The heat being very great we remained some hours at our resting-place, but no one could sleep by reason of the insects. It was the first warning of the great battle that was to be waged, growing hotter every day, until the end of the journey. Hardly had we stretched ourselves upon the ground when we were assaulted, stung, and tormented on every side, as if we had chosen a bed of nettles. Caterpillars, spiders, monstrous ants, hornets, and grasshoppers, big, impudent, and determined, swarmed about us. The commandant, who had taken upon himself to raise our spirits by always exaggerating the perils of the way, now assured us that these creatures might be considered microscopic compared with the insects that we should encounter at Fez and later in the summer; and he declared that so little would be left of us upon our return to Italy that our best friends would not know us. The cook listened to these remarks with a forced smile, and became pensive. Close by there was a monstrous spider’s web, spread over some bushes like a sheet hung out to dry. The commandant exclaimed that every thing in that country was gigantic, formidable, miraculous! and insisted that the spider which had made that web _must_ be as large as a horse. But we could not discover him. The only ones of us who slept were the Arabs, curled up in the burning sun with a procession of creeping things marching over them. The two artists tried to sketch, surrounded by a cloud of ferocious flies, which drew from Ussi a whole rich litany of Florentine oaths.
The heat becoming less, the escort from Had-el-Garbia, the American Consul, and the Vice-Governor of Tangiers, took leave of the ambassador and turned back, while we pursued our way, accompanied by the three hundred horsemen from Laracce.
Vast undulating plains, covered here with corn and there with barley, further on with yellow stubble or with grass and flowers; here a few black tents and the tomb of a saint; now and then a palm-tree; from mile to mile three or four horsemen coming to join our escort; an immense solitude, a sky of perfect purity, a burning sun: such are the notes I find in my note-book as to the march of May 5th.
The encampment was at Tleta de Reissana. We found the tents pitched as usual in a circle, in a deep and shell-shaped gorge so overgrown with tall grass and flowers that they almost impeded our steps. It seemed like a great garden. Beds and boxes in the tents were almost hidden by tall flowers of every form and color. Close to the tent of the two painters rose two enormous aloes in blossom.