When the Tawátíye were about to go away, Ámagay, or Mággi, as he is generally called, the chief eunuch of the Sultan, came; and I was ordered by my Kél-owí companions, who had put on all their finery, to make myself ready to pay a visit to the Sultan. Throwing, therefore, my white heláli bernús over my black tobe, and putting on my richly ornamented Ghadámsi shoes, which formed my greatest finery, I took up the letters and the treaty, and solicited the aid of my servant Mohammed to assist me in getting it signed; but he refused to perform any such service, regarding it as a very gracious act on his part that he went with me at all. The streets and the market-places were still empty when we went through them, which left upon me the impression of a deserted place of bygone times; for even in the most important and central quarters of the town most of the dwelling-houses were in ruins. Some meat was lying ready for sale, and a bullock was tied to a stake, while numbers of large vultures, distinguished by their long naked neck, of reddish colour, and their dirty-greyish plumage, were sitting on the pinnacles of the crumbling walls, ready to pounce upon any kind of offal. These natural scavengers I afterwards found to be the constant inhabitants of all the market-places, not only in this town, but in all places in the interior. Directing our steps by the high watch-tower, which, although built only of clay and wood, yet, on account of its contrast to the low dwelling-houses around, forms a conspicuous object, we reached the gate which leads into the palace or fáda, a small separate quarter, with a large, irregular courtyard, and from twenty to twenty-five larger and smaller dwellings. Even these were partly in ruins; and one or two wretched conical cottages built of reeds and grass, in the midst of them, showed anything but a regard to cleanliness. The house, however, in which the Sultan himself dwelt proved to have been recently repaired, and had a neat and orderly appearance; the wall was nicely polished, and the gate newly covered in with boards made of the stem of the dúm-tree, and furnished with a door of the same material. We seated ourselves apart, on the right side of a vestibule, which, as is the case of all the houses of this place, is separated from the rest of the room by a low balustrade, about ten inches high, and in this shape: [Illustration]