ATROCIOUS PROPOSAL OF A MOOR. 127 
turning 5 and they informed us, with an air of triumph, that 
the robbers had disappeared. All the evening the camp was 
in a tumult ; and there was a long deliberation what was to 
be done for want of water. It was an object to set off at 
night to avoid the heat of the day 5 but our prudent com- 
panions were afraid of being attacked on their way ; it was 
even suggested, that the robbers might have taken possession 
of the wells, at which we were to arrive the next day. Sen- 
tinels were appointed, and a watch was kept for a mile round 
the camp. 
On the 1st of June, at five in the morning, we prepared 
to continue our course to the north. Our water-bags were 
now dry, for we had supplied our last night's sentinels with 
water. All the forenoon we were travelling over a barren 
soil, which was dreary to look at ; it was composed of very 
hard sand, covered with much grey gravel, and small, flat, 
sharp-edged, black stones. I perceived, which was rather 
unusual, a number of small tracks of former caravans, and 
which the winds had not had the power to efface, because the 
soil is hard and stony. 
I shall here relate a conversation which passed in my 
presence between Sidi-Molut, a Trajacant Moor, and Sidi- 
Body, associates of Sidi-Aly, my guide, and some of my 
greatest tormentors ; the conversation turned upon the num- 
ber of slaves they supposed the Europeans to possess — 
just as they suppose that all the christians, of whom they 
know nothing but the names, are of one nation and subject 
to one chief. In this persuasion, Sidi-Molut related that the 
sultan of Morocco had made an agreement with the sultan 
of the christians for the exchange of prisoners of both sexes ; 
and that, by this treaty, a christian was to be exchanged for 
ten Musulmans, or a thousand piastres. The moment Body 
heard that the price of a christian slave was fixed at this 
sum, he interrupted Sidi-Molut, and said : " Well, we must 
