We left in the afternoon and encamped in The Desert at Shouwabeeah. The Desert here presents nothing but long coarse grass and undulating ground. I observed a patch which had been cultivated, the stubble of barley remaining, which the camels devoured most voraciously. Chopped barley-straw is the favourite food of all animals of burden in North Africa; horses will feed on it for six months together, and get fat. _En route_ the chief of the escort had great trouble to keep the caravan together; he made the advanced parties wait till the others came up, so as all to be ready in case of attack. One would think the merchants, for their own sakes, would keep together; but no, it's all _maktoub_ with them; "If they are to be robbed and murdered they must be robbed and murdered, and the Bashaw and all his troops can't prevent it." This they reiterated to me whilst the commandant bullied them; and yet these same men had each of them a matchlock and pistols besides. The Sheikh Makouran had no less than four guns on his camel. I asked him what they were for. He coolly replied, "I don't know. God knows." The camels browse or crop herbage all the way along, daintily picking and choosing the herbage and shrubs which they like best. My chief occupation in riding is watching them browse, and observing the epicurean fancies of these reflective, sober-thinking brutes of The Desert. I observe also as a happy trait in the Arab, that nothing delights him more than watching his own faithful camel graze. The ordinary drivers sometimes allow them to graze, and wait till they have cropped their favourite herbage and shrubs, and at other times push them forward according to their caprice. The camel, with an intuitive perception, knows all the edible and delicate herbs and shrubs of The Desert, and when he finds one of his choicest it is difficult to get him on until he has cropped a good mouthful. But I shall have much to write of this sentient "ship of The Desert." It is hard to forget the ship which carries one safely over the ocean, whose plank intervenes between our life and a bottomless grave of waters: so we tourists of The Desert acquire a peculiar affection for the melancholy animal, whose slow but faithful step carries us through the hideous wastes of sand and stone, where all life is extinct, and where, if left a moment behind the camel's track, certain death follows.