Three or four of our party have left us, mounted on maharees, for Ghat. They say they shall arrive in six or seven days. They will soon see if banditti are before us, and will return to let us know. Thought I should escape the orthodox _body_-guard. But it seems not. Where every person is obliged to accept of this guard, _bon gré, malgré_, it seems I must submit. However, I shall do without their services if possible. I offended a Moor by telling him that Christians do not require it, and have not this guard: it is only "peculiar to Mussulmans." A necessary part of the occupation of a ghafalah when it reaches a well is collecting and cracking the vermin. The camels are terrible things for straying. If they are surrounded with immense patches of the most choice herbage, even which is their delicium, they still keep on straying the more over it miles and miles. As to our nagah, we are obliged to tie her fore-feet, which prevents the camel from getting at a very great distance from the encampment. The camels are sly, unimpassioned, and deliberately savage, one to another, more especially the males. At times they go steadily, and even slowly, behind one another, and turning the neck and head sideways, deliberately bite one another's haunches most ferociously. The drivers immediately separate them, for the bite is dangerous to their health, and often attended with serious mischief to the animal bitten. But I have never yet seen a camel kick or attack a man. They invariably grumble and growl, sometimes most piteously, when they are being loaded, as if deprecating the heavy burden about to be placed upon them, and appealing to the mercy of their masters. The merchants pay 13½ Tunisian piastres per cantar for goods now conveyed from Ghadames to Ghat. The Touaricks carry goods cheaper, but they are now gone after the Shânbah. The Arabs asked 25, but the Rais of Ghadames fixed it at 13½. A camel carries from 2 to 3½ cantars[62]. I confess I was sorry to see these apparently so quiet and melancholy creatures ferocious to one another; but I recollected that all animals, even doves, quarrel and fight, and particularly males, where females are concerned. To-day took out of my trunk Mr. Fletcher's note to me, to read over, which I had received from Malta during the time of my being in The Desert. The advice to travellers which it contains in a very few words, is so good, so excellent, that I shall take the liberty of transcribing it here, for the benefit of all future tourists in The Desert. 1st. "Keep a sharp look out about you, and pick up information." 2nd. "Keep with Sheiks, Religionists, (he means I suppose, Marabouts,) and Chieftains, for these are the only people who can give you protection." 3rd. "Expose yourself to no unnecessary risks and dangers." 4th. "Conciliate!"