In spite of the freshness and coolness of mountain air, it has been very hot these last two days. On the plains, the people say the heat is now overpowering. There is scarcely any natural produce about. A few sheep and goats, a camel or two, and a few asses, are all the animals I have seen. The fig-trees produce something, but I have seen no prickly-pears, which support many poor families on The Coast, during several months every year. The olive plantations are the principal resource of these poor mountaineers, which are also a sensible relief for the eye on these bare heights. In the houses there is hardly anything to be got. No pepper, no onions, no meat killed or sold. No bread can be obtained for love or money. I laid in a stock of fresh bread in Tripoli for a fortnight, but my gluttonous camel driver devoured all in three or four days! There were no less than fifty twopenny loaves. He was accustomed to eat in the night, when I was asleep, and used to threaten to beat Said if he blabbed. I mentioned the circumstance after, to the Rais of Ghadames, who observed: "If you had brought a thousand loaves, all would have been devoured." Notwithstanding this abject poverty, a bullying tax-gatherer, with half a dozen louting soldiers, have been up here prowling about, and wresting with violence the means of supporting life from these miserable beings. The scenes which I witness are heart-rending, beyond all I have heard of Irish misery and rent-distraining bullies. One man had his camel seized, the only support of his family; another his bullock; another a few bushels of barley: the houses were entered, searched, and ransacked; people were dragged by the throat through the villages, and beaten with sticks; and all because the poor wretches had no money to meet the demands of these voracious bailiffs. Poverty is, indeed, here a crime. One poor old woman had a few bad unripe figs seized, and came to me, and a group of wretched villagers, crying out bitterly. One or two men, who were imagined to have something, though they had nothing, were held by the throat until they were nearly suffocated. I cursed over and over again in my heart the Turks. I was not prepared for such scenes of cruelty in these remote mountains. We shall find, that amongst the so-called barbarians of The Desert there was nothing equal in atrocity to this. What wonder that the Arab prefers, if he can, to pasture his flocks on savage and remote wastes to being subjected to these regular Governments--of extortion! And yet we, in our ignorance of what is here going on, are surprised at their preference. If the people are not ready with their money, the little barley, their winter's store, is seized, and they must pay afterwards their usual quotas of money. Several bags of barley are illegally gotten in this way. The amount of tax or tribute for the whole district of Rujban is five or six hundred mahboubs, which is