the people pretend to distinguish the foot-print of the bandit on the sand from that of an honest man. But one night of strong wind usually covers up the track, and though the sand does not move in billows, it flies about, first from one side and then the other, and fills up the foot-prints of men and animals. There is no doubt but it requires the most practised eye of the camel-driver to find his way through these regions, and yet, for my life, I could not see that the people experienced any difficulty. They seemed as much at home in this intricate waste of creation as in their own dark zigzag streets of Ghadames. As the sun goes down and night comes on, the sand-hills, from shining white, look as dark and drear as earth-hills. But how smooth is all! If they were hills of blown glass they could not be more smooth. In the sketch of Mislah will be seen a date-tree with part of its branches depending, forming with the up-rising a curious shape. The under foliage is dead and dried up, a fit object in the desolate scene. Not a single living creature about the wells. No bird is here. At Maseen and Nather we had seen two or three small birds, hopping about the wells, picking up the crumbs and scattered grain of the passing caravan. Except the little vegetable life, all else here is "a universe of death!" FOOTNOTES: [62] A _cantar_ is about an English hundred-weight. [63] Oudney says:--"The presence of nothing but deep sand-valleys and high sand-hills strikes the mind forcibly. There is something of the sublime mixed with the melancholy. Who cannot contemplate without admiration masses of loose sand fully four hundred feet high, ready to be tossed about by every breeze, and not shudder with horror at the idea of the unfortunate traveller being entombed in a moment by one of these fatal blasts, _which sometimes occur_?" I agree with the Doctor about the sublime and melancholy mixed in contemplating these regions of sand. But they are by no means dangerous. No people that I heard of had been entombed under these fatal blasts. I am almost sorry now that I did not pass through the region of Mislah in a Saharan hurricane, and then I should have known all. CHAPTER XV. FROM GHADAMES TO GHAT.