ench Government for the
convenience of travellers, and are very well organised. Each one is
under the superintendence of a Frenchman, and has one part devoted to
Europeans and another to Arabs. We had an excellent sitting-room and
bed-room to ourselves, and, as may be supposed, were exceedingly
comfortable.

Wednesday, the 14th of March, was ushered in by a pouring rain; and we
received the agreeable intelligence that the river between this and
our next station was perfectly impassable; so we made up our minds to
stay where we were. There was some consolation in the thought that
Joseph, the exceedingly keen horse-dealer at Medea, will not be
entitled to charge extra for the delay to his mules, he having bound
himself, by solemn covenant, to deliver the baggage safely at Teniet
for a certain stipulated sum.

After breakfast I walked into the forest which surrounds the
caravanserai on all sides, and shot two or three brace of red-legged
partridges and a woodcock. I saw the traces of several wild boars;
they were evidently quite recent; also a wretched porcupine the Arabs
had killed.

In the course of the day the Arabs brought in a boar which they had
killed in the morning. They threw the entrails outside the house, and,
during the night, quite an army of jackals came down to devour them.
It was so dark that we could not get a shot at these African
scavengers, though I sallied out once or twice after them.

It rained all night, so that going on was out of the question, from
the swollen state of the river; so I walked off before breakfast, with
Angelo, to an Arab village, about a mile and a half distant, to
inquire about boars. The promise of some powder brought out the
inhabitants; and, after a little banter and chaffing, they agreed to
meet me after breakfast, and to show me one of those animals. So I
returned to the caravanserai to breakfast, and then, with my friend,
rode back to the Arab huts. We left our horses at the village, and
proceeded to climb a horribly steep hill in company with some of the
natives, to whom I had promised tobacco-money, on condition of being
brought face to face with a boar. After some tremendously steep
climbing, we came upon a number of recent tracks, one of which B----
followed with his Arab, while I remained in another gorge. Presently I
heard a shot fired, about a mile off; and, on returning to where the
horses were tethered, I found that B---- and his Arab had succeeded in
discover