On our return, one morning, from a visit to the Bazar, where we had been making some purchases necessary for our journey, we found our apartment occupied by the Bedouin Arabs who had been appointed by the Bashaw to attend us to Bengazi. They had been ranged by our servant on chairs round the room, on which they did not appear to sit much at their ease; and some of them had relinquished their exalted situation for the more convenient level which the chairs themselves occupied, that safe and comfortable position, the ground: here they squatted themselves down with true Arab dignity, and soon found themselves much more at home. There was little in the dress of these swarthy personages by which one might be distinguished from the rest. An ample baracàn, fastened in the usual Arab manner, partially displayed the large, loose sleeves of a cotton shirt, more remarkable than usual for its whiteness; a piece of distinction which is, by Arabs, considered necessary only in towns, and on visits of more than ordinary ceremony: from a leathern belt was suspended a case of the same material, containing a brace of long pistols, near which hung a leathern pouch for powder and ball, and a smaller one which served as a pocket or purse. A red, or white cap, (for some had one, some the other,) and sandals of camel’s hide, fastened with thongs of leather, completed the whole costume. One only wore a turban; and, on closer investigation, the pistol-cases and pistols of the person so distinguished appeared to be in better order than those of his companions. But no difference of attire was necessary to mark out Shekh Mahommed el Dúbbah from those who accompanied him. A venerable length of beard, in which white was partially blended with gray, gave an air of patriarchal respectability to his appearance; and a singular mixture of energy and complacency displayed the wild and daring spirit which animated him half subdued by the composure of age, and the decorum which it was necessary to observe on the occasion: a well-acted smile was playing on his lips, with which his voice and his manner, when he addressed us, corresponded; but his large full eye, though its lustre was dimmed by age, was never for a moment at rest; and wandered unceasingly from object to object, with a wildness and rapidity very different from the vacant stare of curiosity so conspicuous in the faces of most of his party. Shekh Mahommed was at this time nearly sixty years of age, and had early been very formidable as a robber in the district of Syrt. The circumstance of his being the head of a Maràbut tribe, joined to the natural intrepidity of his character, had given him great influence over the Arabs of his neighbourhood; and the daring character of his exploits soon obtained for him the appellation of El Dúbbah, or the Hyæna.