Next day (29th) we again went on over the sand, which extends beyond Ghadamez and Souf, to the west, and even to Egypt on the east. It is met at different points by the khafilahs, and crossed in different numbers of days. We found it very hard work to cross it, and understood why, in these parts, the words raml, sand, and war, difficult, have become convertible terms. Bou Keta had considerable trouble in keeping to the route, being reduced to depend chiefly on the camels' dung, which rolls about the surface of the sand. Here and there was a patch of coarse herbage, scattered like black spots on the bright, white surface. Every object was very much magnified at a little distance; I saw what seemed to me to be a horse on the top of one of the hills, but on drawing near it proved to be our own greyhound bitch smelling the hot air.
Bou Keta gave some account of himself to-day. It seems that "Fezzanee" is not a very respectable epithet in those countries.
"I am not a Fezzanee," said Bou Keta, abruptly.
"Then what are you?"
"My mother was a Tuarick woman, and my father one of the Walad Suleiman."
"Then the Walad Suleiman are gentlemen, whilst the Fezzanees are Turks and dogs?"
To-day I found the veil of my sister-in-law of essential service. Doubled, it shielded my eyes perfectly from the hot wind and sand. It serves also as an excellent protection for the eyes against the flies whilst I am writing. This is the second day of the hot wind. In the evening we heard crickets singing in the scorching sand. At mid-day the thermometer, when buried, rose to 122° Fahr. We encamped in Wady El-Makmak, where we had good water, far superior to that at Guber. As in nearly all sandy places, a hole is scooped in the sand and then covered over, or left to be filled by the action of the wind after the khafilah is supplied. Two pretty palms point, as with two fingers, to the buried wells of El-Makmak.
Some of our people noticed the lizard to-day. This seems to be the omnipresent animal of the Sahara, inhabiting its most desolate regions when no other living creature is seen. It changes in species with the nature of the country. To-day, those seen are large; very soon they will become small, meagre, and will change colour. In the valleys I have observed them nearly the same colour as the sandy soil. Perhaps the beetle is nearly as common as the lizard in the desert, being found in its most arid and naked wastes. It is generally a big, round, black-bottle beetle, which produces a trail in the sand that may be mistaken for that of the serpent.
Still the following day we had to cross the same kind of desert, under the enervating influence of the gheblee, or hot wind; the thermometer in the sand reached 130°. Although the camels were eight hours on foot, little progress was made. I stopped an hour to rest in Wady El-Jumar, where were two or three palm-groves. One of the Fezzanees ferreted out a lot of dates, hidden in the sand, and taking some distributed them amongst us.