Sheikh Omer supplied us with copious bowls of milk; the most refreshing thing, after all, that can be drank in the heat of the day. We were, however, impatient to get off, but had to wait for a blacksmith to shoe the horses of our chaouch. The only knowing man in this department was away at some neighbouring village, and it was necessary to send messengers to find him. There being nothing better to do, the day, accordingly, was spent in quarrelling. We had at least a hundred tongue-skirmishes between our people and the people of Mizdah--between our chaouch and the other chaouch--between our chaouch and the sheikh of the country--between Yusuf and the Fezzanee--between every individual black and every other individual black--Between our chaouch particularly and all the people of Mizdah:--in short, there were as many rows as it were possible for a logician to find relations betwixt man and man. I must not forget that our chaouch, in spite of all this effervescence, had got up this morning in a very pious state of mind. He told us that a marabout had appeared to him in a dream, and had said, "O man! go to Soudan with the Christians, and thou shalt return with the blessing of God upon thee!" This vision seemed to have made a deep impression upon him at the time, but he had forgotten it long before it had ceased to be the subject of my anxious thoughts--"O God, I beseech thee, indeed, to give us a prosperous journey! But thy will be done. We are entirely in thy hands!" _April 10th._--We had another glorious row this morning before starting. A man who had gone to fetch the blacksmith, and found him not, demanded payment of two Tunisian piastres. The chaouch, suspecting that he never went at all, but concealed himself in the village, would not pay him. This brought on a collision. Sheikh Omer supported us; and so all the people of the other village took part against us. Two of them were armed, and some of us thought it advisable to load our pistols. At last, however, we pushed them away from the tent by force; and, in the first moment of indignation, wrote a letter to the Pasha about them. Hearing of this, they came to beg us not to send the letter, which was accordingly torn up by the Sheikh. My chaouch was the great actor in all this affair; and it was necessary that I should support him, even if he were a little wrong, otherwise he would have had no confidence in himself or us in cases of difficulty. The Sheikh, who, as well as ourselves, has lost some little things during these days, gives the people of Mizdah a very bad character. In the scuffle, I noticed that they called him _Fezzanee_, which is used as a term of insult in these parts. "All the Fezzanees are bad people, and all their women courtezans," says my chaouch.