The Pasha of Murzuk sent soldiers out to bury the bodies. They laid a strip of calico about thirty yards long on the sand, and wound it round Miss Tinne’s body by rolling it over with sticks, to avoid touching her. Then they put boards on each side loaded with stones, and piled sand over all. The two bodies of the faithful sailors were laid on each side of her. Men were afterwards sent out to mark the spot, but the sand of the desert had in the interval been blown over the place, thus hiding the grave of this beautiful and talented woman.[81] [Illustration: LETTER OF MISS TINNE TO HER NEPHEW JOHN. Written from Tripoli, 1869.] The leader of not a few exploring parties in Africa has been alone to blame for disasters to his expedition, by committing himself or allowing his followers to commit misdeeds sufficient to justify native hostility. But wherever Miss Tinne and her expeditions went in Africa, they left behind them nothing but the memory of considerate treatment, kindness, and acts of sumptuous generosity. In all the preparations which Miss Tinne made for crossing the Sahara, and so reaching the western limits of the Nile basin, she showed a desire to conciliate the suspicions of the people, and paid generously for assistance afforded. The fierce Berber tribes which range over the Sahara Desert from North Africa to the neighbourhood of Lake Chad, almost alone of all African races, have earned sharp reprisals from Europeans for their innumerable acts of causeless treachery to explorers. If ever the French occupy the district of Ghat, as they will eventually some day, it is to be hoped that they will bear in mind the massacre of Alexandrine Tinne and avenge it. This woman was the romantic figure in Nile exploration. Young and beautiful,[82] remarkably accomplished, a daring horsewoman, a charming Diana; mistress of many tongues, including Arabic, and generous to a fault, it is little wonder that the “Signorina” (as she was called in the days when most dragomen were Italian or Maltese) has lingered as a beautiful and gracious demi-goddess in the remembrance of such Arabs and Nile Negroes of the Egyptian Sudan as were not exterminated by the Mahdi’s revolt. * * * * *