Abou-Bukra, however, no sooner perceived that we were in earnest, than he offered to supply us himself with camels at a price of forty dollars; but as thirty was the sum we had ourselves proposed, we declared that we would not make any other alteration in it than by meeting him half way in his demand; and as he had begun to suspect that we kept to our word he made no further difficulty in the matter, and agreed to bring his camels at thirty-five. This he accordingly did, and Shekh Hadood not having yet arrived we quitted Merge the next day, under convoy of Abou-Bukra and our Bengazi Chaous, Rabdi, who had now recovered from his illness, and joined us to resume his office. During the time of our stay at Merge, we received a present of several sheep from Bey Halil, for which we made a suitable return to the Chaous who brought them, and took the opportunity of sending by him a token of our regard to our old friend Hashi, the Bey’s secretary. We have already said that the water of Merge is collected in pools in different parts of the valley; and we soon found that in exchanging that of the wells and cisterns which we had quitted for it, we had not much improved the quality of our liquor. It was soon discovered that the water we procured from the pools was not quite so clear as it might have been, and we thought we perceived a peculiar taste in it which did not seem to be its natural flavour. A very little observation convinced us we were right; for the pools were used by the Arabs, not only for drinking, but for washing and bathing also; and we soon found that the last-mentioned ceremonies, though not often resorted to by Arabs in general, were more particularly essential to the comfort of those at Merge, from circumstances which we would willingly conceal; since they will scarcely be considered as perfectly in character with the highly-romantic features of the country which they inhabited. We are not, at the same time, prepared to assert, that the causes which more peculiarly call for ablution (considered as a matter of comfort) did not actually exist in patriarchal days amidst scenes such as we have described; and if we do not find them hinted at in the allusions to early times which are made in this age of refinement, it is only, perhaps, that too minute a detail would be inconsistent with the ideas which we wish to excite of our forefathers.