FOOT OF TARANTA. -233 
and the business made up as among friends. This decision being 
delivered with great solemnity by Shum Hummar, one of the 
judges, (whose bushy hair dressed out in the true Hazorta fashion, 
added no slight ridicule to the scene) the affair was amicably 
settled, and peace once more happily re-established. On this 
occasion Shum Hummar behaved with great propriety, and 
evinced a degree of feeling which greatly raised him in our esti- 
mation. As to Omar, he was so much alarmed by what had 
happened when he came to his senses, that he begged my per- 
mission to leave us, as he did not dare to venture up Taranta in 
company with our bearers. I gave him two dollars, and was 
glad to get rid of him at so cheap a rate. 
During the night I was awakened by a general uproar in the 
camp, and the howling of a small terrier, which had been given 
me at the Cape by Admiral Bertie. One of the wild beasts w^hich 
abound in the neighbourhood, had seized it across the breast, 
and was in the act of carrying it off, when its cries and the shouts 
of our people, who continued always on the alert during the 
night, induced the animal to loose its hold, and the dog came 
howling back to my tent. From the form of the wounds which it 
had received on each side of the body, it appeared to me, that 
the animal which had attacked it must have been a species of 
leopard. The dog afterwards recovered, but died subsequently 
at Chelicut, of a disease greatly resembling the distemper. 
While we continued in our encampment at Tak-ksim-ta, a 
number of small parties passed by on their way to the coast with, 
merchandize, chiefly consisting of slaves, elephants' teeth, and 
grain ; the natives secure the latter from the weather by enclosing 
