TRIPOLY TO BENGAZI. 249 any time wanting to procure food and water for the weary animals who had so amply deserved them ; but we could only carry a certain portion of corn with us from Tripoly, and when this was exhausted we were obliged to depend upon occasional supplies from the Arab tents we met with in our route, and the scanty pasturage which the Syrtis afforded.

The distance at which some of the wells were placed from each other was the occasion of our being often without water ; and our horses, though suffering greatly from thirst, would frequently refuse to drink the water which we were glad to drink ourselves, when it chanced to be more than usually brackish.

It often happened when they had been long without water, or were more than ordinarily fatigued with the day’s exertions, that some of them would refuse to eat at all, though they had been without food the whole of the day, as well as all the night which preceded it.

They were never in the habit of being fed more than once a day, which was in the evening, when we stopped for the night ; so that if they refused to eat their corn at that time, or before starting the next morning, it was more than probable that they would get nothing till the tents were pitched again, after sunset, on the evening succeeding. Under these circumstances they would perhaps have to trot hard the whole day, and occasionally to gallop, when we were pressed for time ; sometimes along the loose sand on the beach, and at others up and down hill in every direction, wherever there was anything to examine : all this often happened during a hot southerly wind, and under a burning sun, which kept them in a continual