A young man, the son of one of the wealthiest Jews in Mogador, had been invited by Mr. Carstensen to accompany him in this excursion. He was absolutely ignorant of the country beyond what he may have learned in a daily canter over the sands at Mogador, and was far less fitted for rough life than the majority of English young ladies of the upper class. Everything in tent life seemed to him strange and rather terrible. In the course of conversation over the evening cigar it came out that he had never seen a scorpion; whereupon, by order from Mr. Carstensen, a corner of the carpet within the tent was turned up, and a scorpion-hole speedily found. When the ugly creature was dug out of his hole and produced to the company, the genuine consternation and disgust of our young friend were irresistibly ludicrous. We afterwards heard that he passed a miserable night, in constant terror of encountering the enemy, and on the next day returned to the paternal home, whence he will not again be easily lured. The natives show no especial dislike for reptiles, excepting poisonous snakes, which, in spite of reports to the contrary, must be rare. We heard so much of them, and especially of the _Cerastes_ (_El Efah_ of the Moors)—popularly called the ‘two minutes’ snake,’ because a person bitten is supposed to survive so long—that at first we always carried about us a bottle of liquid ammonia, as the best, though very uncertain, antidote. But when we failed to see a single specimen, and were assured that they are found only on the coast, we gradually laid all precautions aside, and thought no more of serpents than we should have done in Europe. About this time we discovered that one of our escort had a decided taste for reptiles, which we might have turned to account, if we had known of it, by getting him to collect specimens. He was a tall, lanky man, with a prominent nose, whom we had nicknamed, from his peculiar personal appearance, ‘Don Quixote,’ but whose real name was Sherrif Mouley Mohammed. He had captured several toads and lizards, which he carried about with him, and showed another trait of originality in being the only one of our native followers who willingly drank coffee.