480 
MERGE TO GYRENE. 
Merge and abreast of Cape Eas Sem. At El Hilal we found an 
Arab encampment and obtained from it a goat and some corn for our 
horses. The Bedouins were civil and obliging, and brought us out a 
very acceptable present of kuskusoo, for which we made a suitable 
return. They would, however, have had but little reason to be satis- 
fied with the conduct of strangers whom they had treated with cour- 
tesy, if we had not very fortunately made a discovery on leaving them 
which our Chaous had not probably anticipated. We had made it a 
practice in the course of our journey to pay the Arabs for whatever 
we had of them ; and although this practice is considered by Turks 
not only as superfluous but very plebeian, we found it more consistent 
with our ideas of propriety, and at the same time more politic than 
if we had adopted a line of conduct more dignified and less honest. 
Our Chaous had received from us a sufficient sum of money to 
make a liberal return to the Bedouins of El Hilal for the corn and 
the goat which they had supplied us with ; but instead of complying 
with our orders on this head he thought it more adviseable to keep 
the piasters in his purse than to distribute them as he had been 
directed : and we should accordingly have left behind us a much 
worse character for liberality than we deserved, if this discovery had 
not been made before we took our departure. Chaous Massoud 
looked rather foolish when the charge was brought home to him, too 
well substantiated to admit of denial, and we afterwards found that 
his honesty in other matters was not greater than on the occasion 
here alluded to. On our arrival at Grenna we sent him back to 
Derna and procured another Chaous from Bey Mahommed. Mas- 
