296 
BENGAZI. 
bah had fulfilled the injunctions of the Bashaw ; and to enumerate a 
few of the impositions, the unnecessary delays, and privations, to which 
which we had in consequence been subjected ; acquainting him at 
the same with the loss of property which we had sustained, from the 
thievish disposition of the Dhbbah’s people. We hoped by this 
complaint to get back a pocket compass, and some other articles 
which we could ill spare, which had been stolen from our tents on 
the journey across the Syrtis. Bey Halil was, however, either unwill- 
ing or unable to assist us in the matter ; and after shrugging up his 
shoulders in dignified silence (as if he had expected nothing less), 
he summed up the whole of his displeasure in the single exclamation 
of— “Arab ! By which he seemed to imply, that, as one of that race, 
the Shekh could not be other than a rogue *. 
Unsatisfactory as this administration of justice may appear, it did 
not seem probable that we should obtain any other ; and having one 
means of punishment, at least, in our own hands (that of mulcting 
the Shekh, whom we had not fully paid, to the amount of the pro- 
perty stolen), we did not press the subject any further with his 
excellency ; and after having made known to him our intention of 
remaining during the rainy season in Bengazi, and of proceeding after- 
* As the Dubbah had sworn that neither himself nor his people knew anything of 
the articles which we had lost, we never got them back again ; although one of his 
own party afterwards confessed that they had stolen all that was missing. Shekh Ma- 
hommed did not hesitate to take a false oath — but he had too great a value for what 
he thought his character, to confess that he had deliberately perjured himself. At 
Malta we heard that a heavy fine of sheep and camels had been levied upon him by 
the Bashaw, for his disgraceful behaviour and wilful disobedience of his Highness’s 
most positive orders. 
