24 
TRAVELS IN AFRICA. 
Chap. XXXIX. 
There was also a long talk on the subject of the 
enormous debt due to the Fezzani merchant, Mo- 
hammed e' Sfaksi ; and as it was not possible to settle 
it at once, I was obliged to leave its definite arrange- 
ment to Mr. Overweg. 
All this disagreeable business, which is so killing 
to the best hours and destroys half the energy of the 
traveller, had retarded my departure so long that the 
sun was just setting when I left the gate of the 
town. My little caravan was very incomplete ; for 
my only companion on emerging from the gate into 
the high waving fields of Guinea corn, which en- 
tirely concealed the little suburb, was an unfor- 
tunate young man, whom I had not hired at all ; my 
three hired servants having stayed behind, on some 
pretext or other. This lad was Mohammed ben 
Ahmed, a native from Fezzdn, whom I wanted to hire, 
or rather hired, in Gummel, in March last, for two 
Spanish dollars a month ; but who, having been in- 
duced by his companions in the caravan, with which he 
had just arrived from the north, to forego the service of 
a Christian, had broken his word, and gone on with the 
caravan of the people from Sokna, leaving me with only 
one useful servant. But he had found sufficient leisure 
to repent of his dishonourable conduct ; for having 
been at the verge of the grave in Kano, and being 
reduced to the utmost misery, he came to Kiikawa, 
begging my pardon, and entreating my compassion : 
and, after some expostulation, I allowed him to stay 
without hiring him ; and it was only on seeing his 
