All the houses are built on the same plan, having a small square court in the centre, from which a few steps lead to an open gallery, which is the principal room. The other rooms are on the ground-floor, and one or two open from the gallery; they have no windows, but receive their light from the doors, which are all curiously chequered and striped with a kind of black paint made from burnt wool, mixed with gum-water. As they are composed of many rounded pannels of date-wood, some appear like the backs of large old books. A little blackish rat was brought to me, which was really very curious; it had a head resembling that of a badger, with the same peculiar marks by the side of the face; its tail was long, black, and rather bushy. Belford and myself contrived to make a cage for it out of a tin canister, and I discovered that it had the power of clinging to the bars, and climbing with its back downwards: it was very fierce, but I had great hopes of being able to bring it home, as well as three other animals, called by the Arabs Dthub ظمب, which resembled lizards in many respects, but were much more clumsily formed, and slower in their motions: their tails were broad, and covered with scaly spikes, and they could hang by their fore paws, which they had the power of closing on any object: their head and nose much resembled those of the hawk’s-bill turtle, and to a certain degree, they changed their colour as cameleons do. I was rubbed this day with a mixture, which the Arabs consider excellent in cases of fever, and which really, though it made me very dirty, rendered my skin quite comfortable: it was composed of a small aromatic seed, the name of which I have forgotten, with lavender from Tripoli, and cloves, pounded together, and mixed with oil and vinegar; it is rubbed over the whole body and head, until nearly dry. My doctress was a white woman of Tripoli, who, in fear of her life, had escaped from thence.