about two o’clock
half queried Joe . `` Delighted , my boy ! '' `` Very good ; then every thing 's for the best ! '' In fact , about two o'clock , the Queen of the Desert , mysterious Timbuctoo , which once , like Athens and Rome , had her schools of learned men , and her professorships of philosophy , stretched away before the gaze of our travellers . Ferguson followed the most minute details upon the chart traced by Barth himself , and was enabled to recognize its perfect accuracy . The city forms an immense triangle marked out upon a vast plain of white sand , its acute angle directed toward the north and piercing a corner of the desert . In the environs there was almost nothing , hardly even a few grasses , with some dwarf mimosas and stunted bushes .