450 
TKAVELS IX AFRICA. Chap. LXXXV. 
of any European traveller who might fall into their 
hands. However, after some quiet explanations 
with them as to what was most conducive to their 
own interests, and about the probability of their 
succeeding in making themselves independent of the 
Turkish sway ; and after having promised a hand- 
some present to one of the more influential men 
among them, they allowed me to pass on. I had also 
great difficulty in hiring some fresh camels, the safety 
of which I guaranteed, to take me to Tripoli. I 
thus pursued my journey to Beni-Ulid with its deep 
valley overtowered by the ruins of many a middle- 
age castle, and adorned by numbers of beautiful olive 
trees, besides being enlivened by many small villages 
consisting of stone dwellings half in decay. On ap- 
proaching the place, I fell in with a messenger, sent 
very kindly to meet me by Mr. Reade, Her Majesty's 
Yice-Consul in Tripoli, who, besides a few letters, 
brought me what was most gratifying to me in my 
exhausted state, a bottle of wine, a luxury of which 
I had been deprived for so many years. 
I had some little trouble in this place, as there 
was residing here at the time a brother of Ghoma, 
the rebel chief himself, who had sent an express 
messenger on my account ; and differences of interest 
between the various chiefs of the place, caused me at 
the same time some difficulties, though, in other re- 
spects, they facilitated my proceedings. Altogether I 
was very glad when I had left this turbulent little 
community behind me, which appeared to be the 
last difficulty that opposed itself to my return home. 
