On a day appointed we waited on the bashaw. After passing the court-yard, crowded with guards, and several groups of Arabs in the passages and ante-rooms playing at cards or dice, we were introduced to the audience chamber, where the bashaw, sitting cross-legged on a carpet, supported by his two sons, and attended by armed negroes, received us kindly, ordered us to be served with sherbet and coffee, and expressed himself in the most favourable manner on the subject of our mission, which he promised to forward in safety into the interior of Africa. He invited us to join him in a hawking party. The cavalcade, consisting of about three hundred, altogether presented so novel an appearance, that I shall endeavour to give some description of our morning’s amusement. The bashaw was mounted on a milk-white Arabian, superbly caparisoned, with saddle of crimson velvet richly studded with gold nails, heavy stirrups of the same, and trappings of embroidered cloth hanging down on each side nearly to the horse’s fetlock joint; he was preceded by six _chaoushes_, or officers, also mounted and richly caparisoned, armed with long guns, swords, and pistols, and a white silk barracan thrown loosely and gracefully round their bodies. His highness was supported on each side by a favourite black slave, whose glittering vest, light bornouse, and white turban, formed a pleasing contrast to the costume of the Arabs. We proceeded in a westerly direction; and on arriving at the desert, parties of six and eight dashed forward, with the rapidity of lightning, several hundred paces, fired, immediately halted in a most surprising manner, and with loud cries rushed back again to the main body, when instantly the same ceremony was repeated by another party. Their superior skill in the management of their horses is really beautiful; and the way they manœuvre their long musket, by repeatedly spinning it over their heads at full speed, has a most picturesque effect. Near the bashaw’s person rode Sidy Ali, his third son, although second in succession, in consequence of the banishment of the eldest; he also was attended by his particular guard of Arabs, distinguished not only by their superior and determined appearance, but by their figured muslin bornouses. Sidy Ali is the bashaw’s favourite son, and is particularly handsome, although what we should call too fat, and is said to resemble very much what the bashaw was at his age: he is allowed great privilege and liberty, which is indeed proved by his saying, the other day, to his father, “I shall succeed you as bashaw.” “How do you mean?” “How? why, by taking the same steps you did yourself,” said the youth.