ABSTRACT
SHORTLY after my arrival at Soccatoo, I was visited by all the Arabs of the place, who began to pay me a great many compliments, and after that, to beg every thing they saw in my possession. They immediately recollected my servant, Mahomed El Siekis, who was formerly a slave of Bukhaloom, and the only one of his army who brought off the flag of the bashaw of Tripoli, at the battle with the Fellatas at Musfeia; and the same man who restored Major Denham his horse, when he thought he had lost it in that action. I had found this man a slave to a Fellata, in the town of Korfu, and bought him for 25,700 cowries, and gave him his liberty. These villains of Arabs now advised him to leave me, because I was a Christian; telling him that they would maintain him. I told him he was at full liberty to go, when and where he pleased; that he was now free, and no longer a slave: but I advised him not to go away like a thief and abscond, but to leave me boldly and openly; at the same time I desired him only to look at the dirty and ragged tobes of his advisers, poor rascals, who were not able to buy soap to wash themselves or keep their clothes clean, still less to give him food, wages, and clothes as I did.
