On the 29th March, at 4 P.M., I broke ground with all my camels and ponies, and commenced the march on Berbera. At sundown, after travelling three miles along the sea-shore, we encamped in a water-course called Goldéra. The water we found here, in a little well in its bed, was deliciously sweet--so pleasant after the brackish Kurrum wells. No one who had not been deprived for a long time of the pure element, can conceive the greed with which a man first plunges his head into clear sweet water. It is the natural fluid for man, and for no other beverage does abstinence produce so keen an appetite. The following morning, a little after daybreak, the caravan was ready, and we soon got under way. Travelling with tedious slowness, aggravated by the dreary monotony of the road and the sandy plain, constantly crossing dry, shallow watercourses, lined on both sides by fringes of stunted acacias or other salsolacious plants, we at last arrived at a hot spring of sweet water, called Golamiro, and rested here for several hours during the great heat of the mid-day sun. When the day became cooler we resumed the march, and travelled until after dark to a grazing-ground one mile short of Ain Tarad, and there spent the night. The farther we travelled westwards, the broader became the maritime plain, and the richer its clothing of shrubs and grass. Besides the ordinary acacias, which were finer and more numerous, there were many patches of the bastard cypress and tall rank grasses growing on sandy hillocks, in the same way as they do in India. The Somali exultingly pointed this out as a paradise, replete with every necessary for life's enjoyment, and begged to know if the English had any country pastures like it, where camels and sheep can roam about the whole year round without exhausting it. 31st.--To-day we made a short march, passing through Ain Tarad, and encamping on a grazing-ground one mile to its westward. The village, as usual, was close to the shore, for the convenience of shipping. It is not half the size of Kurrum, but boasts of a fort of recent construction, with six rusty pieces of cannon lying on the sand in front of it. An Akil, named Abdie, being chief of the place, is the lordly proprietor of these instruments of defence.