BY WALTER OUDNEY, M.D.
Saturday, June 8, 1822.—At a little after sunrise departed from Mourzuk. Lieutenant Clapperton, Mr. William Hillman and I were accompanied by Hadje Ali, brother of Ben Bucher, Ben Khullum, Mahommed Neapolitan Mamelouk, and Mahomet, son of our neighbour Hadje Mahmud. It was our intention to have proceeded direct to Ghraat, and laboured hard to accomplish our object. Obstacle after obstacle was thrown in our way, by some individuals in Mourzuk. Several came begging us not to go, as the road was dangerous, and the people not at all under the bashaw’s control. We at length hired camels from a Targee, Hadje Said; but only to accompany us as far as the Wadey Ghrurby.
Our course was over sands skirted with date trees; ground strewed with fragments of calcareous crust, with a vitreous surface, from exposure to the weather. About mid-day, after an exhausting journey from oppressive heat, we arrived at El Hummum, a straggling village, the houses of which are mostly constructed of palm leaves. We remained till the sun was well down, and then proceeded on our course. The country had the same character. At eight we arrived at Tessouwa.
The greater number of inhabitants are Tuaricks. They have a warlike appearance, a physiognomy and costume different from the Fezzaneers. More than a dozen muzzled up faces were seated near our tent, with every one’s spear stuck in the ground before him. This struck us forcibly, from being very different from what we had been accustomed to see. The Arab is always armed, in his journey, with his long gun and pistols; but there is something more imposing in the spear, dagger, and broad straight sword.
About eight, we departed: several wadeys in our course, with numerous small acacias, a few gravelly and sandy plains, and two or three low white alluvial hills. About three, halted at a well of good water.
Our course lay over an extensive high plain, with a long range of hills, running nearly east and west. Distance, about fourteen miles. We entered them by a pass which runs north and south, in which are numerous recesses, evidently leading to more extensive wadeys. Before reaching the hills, we found some people digging a well. It was about a hundred feet deep.
The hills are at about a hundred yards’ distance. Their form is that of a table top, with a peak here and there. The structure sandstone, finely stratified with beds of blue and white pipeclay, and alum slate.
The pass led to another, the finest we have seen, and the only part approaching to the sublime we have beheld in Fezzan. It is rugged and narrow; its sides high, and overhanging in some places. The whole exposed rock is a slaty sandstone, with thin strata of alum slate. The path has several trunks of petrified trees, with branches going out from them; the stem very similar to the acacia. They appear as if precipitated from the top. Near the end of the pass, the Wadey Ghrurby opens, with groves of date palms, and high sand hills. The change is sudden and striking; and instead of taking away, added to the effect of the pass we were descending. The hills from the wadey have rugged, irregular, peaked tops, as if produced by some powerful cause; although it appeared, on examination, that all was produced by the mouldering away of the lower strata.
The hills are composed of thick beds of blue clay, alternating with sandstone, beds of alum slate, and thick strata of porphyritic clay stone, and all the tops of finely stratified sandstone.