I am persuaded he would have laid the blame upon Mr. Frazer, if any accident had befallen us.
I cannot allude to this gentleman without mentioning that he is, as I hear, recalled upon a complaint of the Bashaw of Tripoli, who, after many other irregularities, at last confined him to his house. This grand complaisancy to these Barbary gentlemen, who answer the complaints for national grievances by personal exceptions against the Consul, will soon have the effect of making neutral freighters believe that our flag is insecure and without protection, and will certainly in the end throw all this caravan into the hands of the French, who support their Consuls and colours with the utmost spirit both at Tunis and Tripoli.
His Royal Highness the Duke of York having given orders to Commodore Harrison to desire, in his name, that all encouragement and assistance might be given to me in my journeys from each of these regencies, and that gentleman being soon expected at Tripoli, I left a letter for him, begging him to obtain of the Bashaw of Tripoli the same liberty I had in Algiers and Tunis, to visit the antiquities of the kingdom, after which I returned along the coast of the Lesser Syrtis down to Cape Bon, the Promontorium Mercurii, from thence again arrived at Tunis, after an absence of more than six months constantly encamped.
FOOTNOTES:
[279]Bruce mentions in the previous chapter, p. 270, that he passed through a plain covered with seedra or lotus. No doubt, the zizyphus lotus is here alluded to, a shrub common in South Africa, the fruit of which, in a wild state, is just edible. When cultivated it is somewhat better, and is sold in Arab markets. This was probably the lotus of the Lotophagi.
[280]These were probably lost in the shipwreck hereafter narrated.
CHAPTER XXXIV.
TRIPOLI.
There appears to exist no detailed record of Bruce’s second journey to Tripoli. He resided at Tunis till August, 1766, and again set out for Tripoli by Sfax and Djerba.