ing down, saw the animal trampling on two perfect human skeletons. A movement of one of the feet had separated the scull from the trunk, and driven it forward like a ball. In some of these remains portions of the flesh and hair were left, and even the features were still distinguishable. Two female skeletons lay closely twined together, having evidently been faithful friends, who had died in each other's arms. The Arabs gave little proof of their boasted sensibility in the utter indifference with which they viewed these dismal objects, driving about the limbs with their firelocks, passing coarse jests upon the dead, and deriding the sympathy manifested by their English companions. They told them these were only blacks, "damn their fathers,' "the barbarous prejudices arising from difference of religion and lineage having thus extinguished in their breasts every touch of human sympathy. Major Denham appears in one place to countenance the popular belief that these bodies were the remains of caravans buried beneath tempests of moving sand; but none of his facts support this conclusion, or contradict the opinion of Browne, that such victims have in most instances perished from other causes. They were lying open and exposed, without even a covering of dust; and the catastrophe of the largest group was too well known, having been a body of slaves, the chief booty obtained by the sultan of Fezzan during his last expedition into Soudan. The troop had left Bornou without an adequate supply of provisions, which failed entirely before they approached Mourzouk. That want, or perhaps fatigue, was the real cause of this destruction was manifest from the fact that the sufferers were all negroes, while their Arab masters had taken care to reserve for themselves the means of reaching home.

In this route the travellers had on one side the Tibboos, on the other the Tuaricks, two native tribes, probably of great antiquity, and having no alliance with the Arab race, now so widely spread over the continent. The Tibboos were on the left, and it was through their villages that the caravan passed. These people live partly on the milk of their camels, which pick up a scanty subsistence on the few verdant spots that rise amid the Desert, partly by carry. ing on a small trade between Mourzouk and Bornou, in which they are so busily employed that many do not spend M

at home more than four months in the year. They are black, though without the negro features; the men ugly, but the young females possessed of some beauty, not wholly obscured by the embellishments of coral stuck in the nose, and of oil streaming over the face. They are besides a gay, good-humoured, thoughtless race, with all the African passion for the song and the dance; which last they practise gracefully, and with movements somewhat analogous to the Grecian. This cheerfulness appears wonderful considering the dreadful calamity with which they are threatened every day. Once a year, or oftener, an inroad is made by their fierce neighbours, the Tuaricks, who spare neither age nor sex, and sweep away all that comes within their reach. The cowardly Tibboos dare not even look them in the face; they can only mount to the top of certain steep rocks with flat summits and perpendicular sides, near one of which every village is built. They carry up with them every thing that can be removed, and this rude defence avails against still ruder assailants. The savage Tuaricks, again, were observed by Clapperton and Oudney in a journey to the westward from Mourzouk, and were found in their private character to be frank, honest, and hospitable. The females are neither immured nor oppressed, as is usual among rude and Mohammedan tribes, but meet with notice and respect; indeed, the domestic habits of this nation have much resemblance to the European. They are a completely wandering race of shepherds and robbers, holding in contempt all who live in houses and cultivate the ground; yet they are, perhaps, the only native Africans who have letters and an alphabet, which they inscribe, not on books and parchments indeed, but on the dark rocks that checker the surface of their territory; and in places where they have long resided every stone is seen covered with their writings.*

Bilma, the capital of the Tibboos, was found a mean town with walls of earth, but surrounded by numerous lakes containing the purest salt, the most valuable of all articles for the commerce of Soudan. The inhabitants, however, though deeply mortified, durst not prevent the powerful Tuaricks from lading their caravans with it, and under

*The group in the accompanying plate consists of a Tuarick on his camel, with a male and female Tibboo standing beside him.

Tuarick on his Camel, with Male and Female Tibboo.-[p. 134.]

selling them in all the markets. About a mile beyond Bilma was a fine spring, spreading around, and forming a little circle of the richest verdure. This was the last vegetable life that the discoverers were to see during a long march of thirteen days. In these wilds, where the constant drift causes hills to rise or disappear in the course of a night, all traces of a road are soon obliterated, and the eye of the traveller is guided only by dark rocks which at certain intervals raise their heads amid the sterile waste. Sometimes the sand is formed into hills with perpendicular sides, from twenty to sixty feet high. These the camels are made to slide down; in which operation they can only be kept steady by the driver hanging with all his weight on the tail, otherwise they would tumble forward, and throw the load over their heads. "Tremendously dreary are these marches; as far as the eye can reach, billows of sand bound the prospect." Whenever the wind was high, volumes of this substance darkened the air, through which it was sometimes impossible to attempt a passage.

After a fortnight spent in the Desert, the expedition saw symptoms of a return to the region of life. There appeared scattered spots of thin herbage; little valleys watered by springs were filled with the shrub called suag, on which grew delicate berries; small herds of gazelles fed in these retreats; even the droves of hyenas indicated the revival of animal nature. As the travellers advanced, the country improved; at every mile the valleys became more gay and verdant; and the creeping vines of the colocynth in full bloom, with the red flowers of the kossom, converted many of these spots into a little Arcadia. The freshness of the air, with the melody of the hundred songsters that were perched among the creeping plants, whose flowers diffused an aromatic odour, formed the most delightful contrast to the desolate region through which they had passed. Here again were found Tibboos, of the tribe called Gunda, a more alert and active people than the former; the men still uglier, the girls still handsomer and more delicately formed. This sept have about 5000 camels, on whose milk alone they support themselves for half the year, and their horses for the whole year; the little crop of gussub and millet being too precious for these animals, which drink camels' milk, sweet or sour, and by this strange diet are