The children of this Saint, like many a saint himself, are very ignorant, and only one of them pretends to read and write, and to-day he was unfortunately not in the oasis. Those with whom I conversed were simple rude peasants, but polite in their manners, with countenances speaking a serenity of soul and happiness of disposition, not common to the inhabitants of the Saharan regions. They told me their village was _Zaweea_ ("a sanctuary"), and was recorded in the sacred archives of Constantinople as one of the most renowned places in the countries of the Prophet. It is, at any rate, one of the most venerated sanctuaries in the Sahara, and receives pious offerings from all. Amidst wars and tumults, and the depredations of banditti without and around, it remains secure and inviolate and inviolable. This has been its happy destiny through ages, and the villagers, poor and ignorant as they are, may be proud of their sacred unpolluted home. We have here a remarkable instance of the triumph of religious principle over brute force. The people of Ghadames make continual pilgrimages to the shrine of the Saint. The villagers brought our party dates, and all the women and children came out to look at me; the same jealous feelings do not exist amongst these unsuspecting untutored people as in Ghadames and other Desert cities. A happy thought occurred to me before I came away in the morning, of bringing them some wedding-cakes and sweets which had been sent to me: these I brought, with several loaves of bread. They received them very gratefully, dividing them among the whole population of seventy people, a morsel for each. They have no wheaten bread here; they live not on the "fat of the land," as the Christian poverty-vowing monks of our own and past times. These Desert saints are content with a scanty supply of barley-meal, a little olive-oil, and a few dates. I had been told they did not approve of holding _Ben-Adam_ as slaves, and was greatly disappointed to hear a reply from one of them, "If we had money we would have slaves; we have no slaves, because we have no money." By the way, the poverty of North Africa and The Sahara is one of the principal causes of the few domestic slaves now kept, in comparison with former times.