the offenders, flogged them heartily; they then began to discover, that though a stranger, I was not to be trifled with. I must observe that some of the men of Sockna were also most intrusive and impudent beggars. They crowded in upon us ten and twenty at a time, one party leaving us only to make way for another equally troublesome; one asked for powder, another for flints, knives, scissars, and all kinds of articles: at first I felt ashamed to turn them out, and therefore had recourse to entreaty that they would go away; but this had not the slightest effect, and I was obliged finally to show that I had profited by Mukni’s instructions, and to get rid of them by main force. Sunday, February 27th.—To my great dismay I was again attacked by hemma, and was also under the painful necessity of killing my largest Maherry, finding he had broken his toe. I had intended him for Sir Joseph Banks. He was the finest I had ever seen: seven feet eight inches from the ground to his hump, which was a low one. I was offered two dollars for him, but preferred killing him, to feed ourselves and fellow travellers. As we had to hire fresh camels here, we discharged those which had brought us from Morzouk, and I was heartily glad to get rid of the Sockna drivers, who are never contented, always trying to deceive, and never assisting any one. We found that the Bashaw had sent chowses with eight horses, the property of his late son, to be disposed of in Fezzan for Negroes, and the purchasers were to sell them in the interior, so that they might never again be seen at Tripoli. The news brought by these people occasioned a general mourning, and the women, this day and the preceding one, were out on the sands, howling, beating the Tubbel, or alarm drum, tearing their hair and faces, and committing all sort of extravagancies, which always ended in frenzy, though they would in their hearts have rejoiced to learn that the whole Koramanlie race was extinct. Almost all the houses here have, in the principal rooms, a black line drawn round them about breast high, with wetted gunpowder. If the woman of the house is delivered of a male child, this precaution prevents Iblis and the devil’s children, or imps, from coming into the room to tease or injure him; or, what is worse, to make him squint. Our friend and travelling companion, Sadig, who had always been very agreeable and cheerful, this day left us, to our great regret, on his return to his native town, Wadan; whither he invited me to accompany him, assuring me that I should drink nothing but sweet milk and Lackbi, and that at every meal a new dish of whatever description I chose should be prepared for me. It was his intention to send his slaves to Mesurata on the sea-coast, to exchange them for sheep.