Travels in the Great Desert of Sahara, in the Years of 1845 and 1846 Part 17

Travels in the Great Desert of Sahara, in the Years of 1845 and 1846 Part 17

The Moors seem to have a secret dislike for women, as well as a most obstinate desire to tyrannize over them. There is a lurking desire of this sort in the men-s.e.x of all countries. Are we not the Lords of Creation? I actually get afraid of avowing to them that the supreme ruler of England is _a woman_, they are so confoundedly annoyed at the circ.u.mstance. The first questions of their surprise are, "How? Why?" &c.

My taleb is very fond of supporting the doctrine of a woman having only a _fifth_ of her father's property. I annoy him by telling him it's a bad law, and that the daughter should have an equal share with the son. Lady Morgan is sadly wanted here; she would find ample additional materials for a second edition of "Woman and her Master."

FOOTNOTES:

[48] _Bazeen_, ??????, called also _Aseedah_, ???????.

[49] Some have endeavoured to distinguish in English the mausoleum in which a dead saint is laid by the term Mara_bet_, though in Arabic both the dead and living saint, and the cupola house in which the dead saint is laid, are all called Mara_bout_. When a village or town, is built round the mausoleum of a saint, it is also called after the saint, as in the instance now related.

[50] "We (G.o.d) created you, and afterwards formed you (mankind); and then said unto the angels, _Worship_ Adam; and they worshipped him, except Eblis (The Devil), who was not one of those who worshipped. G.o.d said unto him, What hindered thee from worshipping Adam, since I had commanded thee? He answered, I am more excellent than he: thou hast created me of fire, and has created him of clay. G.o.d said, Get thee down therefore from Paradise; for it is not fit that thou behave thyself _proudly_ therein: get thee hence; thou shalt be one of the contemptible."--_Surat_ vii.

_Int.i.tled Al-Araf._

[51] The words in the _Cross_, which Constantine is reported to have seen in the heavens.

[52] When the milk is fresh it is called by the Arabs ??????, when sour, ?????.

CHAPTER XI.

CONTINUED RESIDENCE IN GHADAMES.

Gaiety of the Black Dervish.--Walking Dance of the Slaves.--The Fullans or Fellatahs.--_Shoushoua_, or scarifying the face of Negroes.--Terms used in connexion with Slaves.--The _Razzia_.--A Souafee Politician.--Parallel Customs between The East and The Sahara.--The mercenary Blood-letter.--Indifference to the sufferings of the Arab Troops.--Colour of the people in Paradise.--Excellent Government of the Fullanee Nations.--Moors do not fondle their Children.--Administering Physic to Camels.--Simplicity of Touarick manners.--Knocked down by a Pinch of Snuff.--Departure of the Tibboo alone to Ghat.--Blood in White Sugar, and Anecdote of Colonel Warrington and Yousef Bashaw about collecting old Bones.--Colonel Warrington compared to the late Mr. Hay.--Said, a subject of Anti-Slavery discussion.--Specimen of Desert Arab freedom.

_18th._--WITH the full moon the cold has regularly set in. Good-bye flies and good-bye scorpions. Can now write with my door open, without being covered with flies. Can also sleep without waking up at midnight to kill scorpions running over the mattresses. The mad black dervish is always in motion, and full of gaiety. People are so fond of him that they think he is inspired. When all the Moors are in solemn vacant thought, or brooding over their griefs, or dreaming in broad day of their being marabouts or sultans, the poor witless thing runs in amongst them, shaking hands with the first he meets with, and bursts out a-laughing. He usually succeeds in infusing a little of his cheerfulness into these equally _mad_ people, but more sober in their method of madness. Yesterday the slaves had another feast _for the dead_. The Moors allow their slaves the liberty of blending the two religions, as Rome has allowed the blending of Christianity and paganism. And when questioned about it they say; "Oh, the slaves know only a little of Allah, and are not much better than donkeys in their understandings." The slaves a.s.sembled to the number of some fifty in the Souk. Here they performed a species of walking dance, in two right lines, very slow and very stiff and measured, having attached to it some mysterious meaning. They were gaily dressed, attended with a drum and iron castanets, making melodious noises. Each had a matchlock slung at his back. The women carried a chafing-dish of incense, as if about to raise some spirit or ghost. A crowd was around them; but they performed nothing but this slow-marching dance, and then retired to the tombs. The dervish, poor fellow, mingled in the gay throng, shouldering a stick for a gun.

