Outside the town I observed two large _marabouts_. The dome of one was nearly all gone; the second was tolerably perfect. In the former, under a roof of sail-cloth, lived the Maltese family which had been saved by Haj Maala during the insurrection. The mother, with tears in her eyes, described the kindness she had received from the Arabs, when she and her children were hiding in his garden disguised in Tunisian dress. The second tomb was inhabited by an officer, who was quietly eating his luncheon over the grave of holy Sidi Mazún. A little old Maltese woman was pointed out to me, whose solitary room had disappeared under a French shell. She preferred a very detailed claim to the commissioners, amounting altogether to something under three pounds. I was told they were so pleased with her honesty that her loss was assessed at more than she asked. Before evening I was a little tired of looking at calcined walls, hearing stories of real losses and bogus demands, and listening to the misdoings of “Giannino,” and was not sorry to return to the “Valette,” which sailed about midnight for the Syrtis Minor. Early on the 30th November the “Valette” anchored about a mile from a sandy shore fringed with groves of palm-trees. Beyond a few wooden sheds no kind of habitation was visible, an indentation in the beach alone betokened the mouth of a river, and it was difficult to believe that this was Gabes. A French frigate and gunboat were lying off the coast, and two or three steamers were busily discharging their cargo into white-sailed Arab _feluccas_. We were at once boarded by the French Consular-Agent, M. Sicard, who told us that General Logerot had arrived the previous day at Ras-el-Oued, a few miles from Gabes, where he had encamped. All the available barges were at once utilised for the landing of the officers and soldiers, and we were afraid that it would be impossible for us to reach the land. This was a great disappointment for all of us, and especially for Dr. Pozzi, who was naturally anxious to see the famous river Sel, the muddy waters of which, impregnated with magnesia, had laid so many of his brave fellow-countrymen to sleep for ever under the palm-trees which skirt its banks; and for the newspaper correspondents, who were thirsting for the latest news of the column. In the midst of our lamentations, Captain Arcadius Gosselin of the S.S. “Ville de Tanger” came to the rescue, and obligingly conveyed us on shore in his own boat, and I am sorry to say at some personal inconvenience.