The whole proved to be mere noise, but the harassed Bascha was again up and active. He seemed to make no use of his aides-de-camp, and only his own presence could inspire his troops with courage. Some of the enemy were killed, and there were many tracks of blood leading into the wood, although the firing had been at random in the darkness. As a specimen of the tactics of our Napoleon-worshipping Bascha, he allowed the wells, which were at two hundred yards from camp, to remain unguarded at night, so that they might easily have been filled up by the enemy. Truly fortunate was it that there were no great stones in the neighbourhood to choke them up, for we were totally without implements wherewith to have cleared them out again." Luckily for this most careless general and helpless army, the Arabs neglected to profit by their shortcomings, and on the 14th April, after many negotiations, the renowned Mohammed Din himself, awed, we must suppose, by the numerical strength of Achmet's troops, and over-estimating their real value, committed the fatal blunder of presenting himself in the Turkish camp. Great was the curiosity to see this redoubted chief, who alighted at Schech Defalla's tent, into which the soldiers impudently crowded, to get a view of the man before whom many of them had formerly trembled and fled. "Mohammed Din is of middle stature, and of a black-brown colour, like all his people; his countenance at first says little, but, on longer inspection, its expression is one of great cunning; his bald head is bare; his dress Arabian, with drawers of a fiery red colour. His retinue consists, without exception, of most ill-looking fellows, on whose countenances Nature seems to have done her best to express the faithless character attributed to the Haddenda. They are all above the middle height, and armed with shields and lances, or swords." Next morning Mr Werne saw the Bascha seated on his _angarèb_, (a sort of bedstead, composed of plaited strips of camel-hide, which, upon the march, served as a throne,) with a number of Shechs squatted upon the ground on either side of him, amongst them Mohammed Din, looking humbled, and as if half-repentant of his rash step. The Bascha appeared disposed to let him feel that he was now no better than a caged lion, whose claws the captor can cut at will. He showed him, however, marks of favour, gave him a red shawl for a turban, and a purple mantle with gold tassels, but no sabre, which Mr Werne thought a bad omen. The Schech was suffered to go to and fro between the camp and his own people, but under certain control--now with an escort of Schaïgiës, then leaving his son as hostage. He sent in some cattle and sheep as a present, and promised to bring the tribute due; this he failed to do, and a time was fixed to him and the other Shechs within which to pay up arrears. Notwithstanding the subjection of their chief, the Arabs continued their predatory practices, stealing camels from the camp, or taking