Nothing puzzles the Touaricks and Negroes so much as my _gloves_. Am obliged to put them on and off frequently a dozen times a day, for their especial gratification. My Leghorn hat, on the contrary, here, as in The Mountains, is an object of admiration, on account of the fineness of the platting. It astonishes them how it could be done. The large straw hats, with huge broad brims, worn in The Desert, are all of the coarsest texture. This morning made inquiries of the Touaricks respecting serpents in The Desert. Could obtain but little information, the notions of the Saharan tribes in general being very confused about serpents. All serpents go under the name of _lefâah_ (‮لفعة‬). But other names are in use here, as ‮حنش‬, ‮حية‬ &c., which apparently are the generic names. The _boah_ mentioned by Dr. Russell I have not heard of. One of the Touaricks, however, described to me a serpent as being nearly as thick round as a man's body, but not more than three feet in its greatest length. This serpent has also large horns. It is not at all dangerous. There is a much longer serpent or snake, but not more than four inches round in thickness, which is dangerous. If we are to believe Mr. Jackson, the southern part of Morocco abounds with monstrous serpents, but in all my route through The Sahara, I met with none, nor heard of any. It is a very old trick of the poets and retailers of the marvellous to people The Desert with dragons, and serpents, and monsters of every kind. We know that on the banks of the _Majerdah_ an enormous serpent stopped the progress of the army of Regulus. Batouta, also, who flourished in the fourteenth century, pretends that "The Desert is full of serpents." Even Caillié, who saw neither lions nor elephants, or very few animals of any sort, says, when at the wells of _Amoul-Gragim_, "My rest was disturbed by the appearance of a serpent, five feet and a-half long and as thick as the thigh of a boy twelve years old. My travelling companions also experienced similar visits." If this report be correct, it evidently refers to the harmless _lefâah_ mentioned by the Touarick. At the ruins of Lebida, on the coast of Tripoli, an unusual number of large snakes were seen this year (1845), mounting upon and twining round the broken shafts of pillars still standing, as if at the command of some invisible _jinn_; but they were all perfectly harmless. The jugglers were catching them, to exhibit their forky tongues and snaky folds, as venomous and deadly, to the marvel-loving crowd. The lion of The Desert is a myth. The king of beasts never leaves his rich domain, the thick forest and pouring cascade, where water and animals of prey abound, for the naked, arid, sandy, and rocky wastes of The Sahara. The ancients and moderns, however, have persisted in representing Africa, not only as a country full of monsters, but "_always producing some new monster_,--" Semper aliquid novi Africam afferre[38],