In the meantime Generals Saussier and Forgemol were conducting one of the Kairwán columns back to Tebessa, while General Logerot was hopelessly endeavouring to track the Arabs to their lairs in the south. The seaport of Mehdia had been occupied without resistance on the same day as Kairwán, but the insurgents still continued their raids and attacks. In addition to the march of the column southward, troops under General D’Aubigny and Colonel La Roque were operating in the north of the Regency, with the hope of surrounding the remaining followers of Ali Ben Amar. Nothing of any particular moment occurred at Tunis during the weeks which immediately succeeded the occupation of Kairwán. On the 14th November, another Arab was accused of an attempt to endanger the safety of passengers on the French line, by putting a stone on the rails. I am unable to enter into the merits of the case, but the man pretended he was merely running after his goat which had accidentally broken its tether. The poor fellow had only been married the day before, and still wore his wedding garment. He got a very short shrift, and was shot the same day in sight of the Bey’s palace-windows. The ladies of Kasr-es- Said were greatly alarmed, and were not reassured when a number of Arabs afterwards came close to the building, and shouted out uncomplimentary allusions to the diminished power and prestige of the descendants of Heussein Ben Ali. Before General Logerot had fairly started on his road to Gabes, a band of the fugitives from Kairwán attacked the Arabs who refused to join them, near the El Djem ruins between Susa and Sfax. Two men were killed and thirty wounded in the _melée_, and the assailants made good their retreat with a rich booty. Renewed _razzias_ were reported almost daily from Susa and Sfax, and the inhabitants of Mahres proved so refractory, that a French gunboat had to be sent to shell their village.