My third visit was to shoot quails on ground where, centuries ago, Hannibal had passed at the head of his bronzed legions, amid admiring groups of citizens, the bands playing, perhaps, "_Partant pour l'Italie_." The migration of quails takes place at this season, and, with a good retrieving spaniel, hundreds may be shot. But they lie very close, and require a dog to put them up. They are by no means easy to shoot, and require snipe shot. They lie in the young corn, which is very thick and thriving here as on the field of Waterloo. As I had put up No. 6 shot by mistake, and had no spaniel, I bagged but few comparatively, some twenty. A great number of these quails are sent alive to England, and on board the Italian steamer from Sicily there were about twenty large cages, containing about fifty live quails each, which they told me were going to Britain; they had been caught like larks by the net.
By the way, I had here a proof of Arab honesty, refreshing as an oasis in the desert. Riding back through a village to Goutelle (where I was staying, previously to embarking for Malta), I dropped my powder-flask, unawares to myself. I had not passed two minutes when I heard a loud halloo, and turning, perceived an Arab running at full speed to me with my powder-flask. Now, powder is what Arabs prize more than gold even, precious stones, or tobacco, yet they might easily have taken this without my knowing anything. On my offering him coin worth about sixpence, the Arab, in broken _lingua Franca_, made me comprehend he preferred a few charges of powder, which I immediately gave, and which he carefully wrapped up in some old paper. I record this, because at Tunis and elsewhere, we hear of nothing but Arab dishonesty and thieving propensities. Is it true, and this exception a proof of the rule? or are all these stories false? It is hard to say.
They are a curious race, apparently a mass of contradictions. One thing is certain; you must not treat them in the _du haut en bas_ style. They are very proud, and naturally regard every Christian _ipso facto_ as individually inferior to the Mussulman, more specially in the far interior, where Christians have not as yet penetrated. A---- and his party had started for Kef, _malgré_ my dissuasions. The fact of a man going to explore Punic ruins with one going to discover Mauritanian lions, was, to my mind, like mixing oil and vinegar, or fire and water, or eating meat with your knife, or soup with a fork, or taking two helpings of soup, or anything else incongruous. D---- was to be their interpreter. The Arabs there told them that a lion can carry away a camel on his back, but not lift a sheep. This they firmly believe. The reason assigned is, that in former times (when animals spoke), the lion said, "I will carry off this sheep, with or without the consent of Allah;" and Allah said to the lion, "You shall not;" and from that time the monarch has never been able to lift a sheep. At one time the man and the lion were great friends, and the lion did not know he was stronger than the man. One day, as they were out walking together, a thorn ran into the lion's foot; he limped, and stopped to pull it out, when the man, in derision, said, "What! so strong a creature hurt with a thorn?" Then the lion in anger ran the thorn into the man's eye, who cried out with pain. This proved to the lion the man's inferiority, and ever after they were declared enemies. At a place called Tibursok, where A----'s party passed on their road to Keff, not a Christian, or even a Jew, were to be seen, consequently the Arabs were very intolerant. D---- walked into this town alone, in front of the party, and, speaking Arabic well, questioned one of the Arabs about some ruin, when another came up and said, "Why do you attend to that dog of a Christian?" D---- took no notice, when the other shouted out, "Cursed be your father, your mother, and all the members of your house." D---- then collared him; the Arab inquired, "What for?" "Because you cursed my relatives," said D----, seeing the rest of the party with the Bey's escort coming up, "and now, just show me the Caid's residence, and I will have you bastinadoed." However, as some of the other Arabs crowded round and begged for mercy, D---- thought it better to let him off.
