We have sometimes moral disquisitions among our people.  This day we had a dispute on religion.  The Zintanah, a real orthodox Musulman, maintained a strict distinction between the believers and unbelievers, giving heaven to the former and hell to the latter.  Yusuf and several more tolerant gentlemen held out hope of mercy to us all, as God was “the Compassionate and the Merciful.”  The chaouch also lectured the people on courage, and publicly maintained that the Fezzanees were all cowards.  This fellow is a second Sir John Falstaff, without the corpulence.  The tone of all members of the caravan, as I have mentioned, is now much humanised.  Every one is more civil to us, and, by habit, to one another.  However, the chaouches must, of course, get up a quarrel now and then:  they do it between themselves; but, as a sign that they likewise are a little civilised, have only had two regular explosions to-day.  Probably these worthies, who remind me of a bull-dog and a terrier, find particular pleasure in this form of social intercourse; for I always observe, that they are on more friendly terms than ever after they have almost come to beard-pulling.

I interfere as little as possible in all these quarrels, but now and then it is difficult to hold aloof.  This morning, for example, the black who has two wives, took it into his head to beat one of them in public.  I called upon him to desist, upon which he went to work harder than ever; so that I was compelled to break a stick over his shoulders to reduce him to quietness.  These little caravan incidents were often the only ones that diversified our day.

On the 26th, after a march of ten hours, with cool weather at first, but suffocating heat afterwards, we reached Edree, a town of El-Shaty, in a state of great exhaustion.  During the latter part of the march, however, we had been cheered by the sight of the town, which stands on a small mound of yellow clay and rock.  The whitewashed marabout of Bou Darbalah gleamed a little distance in front of the place, which in itself is now a heap of ruins, having been destroyed by Abd-el-Galeel, on account of the resistance of the inhabitants to his usurped authority.  He also, with a cruelty rarely practised in Saharan warfare, cut down above a thousand palms; thus rendering it impossible for the place to recover rapidly from its disasters.  Previously there had been a hundred and twenty heads of families; now there are only twenty-five, and these are still diminishing it is said.  However, many little children are now in the streets, naked, and covered with filth.

These few inhabitants are a mixed race, some being as fair as those on the coast, whilst others are as black as the darkest negroes of Central Africa.  The Sheikh and two or three patriarchs of the village were polite and hospitable, and showed every disposition to comply with the orders sent by the Pasha of Mourzuk to supply us with fresh provisions without payment.  I accepted a sheep and two fowls; but the dates for our blacks I paid for, and added a few presents.