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Chap. LXXXIII. PECUNIARY DIFFICULTIES. 
367 
small sum remaining ; and the disappointment which 
I had experienced with regard to my luggage, made 
me reluctant to forego the project which I had 
formed of taking home with me specimens of the 
manul^ctures of this place. I had also to buy two 
horses and a couple of camels, together with sundry 
other articles, and I was therefore obliged to procure 
further means, however difficult it might be. I had 
even a great deal of trouble with Sidi 'All, who put 
off his promise to accommodate me from day to day. 
At length, having, on the 10th of November, writ- 
ten an energetic letter to this merchant, it was agreed 
that the affair between myself and the Ghaddrasi mer- 
chants, who refused to lend me money, although they 
had English property in their hands, should be re- 
ferred to the ghaladima, who granted me a public 
interview for the purpose. In this audience, in which 
a great number of other people were present, the 
merchants founded their refusal to comply with my 
request on the old date of the letter in which they 
were ordered to attend to my wishes ; and it was 
not until the ghaladima had ordered them to bring 
into his presence all that they possessed of the 
British agent's property that they agreed the fol- 
lowing day to lend me a sum of money, at the usual 
rate of one hundred per cent. Being obliged to 
agree to this condition, as it had never been my in- 
tention to oblige them by force to grant me a loan 
without allowing them their usual profit, I stipulated 
to receive from them 500,000 shells, equal in this 
