you will be fit for nothing else." Notwithstanding my
extreme weakness, I was much disposed to give this tigress an answer;
but in consideration of the condition of my companion, I resolved to
keep silence. If I had been the first to inform him of the matter, I
might perhaps have been able to have softened it in the recital; but,
there was no time, I was prevented, and could only mingle tears with
him.

My health, which had been preserved much better than I could have
expected, began now to fail. The skin of my body had been already twice
renewed. A third time, with inexpressible pain, I found it was covered,
if I may use the expression, with scales, like those of the Arabs. The
thistles upon which I walked, had torn my feet to the quick; I could not
longer support myself. In a word, the great dogs which they continually
hunted after me, and of which I could not get quit, till I had received
some cruel bites, altogether tended to make me quite unfit for keeping
the camels. To complete my misfortune, about the end of February and
March, the excessive heat dried up the water which we had found in this
district, and not so much as a single drop of rain had fallen to moisten
the ground which I had sowed. Our flocks, finding no more pasturage,
were upon the point of perishing, when at last, the two tribes of
Labdesseba and the Ouadelims, after having consulted, each for
themselves, resolved to go in search of lands occupied by more
industrious inhabitants. The Ouadelims carried their ravages as far as
Guadnum, about 300 leagues from the place where we had been encamped.
Some hordes of the Labdesseba, who were not of so wandering a
disposition as the former, remained behind; and as they were not so
numerous, they found subsistence for their flocks in the neighbouring
districts. They killed some sheep, and thus supported themselves till
the end of the following month, at a time when we ourselves were upon
our march to get out of the deserts, where extreme misery threatened all
the inhabitants.

I was in the dismal situation I have already described, when we
accidentally fell in with an Arab, who had in his retinue a Christian
slave, whom I immediately recollected to have been baker aboard our
ship. This Arab proposed to my master to give him a good bargain of this
slave; so that, as he was by no means disturbed in what manner he was to
find subsistence for him, he agreed to give a camel in exchange for this
new slave, who w