Two hundred years of seas. Eighty years of Gog and Magog. Eighteen years of Soudan. And two years of white people, including Christians and Mohammedans. There were countries full of Mussulmans which had not been visited by the Mussulmans of Turkey or Africa. They had been visited by one man only, Alexander the Great. Certainly the Moors read history _backwards_. On asking where this information was to be obtained, he said, "From the _Tăfseer_ (Commentaries) of the Koran." The Touaricks who have just arrived are men of very large stature, and as "straight as a dart." Several of them are full six feet high. Such men are alone produced in the Sahara! All the weak and the diseased soon die off, leaving behind only the robust. They walk about the streets with an air of consummate pride, with their huge broad swords swung at the back, and their lances in their hands, like "a tall pine." An Arab, just arrived from Derge, brings intelligence that the Ghadamsee people who were in Tunis are returning home _viâ_ Tripoli. These are mostly poor labourers, who go a few months to Tunis to amass a little capital, with which to trade afterwards. The Ghadamsee is constantly going on these journeys of profit and enterprize, either as merchant or labourer. His Desert home is the pulse of all his distant enterprises, whither he retires to end his days, dedicating the last hours of his existence to God. The Arab came from Derge, mounted on a good horse, in the short time of _thirteen hours_,--by camels it occupies two and two-and-a-half days! The Arab told me he killed, a few days ago, six ostriches near Derge. The oases of _Derge_ consist of four little oases, or districts, viz., Derge (proper), Terghuddah, Madress, and Fiffelt, containing an Arab population of 400 souls, a hardy and brave people. Water is plentiful, but there are no hot springs. A native told me, that invariably any stranger drinking this water, was attacked with fever. Generally these little oases are very unhealthy. Some assert that all who visit the oases are taken ill. Probably, like Mourzuk, they lay low, in a wady or hollowed plain. Date-trees are numerous, and bear good fruit. A fair quantity of wheat and ghusub is grown. Besides sheep, and goats, and fowls, there is a few camels. The people are occupied in the gardens, but too numerous for the oases; they are very poor, and obliged to emigrate. Derge is in the more eastern route of Zantan and Rujban; and when that of Seenawan, the western, is not safe, this, the longer route, is taken. _6th._--Slept badly during the night; restless about my journey. Determined now to take the Fezzan route. Weather very soft, with murky clouds.