14 
AN ARAB TENT. 
mencement of the journey. My chaouch, Mohammed 
Soiiweea, preceded me on his g-reat horse, murmur- 
ing some Arab ditty, and I followed hard on my 
little donkey. The desert assails the walls of Tri- 
poli, and in half an hour we v/ere in the Sahara 
sands, which here and there rise in great mounds. 
I should have liked to have pushed on to some con- 
sidera,ble distance at once ; but the habits of the 
country are dilatory, and one must conform to them. 
In a couple of hours we came to the chaouch's tent, 
w^here he had a wife, five children, and seven bro- 
thers, one of whom was blind. He, too, was to go 
through the sad ceremony of parting with his 
family ; and he burst into tears when they sur- 
rounded and embraced him. I am sorry to say, how- 
ever, that before this affecting scene was concluded, 
a quarrel had began between the blind man and the 
chaouch's wife, about tvv^o Tunisian piastres which 
were missing, she accusing him of theft and he 
indignantly repelling the charge. These Easterns 
seem to have minds constructed on different pat- 
terns from ours, and are apt to introduce such petty 
discussions at the most solemn moments ; but we 
must not, therefore, be hasty in concluding that there 
is any sham in their sorrow, or affectation in their 
pathetic bewaiiings. 
They brought in a bowl of milk, and as the 
chaoucli still continued to caress his children, I left 
him to pass the night in his tent, and pushed on to 
Wady Majeeneen, where my portion of the caravan 
