_16th_ and _17th._--Continues cold. People say I improve in Arabic. I ought, for I have enough of it. What is odd, I begin to joke with the people. It will be seen I have represented the Saharan people as mostly gloomy, and suffering from the oppression of their Government. Still there are times when they can force a smile, or crack a joke. They carry the joke so far that they have sometimes joked me about my fasting in Ramadan, a very sacred subject for a Mussulman. Every time I go into the streets, I meet with one or other with whom I try to get up a joke, for it grieves me to see the people suffer so much from bad government. After we come to satire, and with the help of the word _batel_, "good-for-nothing," we manage to hit off somebody. An Arab Sheikh came to us, one day, when we were joking. I said, "Oh! here's the lion-heart, who ran away from Emjessem for fear of the _Shânbah-Bātel_." The Arab, astounded, "Ya rajel (Oh man), I had nothing to eat!" "Nor have we here," replied a merchant, "you better go and hunt with the greyhounds of the Touaricks. The Rais has taken away all our victuals." The poor Arab went his way very queer and crestfallen. Speaking to a Moor of The Sahara, I said, "The Sahara is always healthy: look at these Touaricks, they are the children of The Desert." He replied, "The Sahara is the sea _on land_, and, like sea, is always more healthy than cultivated spots of the earth. These Touaricks are chiefly strong and powerful from drinking camels' milk[52]. They drink it for months together, often for four or five months, not eating or drinking anything else. After they have drank it some time, they have no evacuations for four or five days, and these are as white as my bornouse. It is the camels' milk which makes the Touaricks like lions. A boy shoots up to manhood in few years; and there's nothing in the world so nourishing as camel's milk." Caillié mentions that the chief of the Braknas lived for several months on nothing but milk; but it was cow's milk. Many of the Saharan tribes are supported for six months out of twelve on milk. The Moors seem to have a secret dislike for women, as well as a most obstinate desire to tyrannize over them. There is a lurking desire of this sort in the men-sex of all countries. Are we not the Lords of Creation? I actually get afraid of avowing to them that the supreme ruler of England is _a woman_, they are so confoundedly annoyed at the circumstance. The first questions of their surprise are, "How? Why?" &c. My taleb is very fond of supporting the doctrine of a woman having only a _fifth_ of her father's property. I annoy him by telling him it's a bad law, and that the daughter should have an equal share with the son. Lady Morgan is sadly wanted here; she would find ample additional materials for a second edition of "Woman and her Master." FOOTNOTES: [48] _Bazeen_, ‮بزين‬, called also _Aseedah_, ‮عصيدة‬.