UNPLEASANT SQUABBLE. 
27 
impression upon him at the time, but he had for- 
gotten it long before it had ceased to be the subject 
of my anxious thoughts — " O God, I beseech thee, 
indeed, to give us a prosperous journey ! But thy 
will be done. We are entirely in thy hands ! " 
April lOth. — We had another glorious row this 
morning before starting. A man who had gone to 
fetch the blacksmith, and found him not, demanded 
payment of two Tunisian piastres. The chaouch, 
suspecting that he never went at all, but concealed 
himself in the village, would not pay him. This 
brought on a collision. Sheikh Omer supported 
us ; and so all the people of the other village took 
part against us. Two of them were armed, and 
some of us thought it advisable to load our pistols. 
At last, however, we pushed them away from the 
tent by force ; and, in the first moment of indigna- 
tion, wrote a letter to the Pasha about them. 
Hearing of this, they came to beg us not to send 
the letter, which was accordingly torn up by the 
Sheikh. My chaouch was the great actor in all 
this affair ; and it was necessary that I should sup- 
port him, even if he were a little wrong, otherwise 
he would have had no confidence in himself or us 
in cases of difHcuity. 
The Sheikh, who, as well as ourselves, has lost 
some little things during these days, gives the people 
of Mizdah a very bad character. In the scuffle, I 
noticed that they called him. Fezzanee, which is used 
as a term of insult in these parts. " All the Fez- 
