"See that soldier lying on the stone-bench; he is sick, and has nothing to eat." _The Nāther._--"Yes, he is ill." _I._--"But he has nothing to eat; can't you get him something to eat?" _The Nāther,_--"Pooh, he must die." The other Moors present laughed at my simplicity in begging something to eat for a fever-worn, emaciated wretch of a soldier. The matter of fact is, these poor fellows are detested by the inhabitants, and starved to death by the Government. The soldier had caught the fever of Derge, whilst sent there on business, which is a bad tertian fever, prevalent in some oases of The Sahara. Lately, as my turjeman and Said, with several negroes, were chatting, and saying people would have husbands and wives in the next world, I asked, in the manner of the Sadducees, "If a woman had three husbands in this world, whose wife would she be in the next?" They all answered, "_The wife of the last_." As some of the group of these theologians and diviners of the future state were negroes, I asked, "What _colour_ will people be in the next world?" They replied, "_All white_, and alike; and not only will their skins be white, but all their clothing will be _white_." White, indeed, is the favourite colour of Mussulmans; and a sooty-black Mohammedan negro will set off his face with a white turban, as our Christian niggers do their _japan_ with a lily-white neckcloth. But _white_ is the colour of purity, of religion in North Africa and The East, as in _Biblical_ times.--περιβεβλημένους ἐν ἱματίοις λευχοῖς. (Rev. iv. 4.) _20th._--Weather continues fine and cool. Less meat to be had; nothing decided about the new levy of money, except that the people will not or cannot pay. The Sheikh Makouran tells me he is greatly in debt to Messrs. Silva and Laby, and so are all Ghadamsee merchants. The money now employed in commerce is chiefly that of European and other merchants of Tripoli and Tunis. "We have no money," says Makouran, "we cannot pay any new levies. If Rais persists, he must collect our money at the edge of the sword; and this can't last, for we shall all soon die of hunger." These continual complaints make me melancholy, and added to my impatience "to be up and doing," make me very peevish. O Dio! but such is the lot of man, to suffer always, either in mind or body. Much annoyed at my taleb for eating Said's dinner, even before my face. These Moors, at least some of them, have neither honour nor conscience. I suppose the taleb is pinching his belly to pay his portion of the new contribution. To punish the taleb, I give Said coffee before him, without asking him to take any. I may observe, the Moors don't like to see me treat the poor blacks and slaves as their equals. I frequently give the negroes tea and coffee before I serve them, to show I despise such distinctions, although, perhaps, against propriety.