or Belad Al Jerid, the Country of dates, a kingdom of Africa. It is almost of a square form, extending itself more than 80 leagues every way, from 28° 30' to 32° 50' north latitude, and from 6° to 12 degrees of west longitude. It is bounded on the north by the kingdom of Tunis, on the east by a ridge of lofty mountains which divide it from Tripoli and part of Guadamis, on the west by the countries of Zeb and Mezeb, and on the south by the province of Verghela. The whole country is barren, sandy, and mountainous, producing little or nothing besides dates, which grow here in such profusion, that the face of half the kingdom is covered over with date-trees, and from hence the whole country takes its name. The climate is hot and unhealthy; the people lean, fleshy, and shrivelled in their complexions; with their eyes inflamed, owing to the reflection of the sun-beams from the white hard soil: and the showers of dust and sand driven by the high winds that blow here at certain seasons are frequently so violent as to bury men and cattle under them. Another inconvenience with which the inhabitants are afflicted, for which no other reason is given besides their constant living on dates, is an inveterate decay in their gums, whence all their teeth drop out; though it frequently spreads over their whole bodies, and then they become the most unhappy and loathsome objects. They are almost entirely free from other diseases: so that when not afflicted with this, Biledulgerid live to a good old age; though it is observable that they discover a furrowed countenance, shrivelled skin, hoary locks, and other symptoms of old age, very early in life, and before decrepitude, infirmity, or any decay of their faculties, appear. The plague is not known in Biledulgerid, though frequent in Barbary, and though a constant intercourse is kept up between the two countries; whence it would seem, that in certain cases this terrible distemper is not so infectious as it is usually thought to be. The same may be said of the small-pox, a disease little less contagious and fatal in hot countries than the plague itself. The natives are represented as a lewd, treacherous, thievish, and savage people, who delight in murder and robbery. They are mostly a mixture of Africans and wild Arabs who mingled themselves with them. The former live with some regularity and civil order in a kind of villages composed of a number of little huts; the latter in tents, ranging from place to place in quest of food and plunder. The Arabs, who pride themselves in their superiority of birth and talents above the primitive inhabitants, are wholly independent and free, frequently hiring themselves in the service of the neighbouring princes at war; from which policy arise the most valuable branches of their public revenue, if anything can be called common or public in a nation of lawless robbers. The rest pursue no other occupation besides hunting and plundering; the first of which is their common employment, especially hunting of ostriches, which are said to be of a prodigious stature in this country, and as high as a man mounted on a tall horse. The inhabitants eat the flesh of these animals; barter their feathers for corn, pulse, and other things they want; use their hearts in their necromantic and religious rites, their fat as a medicine of sovereign virtue, their talons for ear-pendants and other ornaments, and their skins they convert into pouches and knapsacks, so that not a part of the animal but is employed in some useful purpose. Besides dates and ostriches, the Arabs live likewise on the flesh of goats and camels; drinking either the liquor or broth in which that flesh is boiled, or the milk of their camels; for they seldom taste water, that element being more scarce in this country than milk itself. In the whole country there is scarce a town of any note, or even stream of water that deserves notice, or that is not dried up half the year.