ADVICE TO THE AMATEUR LION HUNTER. 167 



leave your burnous, which is too white, and bind your shirt 

 around } r our waist." 



Whilst our pupil is making his toilet, the old man goes 

 to the tent of a friend and says to him : 



" My son is ready." 



The mother cries at first for fear of failure or misfortune ; 

 but she is told that the young people will be conducted by a 

 courageous and prudent friend. 



All is arranged, and about ten o'clock, in a heavy rain and 

 dark night, three men covered with shirts the color of the 

 ground, reaching to the knee and bound by a leathern belt, 

 silently leave the douar. 



Under a burnous pieced in a thousand places, and which, 

 has served three generations without having been washed, 

 each of the adventurers hides a pistol and dagger. The 

 head is covered with a brown hood and the feet are bare. 



They cross the fields in silence and only stop at the sight 

 of the enemy's fires. It is a douar of ten or twelve tents 

 placed close together in a circle ; in the middle are the flocks 

 and herds. Outside and before each tent are a number of 

 dogs keeping good watch. 



In this douar is a man whose father or grandfather has 

 killed a near relative, or mayhap a distant ancestor of one of 

 our adventurers, and it is the life of this man they seek. 

 The fires are extinguished, one by one, and everybody in the 

 douar seems to be asleep, except the dogs. The old man 

 guiding the boys, knowing that at a certain hour of the night 

 some of the dogs, overcome with fatigue, yield to the 

 influence of slumber, patiently awaits the moment of action. 



