We then took our leave of ʿOmár, and returned to our tents. The place of the encampment was a fine, open, sandy, undulating level, commanding the vale, where are the wells Yongo or Bú-Halíma, covered with verdure, and richly adorned with scattered mimosas. The tents and sheds of the Arabs were spread over a great space; and no precaution was taken to obtain some degree of security by means of fences and stockades. The sun having set, I lay down outside my tent to enjoy the coolness and tranquillity of the evening after a hot and troublesome day. All seemed calm and tranquil, when suddenly a terrible screaming and crying arose from the women in the west part of the encampment. We hurried to our arms, thinking that an enemy had entered the place. The cry “ʿAlá e’ dhahar! ʿala e’ dhahar” (“Mount! mount!”)—properly speaking, “In the saddle!” “in the saddle!”—sounded from all sides, and the horsemen hurried past us; but it was only a small party of freebooters, who, in the twilight of the evening, had made an attack upon the camels, and after having put to flight two or three men and killed a horseman, had driven off a part of the herd. Our friends pursued the robbers at full speed, and soon overtook them, when they retreated into the thicket, and gave up their booty. In this way we had a specimen of the character of our present expedition the very first day we had joined this little horde; and the lamentations of the females, on account of the man who had been slain, sounded wofully through the night, and brought before our minds the fate which, in a very short time, might befall ourselves. Late in the night, when the alarm had subsided, Sheikh Ghét sent us a heifer as a present. [Sidenote: Thursday, October 2nd.] We remained quietly in our encampment, and obtained a great deal of valuable information respecting the south-eastern part of the lake and the districts adjacent.[10] Thus the day passed by most pleasantly. Nothing remarkable happened to us on the following day, except the arrival of the important news that the Agíd of Wadáy, who had resided in Mʿawó, on the report of an attack intended to be made by the Arabs upon that town, had fled. This news, if it proved true, held out, of course, a feeble ray of hope that we might be able to penetrate to the eastern shore of the lake; and the Arabs formed schemes accordingly. As Háj ʿAbbás, who had come with us in order to raise from the Arabs Háj Beshír’s share in the spoil of their last predatory excursions, was to return to Kúkawa in a few days, I wrote a letter to the vizier concerning the prospect we had of probably not being able to accomplish the whole of our design. The rest of the day I enjoyed in comfort, stretched quietly in the shade of a tree; but my tranquillity was a little disturbed by disputes that arose amongst my men. [Sidenote: Saturday, October 4th.]