248 JOURNEY FROM days without a drop of water of any kind. It may therefore be readily imagined that they were not in very excellent condition before half the journey had been accomplished, and indeed it w as distressing to see the wasted carcasses which most of them presented on arriving in the neighbourhood of Bengazi ; but we may venture to say that few, if any, European horses, under similar circumstances, would have survived the journey which they performed at all ; much less have displayed the activity and spirit which never left them, under so much fatigue and privation.

We were often amused, in spite of his forlorn condition, with the spirit exerted on all occasions by an old white horse, which was rode by one of our servants ; he had belonged for many years to a soldier of the Bashaw, and his face was well known to all the Arabs of Bengazi, as a constant appendage to the army which came there occasionally to collect the tribute. This fine-spirited animal, before the journey was half over, had scarcely a leg to stand upon, yet he never for a moment forgot his military habits, and would arch his neck, and curvet, and throw himself back on his haunches at the slightest application of the spur. No fatigue or exhaustion could ever make him forget that he had once been a charger of some consideration : even in walking he would lift up his legs, and step out, wdth all the parade and importance of a horse trained at Astley’s or the Circus ; throwing his head about, at the same time, from one side to the other, as if he took a delight in displaying his long mane, and shewing himself off to advantage.

It may weU be supposed that no exertions of our own were at