Received many little presents from people lately. Sheikh Makouran brought me himself a small basket of very fine dates. My taleb afterwards brought me some _gharghoush_, or small cakes, made of flour, honey, sugar, and milk. They are extremely pleasant eating and a little _acid_, which adds greatly to their flavour. There are but few things acid in this country; of sour things there is an abundance.

Heard a great deal about the Foullans, Foulahs, and Fellatahs, the predominant race in Soudan. _Foullan_ (?????? ???????

???????) is the Soudanic term, _Fellatah_ the Bornouese, and _Foulah_ what is used to denominate them among the Mandingoes. According to information here, they were once the most miserable race of _Arab_ wanderers in The Desert. But at last they settled down as neighbours to the Negroes, some 700 years since. They continued to increase in numbers and importance, abandoning tents and building villages and towns, and intermixing with the Negroes, till about forty-five (and others thirty-five) years ago, when they expanded their ideas to conquest and renown. About this time they made the conquest of Kanou, Succatou, and the other large cities of Housa. Never a people rose to greater fame and power. They were a.s.sisted, like the Saracens before them, by religious fanaticism, and so far corresponded with them, in extending the boundaries of Islamism.

They went on conquering and to conquer till within the present year, when their power received some check by the daring exploits of the Tibboo prince of Zinder, a va.s.sal of Bornou. This prince has taken from them a few towns. The complexion of the ordinary Fullanee is a deep olive, with pleasing features, not much Negro, and long hair.

[Ill.u.s.tration]

Negroes in Nigritia are known by the _Shoushoua_ (???????), or scarifying. Generally in Negro countries, which profess the Mohammedan religion, the _Shoushoua_ is abandoned as _haram_ or prohibited. It is mostly the sign of paganism. The operation is performed by a sharp cutting instrument, and is never _effaced_ from the face during life. The annexed drawing presents the _Shoushoua_ of the Negroes of Tombo, near Jinnee, who are pagans. Whenever the slaves see these marks they know the country of the other slaves who bear them. Formerly it could be ascertained whether a slave was born on the coast, or brought from the interior, by the presence or absence of the _Shoushoua_. Now it cannot, because the practice is discontinued in countries subject to Moslem rule, whence slaves are sometimes brought. In Ghadames a freed slave is called _matouk_ (???????) or _horr_ (?????). The terms _waseef_ (??????) and sometimes _mamlouk_ (???????) are employed for a single slave, and _abeed_ (??????) for many. The Arabic terms ????? ???????? "the chief of slaves," are used to denote the person who is responsible for the conduct of slaves, or the "Sheikh of the slaves." The word RAZZIA, which the French are said to have invented, and which has acquired such a _triste_ celebrity by their butcheries of the Arabs in Algeria, is derived from the same word as designates a Slave-hunt (_ghazah_)[53] amongst our Saharan people. The verb is ??????? _ghaza_, "petivit," which in the second conjugation means, "expeditione bellica petivit hostem," and the noun in use is ???????? _ghazah_, "expeditione bellica." The Bornouese word to denote a slave-hunt, as carried on by the Touaricks, is DIN, applied to private kidnapping expeditions, and means, I think, simply "theft," showing that not by war, as captives, but by "theft," "stealing," the "man-stealing" of the Apostle Paul, are slaves generally procured in Central Africa. It is only just that _razzia_ and _ghazah_, the same words, should be so closely allied in application to their different actions. The French, to do the thing properly, and in their usual style, should erect a monument upon the "Place" of the city of Algiers, to the new invention RAZZIA, with its derivations from _ghazah_, "a slave-hunt." A prize essay might also be proposed to the Oriental Chair of Paris, and its various students, now looking for distinction as interpreters in the land of RAZZIAS or "butcheries,"

