of an officer appointed for the purpose. Occasionally, when neither towns nor villages appeared, they lodged more romantically in a cavern, beneath the shelf of a rock, under the arches of ancient cisterns, or in a grove of trees; and at other times threw themselves upon the bare sand, and made the sky their mantle. When they happened to fall in with an Arab encampment, or douar, as it is termed in Barbary, they were almost invariably entertained with hospitality, the master of the tent in which they lodged killing a kid or a goat, a lamb or a sheep, according to the number of his guests, and causing the half of it to be immediately seethed by his wife, while the remainder was cut into kabobs, or small pieces, and roasted for the travellers to take away with them next day. On these occasions, if his hosts were particularly obliging, and entertained him with "savoury" viands, our traveller would generally, he says, present the master of the tent with a knife, a couple of flints, or a small quantity of English gunpowder, and the lallah, or lady, with "a skein of thread, a large needle, or a pair of scissors." An ordinary silk handkerchief of two shillings value, he adds, was a present for a princess.
During his residence at Algiers, but in what year I have been unable to discover, he seems to have married the widow of Mr. Edward Holden, formerly consul of that place, who outlived him, and erected a monument to his memory. In 1723, the year after his return from Syria, a violent earthquake was felt at Algiers, which threw down a number of houses, and stopped the course of several fountains; but in the year following a still more violent shock was felt, which seems to have shaken the whole coast, while the air was clear and temperate, and the quick-*silver
standing at the greatest height. At such times
the barometer, he observes, was not affected with any sudden alterations, nor was there any remarkable change in the air, which was neither more calm
