This afternoon, a man came to me for medicine, for a pain in the chest, and opening his shirt, displayed the most sickening sight I ever beheld: he had been so burnt over the whole of his breast, that it had festered, and become a sore of above a foot in diameter, and had so eaten into his skin, that I imagined he could not survive many days. I had nothing with me which would relieve him, but advised that his sore should be kept clean, a precaution which had never entered his head. His friend, who brought him to me, said, that for all the world he would not suffer him to be washed, as he had read in a book, that using water to a burn occasioned certain death. Thus, owing to their ignorance and prejudice, this poor man probably lost his life. After being nearly killed with kindness, we set out. The Kaid, though almost incapable of sitting his own poor lean horse, amused himself by riding at full speed before and across mine, screeching and discharging his gun out of compliment to me; but happily for his own neck, and I may add for mine also, in about half an hour his powder failed him. In the evening we arrived at Morzouk, and found that my kind friends, Yussuf and the old Hadje, had prepared a feast for me. I went to visit Mukni, who received me very graciously, and thanked me for going to meet his son, whom he pretended to be ashamed of, for not having presented me with a couple of Maherrys; one to eat, and the other to ride on. Yussuf and the old man spent the greater part of the night with us, relating all the city news; and I promised them, that on the morrow, I would set out with the Sultan’s two youngest sons, to Hadge Hajeel, to meet and return with the Ghrazzie to Morzouk. January 17th. Therm. 6°.—I set out as I had proposed, with the Mamlukes and a large body of Fezzanners, to meet their friends; for which, on joining Aleiwa’s people, I received many thanks and compliments: having only slept one night at my own house, I was not expected to leave it again so quickly. I here found my little patient, whom I mentioned before, quite recovered, and able, by his master’s instruction, to thank me in a few words of Arabic. This little fellow’s patience, during illness, had so won on his master, a shoemaker of Morzouk, that he had adopted him; and intended, instead of selling, to bring him up to his own trade, in which, if the boy succeeds, he is to make me a pair of boots on my return. We spent this afternoon in singing and eating, and every one assumed a new appearance: instead of the dirty ragged wretches whom I had last seen, they were transformed into a gay multitude, dressed in silks, scarlet, and embroidery; their friends collecting for them such finery as would enable them to enter the capital with becoming dignity. Many of the Arabs smelt most odoriferously of attar of roses, and affected to look as if they had been accustomed to it all their lives.