horrid deed, with which the Moor had refused to stain his hands. One of the murderers immediately tied his turban round the neck of the victim, and strangled him on the spot, he pulling one end while his comrade held the other. The corpse of the unfortunate Laing was cast upon the desert, to become the prey of the raven and the vulture, the only birds which inhabit those desolate regions. When the major had once been discovered to be a christian and a European, death was a thousand times preferable to even a temporary change of religion, since he must have renounced all hope of again visiting Europe. The fate of Laing, had he become a Musulman perforce, would have been irremediably wretched. He would have been the slave of merciless barbarians, and exposed to all the miseries and dangers peculiar to that country; in vain would the pacha of Tripoli have demanded his liberation. At that immense distance, the chief of the Zawâts would have scorned his menaces and detained his prisoner. The resolution of Major Laing was perhaps at once a proof of intrepidity and of foresight. On his departure for El-Arawan the major took with him some astronomical instruments and his papers, but very little merchandise, for the Tooariks had relieved him of nearly all he possessed. The Sheikh Hamet therefore gained little by the murder of the English traveller, and he was even obliged to divide that little with the wretches whom he had made the instruments of his crime. A Moor of Tafilet, who belonged to the caravan, had for his share of the spoil a sextant, which I was informed might be found in the country. As for the major’s papers and journals, they were scattered among the inhabitants of the desert. During my stay at Gourland, a village of Tafilet, I saw a copper pocket compass, of English manufacture. Nobody could tell me whence this instrument had come, and I concluded that it had belonged to Laing. Had it not been for the precautions I was compelled to observe in my Arabic disguise, I would have given a good price for it; but I could not, without betraying myself, show that I attached the least value to an instrument, of the use of which I was supposed to be ignorant.