However, as the autumn was now come, we commenced our return towards the east. As we approached Homs, the governor sent the Drayhy forty camels loaded with corn, ten machlas, and a pelisse of honour. Sheik Ibrahim addressed me in private and said, “We are going into the desert; we have exhausted all our stock; what must we do?” “Give me your orders,” I replied; “I will go secretly to Aleppo, and get what we want, and I will engage not to make myself known to my family.” It was agreed that I should rejoin the tribe at Zour; and I went to Aleppo. I took up my station in a khan but little frequented, and remote from all my acquaintances. I sent a stranger to the correspondent of M. Lascaris to get five hundred tallaris. The precaution was unnecessary, for with my long beard, my costume, and my Bedouin accent, I ran no risk of being known; I proved this sufficiently on purchasing some goods at the Bazaar. I met many of my friends there, and amused myself with behaving rudely to them. But to these moments of careless gaiety, painful ones succeeded; I passed and repassed continually before the door of my house, hoping to get a glimpse of my brother or my poor mother. My desire of seeing her above all was so great that I was twenty times on the point of breaking my word; but the conviction that she would not again allow me to return to M. Lascaris restored my courage, and after six days I was obliged to tear myself away from Aleppo, without obtaining any news of my relatives. I overtook the tribe on the banks of the Euphrates opposite Daival-Chahar, where there are still some fine ruins of an ancient city. I found the Bedouins engaged, before crossing the river, in selling cattle, or changing them for goods with the pedlers from Aleppo. They have no idea of the value of fictitious money; they will not receive gold in payment, recognising nothing but silver tallaris. They would rather pay too much, or not receive enough in change, than admit of fractions. The merchants, aware of this foible, dexterously profit by it. Besides the exchanges, the tribes sold to the amount of twenty-five thousand tallaris; and every man put his money into his sack of flour, that it might not sound on loading and unloading.