withered up and blackening in the sun. The well-known resource of killing a camel for the water contained in his stomach is frequently resorted to, and sometimes preserves the lives of the merchants. In crossing this tremendous scene of desolation, Leo discovered two marble monuments, when or by whom erected he could not learn, upon which was an epitaph recording the manner in which those who slept beneath had met their doom. The one was an exceedingly opulent merchant, the other a person whose business it was to furnish caravans with water and provisions. On their arriving at this spot, scorched by the sun, and their entrails tortured by the most excruciating thirst, there remained but a very small quantity of water between them. The rich man, whose thirst now made him regard his gold as dirt, purchased a single cup of this celestial nectar for ten thousand ducats; but that which might possibly have saved the life of one of them being divided between both, only served to prolong their sufferings for a moment, as they here sunk into that sleep from which there is no waking upon earth.
Yet, strange as it may appear, this inhospitable desert is overrun by numerous animals, which, therefore, must either be endued by nature with the power of resisting thirst, or with the instinct to discover springs of water where man fails. Our traveller was very near participating the fate of the merchant above commemorated. Day after day they toiled along the sands without being able to discover one drop of water on their way; so that the small quantity they had brought with them, which was barely sufficient for five days, was compelled to serve them for ten. Twelve miles south of Segelmessa they reached a small castle built in the desert by the Arabs, but found there nothing but heaps of sand and black stones. A few orange or lemon-trees blooming in the waste were the only signs of vegetation
