“Later we crossed the tracks of a big caravan, and followed to spy on it. The caravan was a rich one. But we were afraid to attack it, for we could see that three of the men carried _flint-lock_ rifles, and some of them were mounted on horses. It was the rifles we feared, for we knew they could deal death before we could reach our enemy, while we knew the horses would enable them to outpace our camels, and stand off so long as they willed if we attacked in open fight. “But the temptation was great: and at last I planned that I would creep into their camp on the fringe of dawn while the others lay close on the outskirts. “Allah was with me. I got in among the horses, undetected, and freed them. Then I set about stampeding the camp while my comrades rushed in upon it to enter in hand-to-hand conflict. “But one of the men with a rifle got away on a bare-backed horse, and he came near creating a panic among us. However, luckily, most of his ammunition was in his saddle-bag, and we soon discovered he could shoot no more. “That was the end. It was an Arab caravan and we killed or captured all. There were 200 camels laden with cotton goods, tea, and sugar—a rich prize that long remained the topic of our camp-fires when we returned to our own country.” Later I met one who knew some of the Arabs who were killed in that raid, which confirmed R———’s story. Yet another of those strange men that I chanced across in my travels was Saidi Mousa—one of the leaders in the late Kaosen rebellion. He was a young man to be so noted, perhaps forty to forty-five years of age. But he had remarkably keen eyes, and a restless shiftiness that I did not altogether like. I came on him in an oasis, under very curious guise, for he was trading as an ordinary native, and I induced him to find me some Arab cigarettes. I had little doubt that his presence in the town was with political intent, and that he was largely acting the part of a spy. Throughout the years such raids have always gone on in the Sahara; while in quite recent times we have the remarkable rising of 1916, mustered and equipped in the Fezzan and led by Kaosen, which involved nearly all the Tuaregs of the Sahara, before their forces were turned on the fringes of the Western Sudan.