Observing that their visiters were Arabs, the shepherds were at first greatly terrified; but being by degrees persuaded that they intended them no harm, and merely demanded shelter from the inclemency of the weather, they recovered their self-possession, and entertained them with the most generous hospitality. After supper, the whole company stretched themselves round the fire, and slept soundly until next morning. The snow still continuing to fall, they remained two whole days in this wild retreat; but on the third the weather clearing up, a passage was cut through the snow, and merging into daylight they mounted their horses, and descended towards the plains of Fez, the kindly shepherds acting as their guides through the difficult passes of the mountains. They now learned that the caravan with which Leo was travelling when encountered by the Arabs, had been overwhelmed by the snow; so that no hope of plunder being left, our traveller’s friendly preservers seized upon a Jew with the design of extorting a large ransom from him; and borrowing Leo’s horse in order to convey the Hebrew prize to their tents, they commended its master to the mercy of fortune and the winds, and departed. Good luck, or the charity of some benevolent hind, furnished our traveller with a mule, upon which he made his way in three days to the capital. Not being discouraged by this adventure, which, when safely concluded, appeared rather romantic than unfortunate, he again bent his steps towards the desert, and at length succeeded in his attempt to become the guest of the children of Ishmael. Here he found himself surrounded by that fierce and untameable people, who, having to their natural wildness and ferocity added those qualities of perfidiousness and treachery which the venom of the African soil appears to engender inevitably, might be regarded as the most dangerous of all those barbarians among whom civilized man could expose himself. Hunting the lion, taming the most fiery coursers, in short, all violent exercises, and bloodshed, and war, were their daily recreations. Nevertheless some traces of the milder manners of Arabia remained. Poetry, adapting itself to the tastes of these rude men, celebrated in songs burning with energy and enthusiasm the prowess and exploits of their warriors, the beauty of their women, the savage but sublime features of their country, or the antiquity and glory of their race. Making their sword the purveyor of their desires, they enjoyed whatever iron thus fashioned could purchase,—ample tents, costly and magnificent garments, vessels of copper or of brass, with abundance of silver and gold. In summer moving northward before the sun, they poured down upon the cultivated country lying along the shores of the Mediterranean, through a thousand mountain defiles, and collecting both fruit and grain as they were ripened by its rays, watched the retreat of the great luminary towards the southern tropic, and pursued