which was impregnated with magnesia and soon engendered dysentery and fever. All stragglers from the French camps were pitilessly massacred, and the sentries were often shot on guard. “On the night of the 10th August,” writes Mr. Galea, “the Arabs surprised the French camp, cut down the sentries and began killing the soldiers as they lay asleep. Before anything could be done they had rapidly retreated. The French admit a loss of twenty killed, but I have been told privately that it really exceeded that number.” Sickness broke out both at Sfax and Jerba, decimating in a terrible manner the garrison in the last-named island. Raid after raid took place around Sfax, but beyond shooting two obscure individuals on the 27th August on an equivocal charge preferred by the Vice-Consul Giannino, of calling out _jihad, jihad_ (Holy War), very little was done. At times the insurgents approached so near to the town that they could be fired upon from the walls, and as soon as any tribe made terms with the French, it was immediately attacked by the insurgents. The “friendly Arabs” used to bring their dead and wounded as far as the ramparts, and cry in vain for help and assistance. If it was General Winter who defeated the first Napoleon in Russia, it was certainly General Summer who now came to the assistance of the Arabs in Southern Tunis, with dysentery and typhoid fever as his aides-de-camp. While MM. Ferry and Saint-Hilaire were prudently consulting _bourgeois_ susceptibilities by hastening on the elections to the French Chambers, while M. Roustan was obtaining concessions for his friends, and telegraphing reassuring platitudes to the Foreign Office, and while the Agence Havas was informing the French public that “our troops found the village abandoned, and returned to Susa, bringing with them a few hens, five cows, and five prisoners.” “It was a splendid operation,” it is added, “perfectly well conducted, and one which does the greatest honour to our young troops” (“Daily News,” October 3d, 1881),—the whole of Southern Tunis was abandoned to the most appalling anarchy and disorder, while the greater part of the northern part of the Regency was quickly preparing to follow suit. CHAPTER XXVIII. ALARMS AT THE CAPITAL.