Cool And Refreshing Breezes Played Around The Encampment, And The Moon And Stars Shone With Great Brilliancy.

A soft couch was found by removing the - sand to the depth of a few inches.

Soon after the desert presented horrors of a peculiar kind. The ground was strewed with skeletons, sometimes fifty or sixty together. Fragments of flesh and hair were still upon some of them. They were slaves whom their conquerors had abandoned on finding their provisions run short. Two female skeletons were found twined together, - they had expired in each other's arms. One day Major Denham was roused from a reverie, by the sound caused by a skeleton crackling under his horses hoofs. The Arabs aimed blows at the limbs with their muskets, jesting at these melancholy remains of mortality.

Their road lay between the two tribes of Tibboos and Tuaricks, and they passed through the villages and settlements of the former. The Tibboos carry on a traffic between Mourzouk and Bournou, and subsist chiefly on camel's milk. They are of a gay disposition, and delight in dancing and singing. Though black, they have not the negro features; and Denham says that the females have some pretensions to beauty. They live in constant dread of the Tuaricks, who often make hostile ravages upon them. The unresisting and peaceful Tibboos, on their approach fly with their goods to the summit of the rocks. The Tuaricks, again, in spite of their constant feuds with the Tibboos, are hospitable and kind to strangers. Though a wandering horde, and professing to look with contempt on all who cultivate the soil, they are yet the only African tribe who possess an alphabet; and they inscribe their records upon the faces of dark rocks and stones.

About a mile from the little town of Bilma, the capital of the Tibboos, they came to a spring of water surrounded by green turf, the last spot of verdure they saw for thirteen days. They passed over loose hillocks of sand, into which the camels sank knee-deep. Some of these hills were from twenty to sixty feet in height, with almost perpendicular sides. The drivers use great care as the animals slide down these banks; they hang with all their weight upon the tails, to steady their descent; otherwise they would fall forward, and cast their burdens over their heads. Dark sand-stone ridges form the only landmarks among these billows of sand.

After a fortnight's travelling, vegetation once more appeared, in the form of scattered clumps of herbage and stunted shrubs, the leaves of which were most acceptable to the camels. Herds of gazelles crossed the path, hyenas abounded, and the footsteps of the ostrich were perceived. As they went on, the face of the country improved, the valleys became greener, and the colocynth and the kosom, with its red flowers, were in full bloom, "The freshness of the air, with the melody of the songsters that were perched among the creeping plants, whose flowers diffused an aromatic odour, formed a delightful contrast to the desolate region through which they had passed." In the neighbourhood was a tribe - of the Gunda Tiboos, who supported themselves and their horses chiefly on camels' milk.

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