for the best derivation and historical progress of the term RAZZIA, as used by Christian and civilized nations, in relation to infidel and Mohammedan barbarians. At the bottom of the monument erected by the French to the DEMON RAZZIA, may be appended the following veracious words, copied from the late proclamation of the Duc d'Aumale, on his a.s.sumption of the high post of Governor-General of Algeria (_Moniteur Algerien_, October 20, 1847):--"You have learned by experience, O Mussulmans! how just and clement is the Government of France." The Duke unpardonably forgets to cite one of the last proofs of this just and clement Government, the roasting of a tribe of Arabs, men, women and children in the caverns of the Atlas! . . . . Will not the Lying Bulletin (native of France) be proclaimed till doomsday?

This morning the merchants asked me why the English did not drive out the French from Algeria. They had often badgered me with this subject. I thought it better to speak plainly at once, and for all.

I began by asking, why should the English drive out the French? and continued, "France and England are now at peace. They don't wish to make war at all, and England does not consider Algeria of such importance as to go to war about it. England did not derive much benefit from Algeria when Mussulmans ruled there; besides the Algerines were always sea-robbers. The English were obliged to go and chastise them several times before the French captured their country. And do not think, that if war did take place between England and France, and the English should drive the French out of Algeria, the country would therefore be given up to the Sultan and the Mussulmans. The English might wish to rule there themselves.

Upon no account wish for war in Algeria, for the miseries of the war would chiefly fall upon you, Mussulmans." This completely settled them, and exasperated them, as well it might; they said no more. The Mussulmans always have in their memories the conduct of the English when they drove out the French from Egypt, and discussing this kind of politics, it is quite natural.

Afterwards I heard a Souafee holding forth to another group. His theme was, the Shanbah, Warklah, Touaricks, Tugurt, Souf, and Ghadames, and it was evident to him that besides the people now enumerated there were no others in the world. A respectable Moor observed at the time, "That Souafee is a rascal. He's as great a robber as a Shanbah bandit. Mussulmans are not like Christians. The Christians have but one word, and are brothers. The Mussulmans have a thousand and ten thousand words, they don't speak the truth, and they are enemies to one another." The ingenuous Moor knew little of the history of Europe and America. I did not disabuse him of his good opinion of us. He was a Ben Wezeet, and complained that now the _Nather_ (??????), or native overseer of the city, and the Kady or judge, and some of the richest merchants belonged to the Ben Weleed, and added mournfully, with a sigh, "It was not so in my father's time. But the world has changed, and this is the new world."

In reading the Arabic Testament, I have noticed several parallel customs or habits between The East and North Africa. Take this:

"But Jesus stooped down, and with his finger wrote upon the ground."

(John viii. 6.)

People of Ghadames are writing daily with their fingers on the ground.

They are also wont, with fancy ornamental sticks, which they usually carry, to ill.u.s.trate their ideas on the sand or dust of the streets, by drawing figures. In speaking with them on geography, they sketch shapes of countries. They cast up all their ordinary accounts by writing figures on the sand. They have also certain games which they play by the use of sand. Sand is their paper, their ledger, their boards of account, their pavement, and their auxiliary in a thousand things. It is said in the Gospels, that The Saviour escaped to the mountains[54], either from the pressure of the people, or from the persecutions of his enemies. Persons are accustomed to escape to the mountains in Barbary, more particularly in Morocco and Algeria; but also in this country. Our Saviour, besides, gives the same advice to his disciples: "Let them which are in Judea _flee to the mountains_." (Luke xxi. 21.) It has always been difficult to apprehend fugitives in the mountains, especially in ancient times, when a good police did not exist. The conqueror has always had great difficulty, and exposed his conquests to imminent risk, by pursuing the conquered in mountainous districts. Such are the instincts and habits of men in all ages. The Desert has, besides, afforded an asylum to the fugitive and unfortunate, as well as the persecuted. Our Saviour was wont to retire to desert places. In this country, the discomfited defenders of their country's liberties have invariably escaped to The Sahara. How many times has Abd-el-Kader escaped to the mountains of Rif, or the solitudes of The Sahara? But it is unnecessary to pursue this obvious idea farther, otherwise it also will escape to The Mountains or The Desert.

