ABSTRACT
This chapter reproduces the text from Chapter II of Ada Reis, volume 1. A great rivalship and contention existed among the merchants at Tripoly, in the sale of certain pearls of a particular size and colour, which were in the greatest request, and highly valued at some of the African and Asiatic courts. Two of the Moorish merchants being aware that Kabkarra alone possessed any quantity of these pearls, proposed to Ada Reis to assist them in obtaining them from him. Ada Reis was offered the place of the Great Chiah, which is one of the highest and most powerful offices of Tripoly. He most earnestly besought that he might be permitted to decline the honour intended him: and after presenting some of the pearls he had obtained to the Pasha, with considerable difficulty he gained his reluctant consent, that he should depart, with other merchants, who were going to Constantinople.
