It was near 4 P.M. when we started for Seksaoua, and, after crossing the Oued Usbi, held on in a SW. direction nearly parallel to its course. In little more than an hour we came to a large village, which was the scene of unexpected commotion. As our cavalcade was seen to approach, some natives ran on to announce the fact to the villagers, and by the time we reached the first houses the whole population turned out, and a scene ensued of which no description can give an idea. The men who lined the way on either side shouted with emulous vehemence and fury guttural sentences, illustrated by frantic gesticulations, while the women and children kept up a deafening accompaniment of shrieking, wailing, and howling, and the whole formed a scene worthy of Pandemonium. It seemed sufficiently clear that no hostile intentions against us were expressed, but amidst the horrible din and confusion it was some minutes before we were able to learn from Abraham the meaning of this wild excitement. It appeared that, as constantly happens among the mountain people, there was a feud between this and a neighbouring tribe; the village had been attacked, or at least approached by the enemy, and one of the villagers had been shot. It was evident from the first that our brave escort felt extremely uneasy; but when it became clear that the object of the people was to invoke the protection of the soldiers of the Sultan against further molestation, our two Kaïds for once thoroughly agreed on a policy of strict neutrality, and in desiring to get as soon as possible out of harm’s way. As for us, it may be feared that we failed to maintain the gravity which, to the Oriental mind, befits persons of distinction. Just when the confusion was at its worst, and before we well understood what it portended, we happened to look up to where on the top of the nearest house two or three storks, each poised on one leg, were looking down on the frantic crowd. There was something irresistibly ludicrous in the contrast between the air of solemnity that characterises these birds and the insane excitement of the human crowd below that set us off in a peal of laughter, which we found it hard to tune down to decent seriousness.