Shortly before arriving here, we observed fields of dourah; otherwise the banks of this side of the river are generally uncultivated, but covered with doum and large acacia trees. The productive land seems to be in the islands. The inhabitants of this village are mixed, there being some families of Ababdes, but the greater number Berbers. We always go to the house of the sheakh, who meets us with the usual Arab civilities, and gives us his hand, welcoming us as Mahometans, _Salam Aleycam_, and supplying us with sheep and milk. Some of these sheakhs have an air and bearing truly dignified and patriarchal. Their flocks of goats and sheep form their chief ostensible wealth: the sheep are small, and the wool worth very little, being so coarse as almost to resemble hair. Their colour is beautifully variegated, generally white and black, but in some cases white and brown. The mutton, though too young, is good, and the goats’ milk the best I ever tasted.