Being Obliged To Postpone Their Departure For Ten Days, In Consequence Of The Indisposition Of Hateeta, Dr. Oudney Determined In The Mean Time To Visit Wady Shiati, Whilst Mr. Hillman Was Sent Back To Mourzouk, To Send Down Supplies, And To Take Charge Of The Property.

They arranged about the fare for their camels, and made every preparation for their immediate departure.

Before, however, they could set out, a guide for the sands was necessary; and for that purpose they engaged an old Targee, who professed to know every part of the track. They travelled by moonlight, over a sandy soil, with numerous tufts of grass, and mound hillocks covered with shrubs, the surface in many places hard and crusty, from saline incrustations. The old men told them, that the mounds of earth were formed by water, as the wadey, at the times of great rains, was covered with water.

At daylight they resumed their journey, and a little after sunrise entered among the sand-hills, which were here two or three hundred feet high. The ascent and descent of these proved very fatiguing to both their camels and themselves. The precipitous sides obliged them often to make a circuitous route, and rendered it necessary to form with their hands a track, by which the camels might ascend. Beyond this boundary there was an extensive sandy plain, with here and there tufts of grass.

In the afternoon, their track was on the same plain; and near sunset they began ascending high sand-hills, one appearing as if heaped upon the other.

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