The most remarkable persons, however, whom I found at the encampment were a couple of insane fellows, determined to follow us--perhaps to show "by one satiric touch" what kind of madcap enterprise was ours. The first was a Neapolitan, who had dogged me all the while I was at Tripoli, pestering me to make a contract with him as servant. To humour his madness, I never said I would not; and the poor fellow, taking my silence for consent, had come out asking for his master. They tried to send him away, but he would take orders from none but me. I gave him two loaves of bread and a Tunisian piastre, and also made him a profound bow, politely requesting him to go about his business. He did so in a very dejected manner. During the time he was with the caravan he worked as hard as any one else in his tattered clothes, and, perhaps, he would have been of more use than many a sane person. The other was a madman indeed, a Muslim, with an unpleasant habit of threatening to cut everybody's throat. Hearing that we were going to Soudan, he followed us, bringing with him a quantity of old metal, principally copper, with which he proposed to trade. He gave himself out as a shereef, or descendant of the Prophet. No sooner had he arrived than he begun to quarrel on all sides, and, of course, talked very freely of cutting throats, stabbing, shooting, and other humorous things. Every one was afraid of him. He fawned, however, on us Europeans, whilst he had a large knife concealed under his clothes ready to strike. They were obliged at length to disarm him, and send him back under a guard to Tripoli. We here took leave of Mr. Reade, who gave me some last explanations about letters to the interior. It rained furiously in the afternoon. We were kept idle a whole day by the rain; but starting on the second, turned off sharp in the afternoon towards the mountains, and encamped at length in a pretty place fronting the great ascent of Gharian. The appearance of the chain here differs in no important particular from that of any other part of the Tripoline Atlas. The formation is calcareous, but the colours vary to the eye by the admixture of minerals. Groups of sandstone are not uncommon. Rounded, rugged heads, vary the outline of the plateau; and here and there are deep, abrupt valleys, cut down through the range, with groves of fig-trees, almonds, aloes, pomegranates, and even grapes, nestling in their laps. Bright water-courses, springing up in the depths of these ravines, sustain the streaks of half-buried verdure.