250 
JOURNEY FROM 
fever, without their appearing to sustain any particular inconveni- 
ence, or to be more than usually exhausted at night*. 
The habit of feeding horses only once a day is common in Africa 
under the most favourable circumstances. Their meal is after sunset, 
and before their corn is given them they are generally allowed to 
drink as much as they like. After this they get neither corn nor 
water till the same time on the following day. Some of the Arabs 
make a constant practice of obliging their horses to go two days 
without drinking, in order to accustom them to support with a bet- 
ter grace the privations they must occasionally be exposed to in the 
desert ; a mode of training which would probably have the same 
effect on our Enghsh horses as that which is said to have resulted 
from the well-known experiment of the Frenchman, who had just 
contrived to make his horse do without food, when he was unluckily 
prevented by the death of the animal from availing himself of so 
important an advantage. 
A few weeks’ repose in a comfortable stable at Bengazi was, how- 
ever, sufficient to restore most of our horses to their former strength 
and condition; and they afterwards carried us in very good style 
over the steep woody hills and rugged passes of the Cyrenaica. 
From Carcora to Bengazi the country improves at every step, and 
we soon found ourselves surrounded by extensive crops of barley and 
abundance of excellent pasturage : this increase of produce was natu- 
* The horses, when we stopped, were ranged in a line along a thick cord, to which 
their fore legs were fastened ; and a smaller cord was passed from this to one of their 
hind legs, to prevent them from kicking one another. 
