felt for the virgin’s situation ; but it was thought a great honour, and that, I suppose, consoled her for the fright. They commenced by skirmishing by twos and fours, and charging in sections at full speed, always firing close under the bride’s jaafa : in this manner they proceeded three times round the town, the scene occasionally relieved by a little interlude of the bridegroom’s approaching the camel, which was surrounded by the negresses, who instantly commenced a cry, and drove him away, to the great amusement of the bystanders, exclaiming, “ Burra ! Burra ! be off ! be off ! maml shouia ! a little yet !” With discharges of musketry, and the train of horsemen, &c. she is then conveyed to the bridegroom’s house ; upon which it is necessary for her to appear greatly surprised, and refuse to dismount : the women scream, and the men shout, and she is at length persuaded to enter ; when, after receiving a bit of sugar in her mouth from the bridegroom’s hand, and placing another bit in his, with her own fair fingers, the ceremony is finished, and they are declared man and wife. We had now to pass the Gibel Assoud, or Black Mountains : the northernmost part of this basaltic chain commences on leaving Sockna. We halted at Melaghi, or the place of meeting immediately at the foot of the mountain, the well of Agutifa ; and from hence probably the most imposing view of these heights will be seen. To the south, the mountain-path of Niffdah presents its black overhanging peaks, and the deep chasm, round which the path winds, bearing a most cavern-like appearance : a little to- the west, the camel path, called El Nishka, appears scarcely less difficult and precipitous ; the more southern crags close in the landscape, while the foreground is occupied by the dingy and barren wadey of Agutifa, with the well immediately overhung by red ridges of limestone and clay : the whole presenting a picture of barrenness, not to be perfectly described, either by poet or painter. Large masses of tabular basalt, and irregular precipices, common to this formation, are scattered over this range of hills, and extend over all the plains which environ them. The most lofty hills are those which present the most massive façades of tabular basalt ; the sides sometimes exhibit a step-like appearance, and in many instances are overhung by pillars, curved, inclined, and perpendicular : these produce a singular effect, not devoid of grandeur. The lower stratum of all these hills is invariably limestone, mixed with a reddish clay. Hills of the same are found bordering upon, and in some cases joining, the basaltic ones ; some of these are strewed over with a covering of basalt stones of various sizes and forms, none of them large, from three to eighteen inches in circumference, but still shoeing the colour and structure of the soil on which they are spread. Other hills of limestone are also indiscriminately found without the slightest particle of basalt on them, although in the immediate vicinity of what could easily be imagined the ancient crater of a volcano, which had showered a sombre covering heaved from the very bowels of the earth, on all the then existing hills and plains which surrounded it. Some of these limestone hills have been cut through, either by the falling of masses of rock from the higher hills, or by violent watercourses ; and a section of them reveals nothing but pure limestone mixed with clay. The Souda, or Gibel Assoud *, extend from north to south, three days* journey, but in so winding a direction, as not to exceed thirty-five miles at the utmost in a straight line : to the west, as far as the well called Assela, on the road to the Shiati, where the red clay hills continue alone, and join the hills at Benioleed: to the east, they extend three days on the road to Zella, or Bengagi, to a wadey called Temelleen. The first four days of our journey, after leaving Agutifa, were all dreariness and misery. This was the third time that I passed these deserts : but no familiarity with the scenery at all relieves the sense of wretchedness which the dread barrenness of the place inspires. We marched from dawn until dark, * Gibel Assoud and the hills on this side have the same name. The valley is bounded on both sides by hills, from 400 to 600 feet high—tops in general tabular; but a few are irregular, and two or three end in conical peaks; the sides of all are covered with much debris. The colour of the hills gives a very peculiar character to the valley; the tops of a shining black, as if covered over with black lead, that often extends some way down the sides, which are of a light brown, mixed with a dirty yellow: this is often observable in patches in the black, which gives to the whole a very striking appearance. The lower strata are limestone, of a yellowish colour, almost entirely formed of marine remains: this, although hard, is easily acted on by the air, and the exposed surface mouldering away leaves cavities in the rock, which, undermining the superincumbent ones, gives rise to the quantity of detached fragments. There are several thin strata of earthy gypsum: above that, limestone, with a tine fibrous-looking external surface, something like wood: this has the jingling sound of burnt lime; above is the shining basalt, of a fine texture, mixed with amygdaloid. About six miles from where we halted, are a range of low white hills, running about west by north, of the same name as the plains. The top is a fine shining white, from thick beds of a milk-white marble, the base of porphyritic limestone. W. O,
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