The "five _barley_ loaves," (John vi. 9,) reminds me of the _barley_ bread of these countries, more frequent than any other sort of bread.


Wheaten bread is rarely eaten by the lower cla.s.ses.

It is needless to cite all the pa.s.sages of Scripture where the people in the towns and villages are represented as bringing out their sick of every kind and description. (Matt. xiv. 14, 35, 36.) So it is in North Africa. Whenever an European visits these countries with any pretensions to medical skill, all the sick of the place are brought out to him. When I see the sick daily brought to me--as also when I was in The Mountains--I cannot help thinking of those affecting pictures of disease and misery which were providentially exhibited to demonstrate the divine skill of the Great Physician of mind and body.

Salt is procured in a few hours' journey beyond _Sidi Mabed_, and is considered superior to that procured at the _Salinae_ of the coast. This Saharan salt is only obtained after there has been some rain, the earth being impregnated with it, and the water washing away the earthy particles. It is gathered in the dry season.

_19th._--Amuse myself with Arabic reading and philological studies. The mornings continue cool. Administer now little medicine, for I have but little left. Ordered an Arab to be bled by the old Moor, who possesses a good lancet. The big hulking Arab proved a greater coward than a child.

How sickness unnerves a man, the hardiest and strongest of men! I once took a pa.s.sage from Algeria to Ma.r.s.eilles in a French transport of convalescents. There I saw the brave and brilliant French troops cry and whine like children under the influence of fever. When the old Moor had bled the soldier, he said to me, "Where's the money?" This shows that, though they rarely think of remunerating the services of the Christian Tabeeb, they have a perfectly clear conception of what is due to the labour and skill of a doctor when the case refers to themselves. Some time after, I went to the old Moor again, and asked him to bleed another soldier attacked with fever. He refused to bleed him, alleging that he must be paid. "He will die," I said. "Let him die," returned the unfeeling old blood-letter; "why do they bring soldiers here, we don't want them?" This afternoon I visited the barrack, where several Arab soldiers were laid up with the fever, which they had caught at Emjessem.

One was very bad. The Arabs said to me, "You must give him money to buy some bread, and a little meat to make some broth." I told them they must go the Rais; it was his business to look after his troops. It is distressing to witness the condition of these wretched Arabs. At different times I have given them a little meat, and bread, and oil; but now my stock of provisions is getting down, and the communication between Tripoli and Ghadames is very precarious. In the evening I saw the _Nather_, and said to him--expecting he would mention it to the Rais, "See that soldier lying on the stone-bench; he is sick, and has nothing to eat."

_The Nather._--"Yes, he is ill."

_I._--"But he has nothing to eat; can't you get him something to eat?"

_The Nather,_--"Pooh, he must die."

The other Moors present laughed at my simplicity in begging something to eat for a fever-worn, emaciated wretch of a soldier. The matter of fact is, these poor fellows are detested by the inhabitants, and starved to death by the Government. The soldier had caught the fever of Derge, whilst sent there on business, which is a bad tertian fever, prevalent in some oases of The Sahara.

Lately, as my turjeman and Said, with several negroes, were chatting, and saying people would have husbands and wives in the next world, I asked, in the manner of the Sadducees, "If a woman had three husbands in this world, whose wife would she be in the next?"

