392 PTOLEMETA TO MERGE.

Half the day was, however, spent in sending backwards and forwards and still we could get no camels, Abou-Bukra himself making a thousand professions of his readiness to obhge us on all occasions, but giving us no proofs of it whatever. It required very little penetiation to discover that this was evidently a concerted manoeuvre ; and that Bey Halil was either unable to make any satisfactory arrangement for us, or was himself a party in the plan. Abou Bukra was certainly the principal agent in the affair, and the whole plot was doubtless got up by him. He had mentioned no difficulties of the kind at Ptolemeta, because the camel-drivers of Bengazi would have offered to proceed with us to Cyrene, had he declined supplying us on reasonable terms. The eighty dollars required by all the Bedouin Shekhs was the sum which he wished to extract from us, and the circumstance of the whole assembly being unanimous in the demand was intended to be a proof of its fairness, he himself having made no offer whatever, on the plea of not having camels enough at his disposal. Bey Hahl very probably did not wish to interfere in preventing his Arab friend from making what profit he could of us (such an act being considered by Mahometans in general as extremely unbrotherly, and not by any means called for); and with regard to the Arabs, they willingly lend their services to one another on all occasions of a similar nature*.

Finding the chances against us on this tack, we determined to try One of the reasons alleged for putting so high a price upon the camels was the probability of their eating the silphium which grows in the country we were about to visit, and which has sometimes very fatal effects upon them.