as four days without a drop of water of any kind. It may therefore be readily imagined that they were not in very excellent condition before half the journey had been accomplished, and indeed it was distressing to see the wasted carcasses which most of them presented on arriving in the neighbourhood of Bengazi; but we may venture to say that few, if any, European horses, under similar circumstances, would have survived the journey which they performed at all; much less have displayed the activity and spirit which never left them, under so much fatigue and privation. We were often amused, in spite of his forlorn condition, with the spirit exerted on all occasions by an old white horse, which was rode by one of our servants; he had belonged for many years to a soldier of the Bashaw, and his face was well known to all the Arabs of Bengazi, as a constant appendage to the army which came there occasionally to collect the tribute. This fine-spirited animal, before the journey was half over, had scarcely a leg to stand upon, yet he never for a moment forgot his military habits, and would arch his neck, and curvet, and throw himself back on his haunches at the slightest application of the spur. No fatigue or exhaustion could ever make him forget that he had once been a charger of some consideration: even in walking he would lift up his legs, and step out, with all the parade and importance of a horse trained at Astley’s or the Circus; throwing his head about, at the same time, from one side to the other, as if he took a delight in displaying his long mane, and shewing himself off to advantage. It may well be supposed that no exertions of our own were at any time wanting to procure food and water for the weary animals who had so amply deserved them; but we could only carry a certain portion of corn with us from Tripoly, and when this was exhausted we were obliged to depend upon occasional supplies from the Arab tents we met with in our route, and the scanty pasturage which the Syrtis afforded. The distance at which some of the wells were placed from each other was the occasion of our being often without water; and our horses, though suffering greatly from thirst, would frequently refuse to drink the water which we were glad to drink ourselves, when it chanced to be more than usually brackish. It often happened when they had been long without water, or were more than ordinarily fatigued with the day’s exertions, that some of them would refuse to eat at all, though they had been without food the whole of the day, as well as all the night which preceded it.