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Passing a small wadey and plantation of date trees, they had soon a view of Sockna, and were met on the plain on which it stands, by the governor and principal inhabitants, accompanied by some hundreds of the country people, who all crowded round their horses, kissing their hands, and welcoming them with every appearance of sincerity and satisfaction, and in this way they entered the town; the words Inglesi, Inglesi, were repeated by a hundred voices.
From this they had a line view of Wadey Shiati in every direction, running nearly east and west; in the former direction it was well inhabited as far as Oml' Abeed, which is the westernmost town.
Several came begging them not to go, as the road was dangerous, and the people not all under the bashaw's control. They at length hired camels from a Targee, Hadge Said, but only to accompany them as far as the wadey Ghrurby. This course was over sands skirted with date trees, the ground strewed with fragments of calcareous crust, with a vitreous surface from exposure to the weather.
The promised camels not having arrived, they hired two of Mahomet el Buin, and with these they proceeded on to Gorma, which they found to be a larger town than any in the wadey, but both walls and houses have the marks of time. The sheik, Mustapha Ben Ussuf, soon visited them. He was an old man, a Fezzaner.
They heard nothing of their servants, and consoled themselves that they had perhaps found some place of shelter or rest. They commenced their journey early, and in a short time the hills of Wadey Shiati were seen stretching east and west, and the date-palms in several groves; but some high sand-hills were seen between them.
Looking back with great regret at leaving the few green branches in Ikbar, with nothing before them but the dark hills and sandy desert, they ascended slightly from the wadey, and leaving the hills of Ikbar, proceeded towards a prominent head in a low range to the east of their course, called Tummer as Kumma, meaning "You'll soon drink water;" and about two miles in advance, they halted just under a ridge of the same hills, after making twenty-four miles.
God is great, powerful, and wise; those looks of the people are always fatal." On the 1st January 1823, they arrived at the wadey Ikbar. The Arabs here caught a hyena, and brought it to Major Denham; he, nor any other of the party, had any other wish than to have merely a look at it. They then tied it, to a tree, and shot at it, until the poor animal was literally knocked to pieces.
The first division, or wadey Shirgi, extends from near Siba to within a few miles of Thirtiba, the other from the termination of Shirgi to Aubari. In the evening, they saw some of the preparatory steps for a marriage. The woman belonged to Kharaik, and the man to the next town.
More than twenty camels were lost this day, on account of their straying out of the path. After travelling several days over the desert, encountering great distress and many privations, they arrived at an extensive wadey called Agbadem. Here there were several wells of excellent water, forage, and numbers of the tree called Suag, the red berries of which are nearly as good as cranberries.
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.
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