Page:Journal of the Royal Geographical Society of London, Volume 1 (2nd edition).djvu/151

Rh Some little trade in salt, which is procured from the neighbouring hiils. The weather at this season was deliciously fine; the early rains had fallen, an the air was mild—more like spring than the approach of winter; the nights heavenly, but especially this night was calm, still, and serene; every star in the heavens distinctly visible; Venus, as a globe of liquid fire, gradually declining in the west; nought to break the stillness but the occasional bark of the watch-dog, or the drowsy note of the Arab drum from the distant tents, whose inhabitants passed away the tedious hours of night by reciting their wild tale of war and love.

Course S. W. 9 miles, W. by S. 12; over ground a succession of valleys, and low ranges of hills; one a mamillary range of two hundred feet, soil deep clay, and hi!ls of gravel; boulders of ferruginous clay-stone; dried up thistles, and plants like fennel, called el clagh (gum ammoniac); several beds of mountain streams, east and west direction. At entrance of great plan of Mamōra, two tumuli; herds of cattle. As we enter the grazing country, Arab villages change into douars, or circular encampments of from twenty to thirty tents, seventeen of which we passed, and five coubbas. Approaching the Atlantic, sea visible from the height.

Course S. W. 11 miles; reached the northern extremity of the large lake, twenty miles long by one and a half broad, of fresh water, called Murja Ras ed Dora (or lake with the winding head), covered with wild-fowl; its western bank only a mile and a half from the Atlantic, separated by a range of sand-hills about two hundred and fifty feet high, covered with coarse herbage, and which rise about three-quarters of a mile from the western shore of the lake along which our road leads; soil light and sandy; forest of el clagh (gum ammoniac); some plants ten feet high, stem five inches thick; such are the annuals in this prolific country. Five coubbas, ten douars on eastern bank of lake, a few trees, and herds of cattle.