Travels Of Richard And John Lander Into The Interior Of Africa For The Discovery Of The Course And Termination Of The Niger By Robert Huish
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The Whole Way Is An Almost Uninterrupted Succession Of Stony
Plains And Gloomy Wadys, With No Water But That Of Wells, Generally
Muddy, Brackish, Or Bitter, And At Fearful Intervals.
On the first
evening, the place of encampment was a small plain, with no other
vegetation than a few prickly talk bushes, encircled by high
mountains of basalt, which gave it the appearance of a volcanic
crater.
Here, at a well of tolerably good water, called Gatfa, the
camels were loaded with water for five days. The next day, the horse
and foot men passed over a very steep mountain called Nufdai, by a
most difficult path of large irregular masses of basalt; the camels
were four hours in winding round the foot of this mountain, which was
crossed in one hour. From the wady at its foot, called Zgar, the
route ascended to a flat covered with broken basalt, called Dahr
t'Moumen (the believer's back): it then led through several gloomy
wadys, till, having cleared the mountainous part of the Soudah (Jebel
Assoud), it issued in the plain called El Maitba Soudah, from its
being covered in like manner with small pieces of basalt. Three
quarters of an hour further, they reached El Maitba Barda, a plain
covered with a very small white gravel, without the slightest trace
of basalt.
"We did not see any where," says Captain Lyon, "the least appearance
of vegetation, but we observed many skeletons of animals, which had
died of fatigue in the desert, and occasionally the grave of some
human being.
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