_21st._--The departure of the ghafalah is deferred to the 24th. Rais is busy in comparing the papers of the merchants with the goods arrived from Tripoli. These ill-used merchants pay 13 per cent. for exporting their goods from Tripoli to the interior. The same goods have already paid 5 per cent. when imported into Tripoli by the European merchants. There is then the profit of our Ghadamsee merchants, and the profit of native merchants, and the merchants and the manufacturers in Europe. At what price, then, above their intrinsic value, are those goods sold to the merchants of Central Africa? A hideous thing is this system of transit duties! _22nd._--Weather is cold, everybody wraps up. People sit two or three hours together out of doors in the morning before they'll stir. I ask them, "Why don't you move about,--you would be then warm?" They answer, "_Măzāl shemtz_" (no sun yet). Rais is excessively gracious: he gave me a small loaf of white sugar. I had none left, and the gift came in the nick of time when required. I have said so much about Rais Mustapha, that I must now give a personal description of his Excellency, before I take leave of him and of Ghadames. First of all, Rais is not a military man; he is a civil servant of the Porte, and receives his pay direct from the Sultan. The Turks often employ a civil servant where we should expect to see a military man, as in this distant Saharan post, and find it to their advantage. The Governor for military advice usually writes to the Commandant of The Mountains. His Excellency rarely reads, but writes constantly, and is very expert in accounts, his principal occupation being the collecting of small monies. His Excellency is also fond of collecting coins of different Mussulman States. The reader has seen that he is very attentive to his religious duties, and is quite, if not superior "marabout odour." His Excellency scarcely ever punishes anybody, beats his slaves seldom, but can be very despotic when he pleases. Like most Turks, he has a smack of bad faith in him, and made the Souf Arabs pay the duty on the goods in their possession, though he promised people he would not. We may suppose he is very badly off for money; perhaps his own salary is not very regularly paid. His Excellency always behaved very well when I purchased any corn of him. He is generally esteemed by the people. In person the Rais is exceeding tall, above a convenient height; he is about forty years of age, with strongly-marked Turkish features, and a large aquiline nose. His limbs are heavy and large, but since his residence here he has lost all his flesh. He dresses in the common dress of Ottoman functionaries. I often found him chatty and facetious, but sometimes he was sulky and morose, and would not speak for hours together. He had a fine horse, but rarely could be prevailed upon to go out and ride for his health. Every great man has his shadow, his echo, the expression of himself more or less in his fellow men.