On the first evening, the place of encampment was a small plain, with no other vegetation than a few prickly _talk_ bushes, encircled by high mountains of basalt, which gave it the appearance of a volcanic crater.

Here, at a well of tolerably good water, called Gatfa, the camels were loaded with water for five days.

The next day, the horse and foot men passed over a very steep mountain called Nufdai, by a most difficult path of large irregular masses of basalt; the camels were four hours in winding round the foot of this mountain, which was crossed in one hour.

From the wady at its foot, called Zgar, the route ascended to a flat covered with broken basalt, called Dahr t'Moumen (the believer's back): it then led through several gloomy wadys, till, having cleared the mountainous part of the Soudah (Jebel Assoud), it issued in the plain called El Maitba Soudah, from its being covered in like manner with small pieces of basalt.

Three quarters of an hour further, they reached El Maitba Barda, a plain covered with a very small white gravel, without the slightest trace of basalt.
"We did not see any where," says Captain Lyon, "the least appearance of vegetation, but we observed many skeletons of animals, which had died of fatigue in the desert, and occasionally the grave of some human being.