The sidr, or lote-tree, is abundant in these parts, and it is curious to
notice how in the spring season the green leaves sprout out all over the
white burnt-up shrub. All vegetation in the desert that is not perfectly
new seems utterly withered by time. There is scarcely any medium between
the bud and the dead leaf. Infancy is scorched at once into old age.

As we advanced, the country appeared to put on sterner forms, until
suddenly, in the afternoon, the rocks opened to disclose the Wady
Esh-Shrâb nestling amidst limestone hills, and containing the pleasant
oasis of Mizdah. Its beauties consist, in reality, but of a few patches
of green barley and scanty palm-groves; but, in contrast to the sultry
desert, the scene appeared really enchanting.

We have now left the Troglodytes behind us. Mizdah (eight summer and ten
winter days from Ghadamez, three short days from Gharian, and the same
from Benioleed) is built above-ground, and consists of a double village,
or rather two contiguous villages, inhabited by people of the Arab race.
Each division is fortified after a fashion, with walls now crumbling,
and with round crenulated towers. One large tower, some fifty feet high,
has stood, they say, four hundred years. I asked, What was the use of
these fortifications? and was naïvely told they were for the purposes of
_shamatah_, "war," or rather "rows." And true enough, before the Turks
extended their power so far, these two beggarly villages, fifty miles
from any neighbours, were in constant hostility one with the other. Each
had its great tower, a giant among all the little towers--a kind of
keep, to which the defeated party retired to recruit its strength or
escape utter destruction. This is likewise the case with many other
double towns of the Sahara, and seems to prove that war is the native
passion and trade of man. At any rate, punishment for such turbulence
has not been wanting; for in this, as in so many other cases, whilst