CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHTH.
A Rapid Passage.--Prudent Resolves.--Caravans in Sight.--Incessant Rains.--
Goa.--The Niger.--Golberry, Geoffroy, and Gray.--Mungo Park.--Laing.--
Rene Caillie.--Clapperton.--John and Richard Lander.
The 17th of May passed tranquilly, without any remarkable
incident; the desert gained upon them once more; a moderate
wind bore the Victoria toward the southwest, and she never
swerved to the right or to the left, but her shadow traced
a perfectly straight line on the sand.
Before starting, the doctor had prudently renewed his
stock of water, having feared that he should not be able to
touch ground in these regions, infested as they are by the
Aouelim-Minian Touaregs. The plateau, at an elevation
of eighteen hundred feet above the level of the sea, sloped
down toward the south. Our travellers, having crossed
the Aghades route at Murzouk--a route often pressed by
the feet of camels--arrived that evening, in the sixteenth
degree of north latitude, and four degrees fifty-five minutes
east longitude, after having passed over one hundred
and eighty miles of a long and monotonous day's journey.
During the day Joe dressed the last pieces of game,
which had been only hastily prepared, and he served up
for supper a mess of snipe, that were greatly relished.
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