They all answered, "_The wife of the last_." As some of the group of these theologians and diviners of the future state were negroes, I asked, "What _colour_ will people be in the next world?" They replied, "_All white_, and alike; and not only will their skins be white, but all their clothing will be _white_." White, indeed, is the favourite colour of Mussulmans; and a sooty-black Mohammedan negro will set off his face with a white turban, as our Christian n.i.g.g.e.rs do their _j.a.pan_ with a lily-white neckcloth. But _white_ is the colour of purity, of religion in North Africa and The East, as in _Biblical_ times.--pe??e??????? ??

?at???? ?e?????. (Rev. iv. 4.)

_20th._--Weather continues fine and cool. Less meat to be had; nothing decided about the new levy of money, except that the people will not or cannot pay. The Sheikh Makouran tells me he is greatly in debt to Messrs.

Silva and Laby, and so are all Ghadamsee merchants. The money now employed in commerce is chiefly that of European and other merchants of Tripoli and Tunis. "We have no money," says Makouran, "we cannot pay any new levies. If Rais persists, he must collect our money at the edge of the sword; and this can't last, for we shall all soon die of hunger."

These continual complaints make me melancholy, and added to my impatience "to be up and doing," make me very peevish. O Dio! but such is the lot of man, to suffer always, either in mind or body. Much annoyed at my taleb for eating Said's dinner, even before my face. These Moors, at least some of them, have neither honour nor conscience. I suppose the taleb is pinching his belly to pay his portion of the new contribution. To punish the taleb, I give Said coffee before him, without asking him to take any.

I may observe, the Moors don't like to see me treat the poor blacks and slaves as their equals. I frequently give the negroes tea and coffee before I serve them, to show I despise such distinctions, although, perhaps, against propriety.

The taleb began boasting about Soudan, and he has much reason to boast of it, if we compare what Mohammedans have there done with what Christians have done on the Western Coast of Africa. He said, "There's no _gomerick_ (Custom-house), no oppression, for the people are Mussulmans." Such were the reasons for their not being oppressive. It is a great question how far a country may be civilized, and in how short a time, without actual conquest?

Civilization has progressed in Central Africa with the spread of Islamism. When it reaches the point of Mahometan civilization it will stop. The question with us is, "Whether we shall civilize the Mohammedans, and so work on Central Africa, or reconquer their conquests?" There appears very little chance of civilizing Africa without arms and conquest. Bornou, Soudan, and its numerous cities, Timbuctoo and Jinnee, formerly all governed by the _Kohlan_--???????, or "blacks," are now governed by strangers, either Arabs (pure) or Touaricks or Fullans. These are the present most important kingdoms of the ancient Nigritia, and include a population of some millions. I continue to pursue my inquiries respecting the Fullans. All agree in representing them as originally _Arab_, but now greatly mixed, of very dark colour, some being nearly black, others, and most of them, a dark brown and yellow red, and some nearly white. The fortunes of the Fullans, emerging filthily from the dregs and offscouring of The Sahara, have become as great as the old Romans formerly in Europe, but they will always have powerful and vindictive rivals in the Touarghee and pure Arab and Berber races. The Revd. Mr. Schon has given a too unfavourable report of the Fullans, in his Notes and Journal of the Niger Expedition, bia.s.sed against them in his Missionary zeal, simply because they are Mahometans. It is true that the Fullans are great slave-dealers, but so are nearly all the princes of Africa. The mild and equitable administration of the kingdoms of Kanou, Succatou, Kashna, and other immense centres of population, as carried on by the Fullans, is notorious throughout The Great Desert. No people of Nigritian Africa has so profoundly excited my best sympathies as the Fullanee races[55].

The Moors do not fondle and dandle their children on their knees, as parents are accustomed in Europe; and when grown up, the children appear as distant from their parents as strangers. This arises from the absolute authority a.s.sumed by parents over children during their minority. I have often been angry to see some of the lower people here teaching the children to call me _Kafer_ ("infidel") as a sort of religious duty, lest, I imagine, the children should see at last that there is no very great difference between a _Kafer_ and a Moslemite.

Was much amused this afternoon in seeing physic administered to camels.

