Towards the end of the month the weather became perceptibly cooler, and on the 24th September General Saussier, the Commander-in-Chief, once more reached Tunis. In spite of the warning conveyed by the fate of the ex-President of the Municipality, the ulema of the Regency had not been entirely indifferent to the fate of their country and the threatened desertion of Kairwán, the virgin shrine of North Africa. Important communications had been addressed to the Egyptian vernacular press, and the powerful confraternity of Sidi Abd-el-Kader el Chilani at Baghdad was, at the instance of its dependent _Zaouia_ at Kairwán, using its exertion and great influence to prevent the destruction of the sacred city. Its chief, I believe, addressed a remonstrance to the Sultan as Caliph, praying him to intercede with France on the subject, or, if necessary, to ask the mediation of the friendly Powers. The ulema of Tunis received ample proof that the matter excited great interest throughout the Moslem world. They openly said at the time that Colonel Negrier’s desecration of Sidi Sheikh’s tomb had already enabled Bou Amema to arrange his differences with the rival chiefs, and that the destruction of Kairwán would infallibly tend to consolidate the Moslem antipathy to Christian rule in North Africa, and produce a general revolt. The French had now over 30,000 troops in Tunis; and on the 24th September I accompanied the late Commander Selby, R.N., of H.M.S. “Falcon,” to see General Logerot’s camp at Manouba. I find the following note in my journal:—“Yesterday I visited General Logerot’s camp at Manouba. The soldiers recently arrived are superior in appearance and physique to those who took part in the first expedition. A large barrack is filled with stores, artillery, and heavy ambulance waggons. As soon as the rains set in, the country between Tunis and Kairwán will become a marsh, and there are no roads. The large amount of baggage each soldier is to carry, in addition to his portion of a tent, will prove as serious an obstacle to progress as it did in the Khamír country, and will place them at a disadvantage in the guerilla warfare the Arabs resort to. “Close to the camp are the graves of seventy-four soldiers who have died since the middle of July, and who all appear to have been under twenty- four years of age.”