44 KAMBLES OF A NATURALIST. 



places is covered with pebbles, and in others with small 

 bright stones. On the sand he prefers to go barefoot. 

 Socks are not worn by the poorer class. Every man carries 

 a knife, professedly for eating, but also for defence when 

 occasion requires, and I fear for offence also, the " piping 

 times of peace " being not much known in those dark lands. 

 It is slung round his waist, and kept in its sheath by a piece 

 of string passed through a hole in the handle. All classes 

 tattoo themselves more or less, and Jicnna is in great re- 

 quest among them, for staining their nails pink. 



Having added to our party an Arab named Ateya 

 Banateya, whose local knowledge for the next few miles 

 Avould be a great assistance to us, we now began to pass 

 through a vast plain, slightly undulating, interspersed with 

 dayats, each a mile or half a mile apart. Ateya inveighed 

 against the French for imprisoning his son at Marseilles, 

 who had joined in the revolt ; while Mohammed beguiled 

 the time with an account of how when a boy he had gone 

 to war with his father, and killed a man by spearing him in 

 the back ; which was no doubt very plucky, but some rough 

 unhewn stones by the wayside had a deeper tale for me 

 than the exploits of either of them. I judged them to be 

 the graves of wayfarers who had in all probability perished 

 of thirst. They may have been the very cairns which 

 Canon Tristram and Mr. Peed reverently contributed a 

 stone to. Meanwhile I was on the " qui vive " for every- 

 thing. [This region has been visited by only two ornitholo- 

 gists, while the route from Waregla to Gardames is still a 

 "terra incognita" to naturalists; for if the unfortunate 

 M. M. Dupere and Joubert, who were murdered near that 

 city, made any collections, they perished with them. I 

 am convinced that an expedition there would repay any 

 naturalist, for he would infallibly meet with forms of desert 

 life unknown to science, and I would recommend him to 

 pay particular attention to the Chats and Larks.] 



