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Felt very sick this evening with drinking the water of Mislah. It is purging all the people like genuine Epsom. 7th. Started a little before sun-rise, when a clear mist was spread like a mantle of gauze over old Sahara, and lost the sight of the sand-hills in the course of the morning.
Each party of the ghafalah dug a well for itself. Ghafalahs are divided into so many parties, varying in size from five men and twenty camels, to ten men and forty camels. Three or four wells were dug out in this way. Some of the places had been scooped out before. Water may be found through all the valley of Mislah. A few dwarfish palms are in the valley, but which don't bear fruit.
As the sun goes down and night comes on, the sand-hills, from shining white, look as dark and drear as earth-hills. But how smooth is all! If they were hills of blown glass they could not be more smooth. In the sketch of Mislah will be seen a date-tree with part of its branches depending, forming with the up-rising a curious shape.
No scientific instruments with me. False alarm of Banditti, and meet a Caravan of Slaves. Sight of the first tree after seven days' Desert. Wells of Mislah in a region of Sand. Vulgar error of Sand-storms overwhelming Caravans with billows of Sand.
For we can hardly suppose that one sand-storm would cover the pits of Mislah with a mountain pile of sand, and the next sand-storm uncover them and lay them bare to the amazed Saharan traveller. On the contrary, the pits of Mislah and the stunted palms have every appearance of having remained as they now are for centuries.
Much fatigued with the walking over the sands, and sick with drinking the brackish water of Mislah. Nothing en route to-day except four crows, and a skeleton of a camel. People pretend it does not drink water. It may live on the flesh of the few camels which drop down and die from exhaustion, and on lizards.
But I must do our people justice, for seeing I could not drink the Mislah water, they gave me often their sweet water and themselves drank the brackish. I must add, I see no striking moral difference between the people of this Desert caravan, and the people who fill an English mail-coach or a French diligence. Mankind are morally much the same everywhere.
The Mislah water is full of saline particles, and is purging every body. The valley of Mislah, over which we are encamped, is not more than twenty minutes' walking in length, and half this in breadth. In many parts the sand is encrusted with a beautiful white salt. One of the Arabs of Souf said to me, "See, Yâkob, this is our country, all Souf is like this."
But they are by no means dangerous. No people that I heard of had been entombed under these fatal blasts. I am almost sorry now that I did not pass through the region of Mislah in a Saharan hurricane, and then I should have known all. End of the Sandy Region. No Birds of Prey in The Sahara. Progress of the French in the Algerian Oases. Slave Trade of The Desert supported by European Merchants.
The hills are huge groups, some single ones, glaring in sun above the rest, and others pyramidical. The sand at times is also very firm to the camel's tread. Shall I say a terra firma in loose shifting sands? But for the water of Mislah it is extremely brackish, nay salt. I had observed between the sand-hills small valleys, or bottoms, covered with, a whitish substance which I now find salt.
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