We observed a variety of traps and cages, some of them very ingenious, which the Daveina, or other Arabs, had set to catch these birds, several of which we found dead in these snares, and some of them had not yet been touched by beasts; and as there was but a small distance between the traps and the water's edge, which could only be answerable to a few days evaporation, we with great reason inferred, that the Daveina, or some other Arabs, had been there a very short time before. We found in the mud of the pool large green shell-snails, with the animals alive in them; some of them weighed very near a pound, in nothing, but size and thickness of the shell, different from common garden-snails. Not a little alarmed at this discovery that the Arabs were near us, we left Imhanzara at four o'clock in the evening of the 21st, our journey mostly N. W.; at eight we lost our way, and were obliged to halt in a wood. Here we were terrified to find, that the water in our girbas was entirely gone; whether by evaporation of the hot wind, or otherwise, I know not; but the skin had the appearance of water in it, till its lightness in unloading discovered the contrary. Though all the people were sick, the terror of being without water gave us something like alacrity, and desire to push on. We set out at eleven, but still wandered in the wood till three o'clock in the morning of the 22d, when we were obliged again to alight. I really then began to think we were lost. I ordered the girbas to be examined: a large one which we had filled at Rashid was entirely empty; and that one which we had partly filled at Imhanzara on account of the badness of the water, had not much more in it than what kept liquid the mud which had been taken up with it. This, however, (bad as it was) was greedily guzzled up in a moment. The people who conducted the asses, seeing that we had skins to contain plenty of water for us, had omitted to fill the small goat-skin which each of them carried. A general murmur of fear and discontent prevailed through our whole company; for we could have no guess at the nearness or situation of the next well, as we had lost our road; and some of the caravan even pretended that we had passed it. But though we had travelled thirteen hours, I cannot compute the distance to have been above fourteen miles.