146 TUARICK MANNERS SCORPION. 
reals, or fifty Tunisian piastres. Of our five reals 
the Germans take one and a half, and the Sfaxee 
a half. This will make it lighter for me. Our 
people made a regular feast of the camel's flesh, 
some of them sitting up and gorging till midnight. 
Their noise did not disturb me, for I had slept a 
good deal in the day. 
I had done very little indeed but sleep and lie 
down. We felt the heat severely at noon. A gust 
of hot wind nearly carried away our tent. 
The Tuaricks use spoons, and do not eat with 
their hands like the Arabs and Turks ; but the latter 
pretend that the Tuaricks never wash their hands 
at all, whilst they, before and after eating, always 
take this precaution. In saluting, the Tuaricks do 
not spread out the fingers much when they raise 
their hand, but present the palm and fingers out- 
Stretched to you. One of these gentlemen, whom I 
call the noisy one, has got a poor little slave-boy, 
about seven years of age, who works like a man, and 
goes quite naked. 
To-day I found a young scorpion in the canvass- 
case of my writing-desk ; he cocked his tail in a 
hostile attitude, as if daring any one to touch him. 
In his tail seems to be all his power, and so of all 
the scorpion host. Yesterday was taken a locust : 
this destructive insect is not bred in the desert. In 
this bare and thirsty region there is nothing for the 
young ones to eat, and the old ones likewise would 
soon perish in the Sahara. They are bred in the 