The camel is made to lie down, and its knee joints are tied round so that it cannot get up. One person then seizes hold of the skin and cartilage of the nose, and that of the under jaw, and wrests with all his force the mouth wide open, whilst another seizes hold of the tongue and pulls it over one side of the mouth; this done, another pours the medicine down the throat of the animal, and, when the mouth is too full, they shut the jaws and rub and work the medicine down its throat. The disease was the falling off of the hair; and the medicine consisted of the stones of dates split into pieces and mixed with dried herbs, simple hay or gra.s.s herbs, powdered as small as snuff, the mixture being made with water.

People told me it would fatten the camel as well as restore its hair.

Camels frequently have the mange, and then they are tarred over. For unknown incomprehensible diseases, the Moors burn the camel on the head with hot irons, and call this physic. Men are treated in the same way, and the Moors are very fond of these a.n.a.logies between men and brutes.

What is good for a camel is good for a man, and what is good for man is good for a camel. Whilst the camel was being drugged, a Touarick came up and said, "_Salam aleikom_" to me. They always use this primitive mode of salutation. When they swear oaths they also say, "_Allah Akbar_," (G.o.d is Greatest!) the famous war-cry of the Saracennic conquerors of olden times. They are primitive in all their ideas and words; their manners are equally stiff, and slow or courtly, "stately and dignified;" they fully understand the doctrine that, "Great bodies move slow."

A man is said sometimes not to be worth "a pinch of snuff;" and yet a pinch of snuff will knock a man down, as it knocked me down this evening. My value then does not quite reach to a pinch of snuff standard. To come to explanation: a merchant offered me a pinch of snuff, and to please him, I took a large pinch, pushing a portion of it up my nostrils. Immediately I fell dizzy and sick, and in a short time, vomited violently. The people stared at me with astonishment, and were terrified out of their wits, and thought I was about to give up the ghost. They never saw snuff before produce such terrible effects. After some time, I got a little better and returned home.

This snuff was that from Souf, and what people call _war_ ("difficult"). I had been warned of it, and therefore richly paid for my folly. Moreover, it was a violation of my usual abstinence from this not very elegant habit. The Souf snuff is extremely powerful; it is constantly imported here, and for the satisfaction of snuff-takers and snuff-taking tourists, I am bound to inform them that they will find snuff much cheaper in Ghadames than in Tripoli.

People call snuff hot and cold, according to its stimulating, irritating, and tickling power. It is prohibited to drink wine and spirits amongst Moslemites, but, nevertheless, many of them do not fail to intoxicate themselves with everything besides which comes in their way: they snuff most horribly all the live-long day. In the season the Arabs drink their _leghma_, and the Mahometan Negroes their _bouza_, the Soudanic merchants chew their _ghour_, nuts, and _kouda_, as our jolly tars their tobacco, and others munch the _trona_. My taleb came to me to see if I were dead. He had heard such a horrible report in the town. I embraced the opportunity of lecturing him upon the absurdity of the prohibition from drinking wine, when he and others intoxicated themselves with snuff. But man will have _his_ stimulant, and the tee-totaller, who protests against all stimulants, seeks his in his tea and coffee. There is no harm in this, and the question only remains to seek as harmless a stimulant, as consistent with health as possible. In justice to the Marabout city of Ghadames, I must mention that some of the more strict Mohammedans consider snuffing, as well as smoking, prohibited by their religion, and opium (???????), and _keef_, an intoxicating herb, sometimes called _takrounee_, ????????, are not smoked in this place. In general, few of the Moors of this place smoke at all.

_21st._--Weather fine, no rain. The merchants begin to bake biscuits for their journey to Ghat, which looks like preparation. My friend Abu Beker called and gave me two letters written to him from Timbuctoo by his brother, who is established there. Since my return, I have given one of these letters to the Royal Asiatic Society, and the other to the British Museum, considering them a great curiosity, so long as this city shall remain separated from us Europeans by such impa.s.sable barriers.

The following is the translation of the letter presented to the Royal Asiatic Society:--