was
seen approaching with silken flags. When the horsemen had advanced
within five hundred yards of the party, they set off at full speed,
and, on coming up, threw themselves from their horses, and ran to
kiss the sultan's hand. On drawing nearer to the town, the cavalcade
was met by the dancers, drummers, and pipers. Two men, bearing fans
of ostrich feathers, stationed themselves on each side of the sultan,
beating off the flies. Thus preceded by the led horses and silken
flags, they made their entry, the horsemen continuing to skirmish
till they reached the gate. The soldiers then raced up every broad
street, shouting and firing, whilst the women uttered their shrill
cry, and on passing a large open space, a salute was fired from two
six-pounders. The scene was altogether highly interesting.

Mourzouk is a walled town, containing about 2,500 inhabitants, who
are blacks, and who do not, like the Arabs, change their residence.
The walls are of mud, having round buttresses, with loopholes for
musketry, rudely built, but sufficiently strong to guard against
attack; they are about fifteen feet in height, and at the bottom
eight feet in thickness, tapering, as all the walls in this country
do, towards the top. The town has seven gates, four of which are
built up, in order to prevent the people escaping when they are
required to pay their duties. A man is appointed by the sultan to
attend each of these gates, day and night, lest any slaves or
merchandise should be smuggled into the town. The people, in building
the walls and houses, fabricate a good substitute for stones, which
are not to be found in those parts, by forming clay into balls, which
they dry in the sun, and use with mud as mortar; the walls are thus
made very strong, and as rain is unknown, durable also. The houses,
with very few exceptions, are of one story, and those of the poorer
sort, receive all their light from the doors. They are so low as to
require stooping nearly double to enter them; but the large houses
have a capacious outer door, which is sufficiently well contrived,
considering the bad quality of the wood, that composes them. Thick
palm planks, of four or five inches in breadth, for the size and
manner of cutting a tree will not afford more, have a square hole
punched through them at the top and bottom, by which they are firmly
wedged together with thick palm sticks; wet thongs of camels' hide
are then tied tightly over them, which, on drying, d