To-day I found a young scorpion in the canvass-case of my writing-desk;
he cocked his tail in a hostile attitude, as if daring any one to touch
him. In his tail seems to be all his power, and so of all the scorpion
host. Yesterday was taken a locust: this destructive insect is not bred
in the desert. In this bare and thirsty region there is nothing for the
young ones to eat, and the old ones likewise would soon perish in the
Sahara. They are bred in the cultivated fields near the desert, or in
the fertile lands of the coast, as in the neighbourhood of Mogador,
where millions of the young have been seen, like so many small green
buds of trees.

Dr. Overweg made an excursion to the Ghât mountains, or rather the
smaller hills or offshoots from the range. He found them sandstone, but
very singularly formed or broken into huge blocks--some like the masses
which I saw on the route from Ghadamez to Ghât, with a very narrow base,
on which they might turn as on a pivot.

_11th._--We stopped here another day. We were to have started in the
afternoon, but the Tuaricks had some visitors come to see them, and
detained us for their own comfort and amusement. I am not sorry for it,
as we have had a tremendous gheblee. All the day I felt it extremely
hot, and so have all the people. I was obliged to lie down on the floor
of my tent nearly all day; but I have so arranged my table that I put my
head under it, which gives additional and most important protection from
the sun. All these little expedients must be resorted to in travelling
over the desert, and may sometimes save a man's life. It is surprising
what protection a piece of cloth or linen, or a piece of board, in
addition to the tent, will give against the intensity of the sun's
fierce rays. The Moors and blacks of the coast seem to suffer as much as