162 
THE ORIENTAL ANNUAL. 
pace and with unbroken order, through the western 
portal, and continued their apparently perilous 
career until they reached the plain again, where 
they dispersed and leisurely entered the forest. 
Fifty squadrons, each one hundred strong, thus passed 
in review before the astonished Dherm-ben-Nassuk- 
ites, who expressed their admiration by continued 
shouts of applause. When the last squadron had 
disappeared, the chief expressed his regret that he 
was unable to exhibit to his guests the wonderful 
feats of arms and horsemanship which were the daily 
practice of a certain picked division of his troops, 
one thousand in number, who were then absent upon 
a distant expedition. Then having distributed 
pawn to the officers, as a mark of honourable dis- 
missal, he furnished them with a guard of honour 
to conduct them through the pass, and bade them 
take their leave. 
Meanwhile the greatest anxiety prevailed at the 
court of Dherm-ben-Nassuk concerning the fate of 
the detachment, of whom not one word of news had 
been received, since they had entered the pass in 
pursuit of the banditti. The greatest apprehension 
was excited by the circumstance of Yakoob Lais’s 
visit to the palace : for on the morning after that 
event, the mystery which attached to the position of 
things upon the first discovery was sufficiently 
cleared up by the salt, which was found scattered 
about the floor, where Yakoob Lais had thrown it 
