resided. Our own tents were pitched in the Mushoir, or place of
audience, a spacious plain, enclosed by a wall, where the sheik
gave audience to the various kabyls of Suse. The following day we
had an audience of the prince, who requested me to accompany Delemy
to a port of Suse, which had been formerly frequented by European
ships, which took in water there, and ascertain if it were a port
convenient for a commercial establishment. The name of this seaport
was called Tomie by the Portuguese, who formerly had an
establishment there; but by the Arabs, _Sebah Biure_, i.e. the
Seven Wells, because there were seven wells of excellent water
139 there: three of them, however, when we visited this port, were
filled up and useless. We left Delemy's castle in the afternoon,
about two or three o'clock, and we went at a pace called by the
Arabs _el herka_[119], over a plain country infested with rats, and
the haunts of serpents, our horses continually stumbling over the
rat-holes. We were, to the best of my recollection, about four
hours going. We found Tomie, an open road, not altogether
calculated to form an advantageous commercial establishment. Its
situation with respect to the sea being somewhat objectionable. We
sat down near one of the wells, and after Delemy and his guards had
amused themselves with (_lab el borode_) running full gallop and
firing, we drank Hollands till we became gay. The sun had just set,
when we mounted our horses to return. After an hour's _herka_, we
approached a douar of the Woled Abbusebah Arabs, who, seeing their
sheik, came forward and kissed his stirrups, entreating him to pass
the night with them, which, it appeared, would have been contrary
to the etiquette of Arabian hospitality to refuse. Delemy,
therefore, asked us if we would consent to sleep there; and,
apologising for not conducting us to our own beds that night, again
intimated, that it was, in a manner, incumbent on him, not to
refuse. We, therefore, consented to stop. This noble-spirited Arab,
140 anxious to entertain us, and justly conceiving that the beds and
habits of these Arabs were very different from what we had been
accustomed to, sought to beguile the time, and accordingly
endeavoured to engage some ladies belonging to the douar to dance,
but they positively d