Old Ali now indignantly expressed his surprise that such a question should be put to him at a time when his mind was so differently occupied. He thought it manifested hard-heartedness, if not cruelty. ‘But are you sure your wife is _quite_ dead?’ ‘Do not mock me, O Moslems!’ The interrogator then called a soldier, who happened to be near, and gave him his horse to hold, while he himself ruthlessly entered the tent. On removing the blanket, he found the Arab’s wife, all alive, and holding the pet _sloghi_ in her arms. On being thus detected, the poor woman cried out most beseechingly, ‘Do not take the dog!’ and the whole company, men, women, and children, most imploringly re-echoed the cry. The intruder then turned to old Ali, and with an ironical smile said,—‘You see your _dear_ wife is not _quite_ dead!’” The Prince, as we have said, was a keen sportsman, and not one of his dogs could compare with Ali’s _sloghi_; but his veneration for justice predominated even over his love of the chase. “Ali is rich,” said he, when the hound was brought to him, “and money will not tempt him, else I would gladly offer it him. Send the _sloghi_ instantly back!” The day after the junction of Smeeda and his noble Dreeds, the expedition entered the district of the Majer,—a tribe (numbering 200 tents, or 1200 souls) of a peculiarly rascally character, and the larger portion of whose scanty resources is obtained by the robbery and murder of travellers. For these outrages they are rarely brought to account, save when the Prince, or other representative of the Regency of Tunis, makes a tour in person among the tribes. On the present occasion they had a heavy debt to pay,—the value of a life, in the Desert, being generally reckoned at from twenty-five to thirty camels. Within the precincts of this tribe are the ruins of Spaitla, the ancient Sufetula; and, by the favour of the Prince, our author set out to visit them. Under the guidance of the Majer chief, and escorted by twenty soldiers well mounted, and armed to the teeth—after a gallop over a beautiful plain, and thence crossing a district of hill and dale, “all covered with verdure, and occasionally bordering upon the picturesque,” Mr Davis and his party arrived at the ruins. On their first approach all was perfectly still. Not a sound but their own was audible, save the rippling of a brook which glides past the ruins on their north-eastern side. Not a human being was to be seen, either among the ruins or in their vicinity; and even animal life seemed to have for ever departed from the sombre walls and mansions of the ancient Sufetulans. But such was not really the case. In the holes, caverns, and clefts of the rocks on which the city stands, were dispersed numbers of the followers and subjects of the Majer chief. From their dwellings they issued forth imperceptibly to the travellers. And most unpleasant company they must