Hope and confidence had now taken possession of the mind of Major Denham, in the place of anxiety and disappointment; there was now an air of assurance and success in all their arrangements, and, with this conviction, Major Denham felt his health and spirits increase.  But little beyond the casualties attendant on desert travelling, occurred previously to their arriving again at Sockna, which took place on the 2nd October.

Major Denham found that the great failing of his friend, Boo Khaloom, was pomp and show; and feeling that he was on this occasion the representative of the bashaw, he was evidently unwilling that any sultan of Fezzan should exceed him in magnificence.  On entering Sockna, his six principal followers, handsomely attired in turbans and fine barracans, and mounted on his best horses, kept near his person, whilst the others at a little distance, formed the flanks.  Major Denham rode on his right hand, dressed in his British uniform, with loose Turkish trousers, a red turban, red boots, with a white bornouse over all, as a shade from the sun, and this, though not strictly according to orders, was by no means an unbecoming dress.  Boo Khaloom was mounted on a beautiful white Tunisian horse, a present from the bashaw, the peak and rear of the saddle covered with gold, and his housings were of scarlet cloth, with a border of gold six inches broad.  His dress consisted of red boots, richly embroidered with gold, yellow silk trousers, a crimson velvet caftan with gold buttons, a silk benise of sky blue, and a silk sidria underneath.  A transparent white silk barraca was thrown lightly over this, and on his shoulder hung a scarlet bornouse with wide gold lace, a present also from the bashaw, which had cost at least four hundred dollars, and a cashmere shawl turban crowned the whole.  In this splendid array they moved on, until, as they approached the gates of the town, the dancing and singing men and women met them, and amidst these, the shouts and firing of the men, who skirmished before them, and the loo! loo! of the women, they entered Sockna.

They found that houses were provided for them in the town, but the kafila bivouacked outside the gates.  It had always been their intention to halt at Sockna for three or four days, and here they expected to be joined by a party of Megarha Arabs, whom their sheik, Abdi Smud ben Erhoma, had left them for the purpose of collecting together.  Hoon and Wadan were also to furnish them with another quota.

The house of Major Denham consisted of a court yard eighteen feet square, and a small dark room, leading out of it by two steps.  The court, however, was the greater part of the day shaded, and here on a carpet, the major received his visitors.  The Arabs, as they arrived, were all sent to him by Boo Khaloom, and their presentation has a form in it, not much in character with their accustomed rudeness:  they all come armed with their long guns, and the same girdle which confines their barracan, contains also