Travels in the Great Desert of Sahara, in the Years of 1845 and 1846 Part 19

Travels in the Great Desert of Sahara, in the Years of 1845 and 1846 Part 19

THE 23rd, 24th, and 25th, employed in writing letters. On one of these days the Rais called me to him and asked, "Whether I really intended to go to Soudan, as the people had reported to him?" I told him Yes, and that I was already making preparations. His Excellency affected great amazement, and looked exceedingly mysterious, but did not know what to reply. At last he observed, "I must write to Ahmed Effendi of The Mountains, and if he says you may go, all well, if not, you must not go."

I then asked the Rais, what I was to do in Ghadames? His Excellency said anxiously, "Stay with me to keep me company. I am surrounded with barbarians. I am weary of my life here." As the Rais spoke what I knew to be the truth, I pitied him and said nothing, although I could not understand this asking of permission from Ahmed Effendi, whom I knew to be a queer customer to deal with. However, I interpreted the sense of Colonel Warrington's letter to Rais, viz., "If I had friends I might venture further into the interior, if not, stay where I was until I made friends." I believe the sympathy of the Rais _sincere_, which is a great deal for a Turk, or even any body else in this insincere and lying world.

He is a timid man, and is afraid the Touaricks will make an end of me.

What the Rais says is reasonable enough: "Bring me a Ghadamsee, or a respectable Arab merchant whom I know, and who will take you with him, and be answerable for your head (safety), and will protect you equally with himself, then I have no fears for your safety." I took my friend Zalea to the Rais, who is a native of Seenawan, and much respected by all. The camels of the giant left to-day for Ghat, his giantship himself waits to be conducteur of our caravan.

In replying to an observation about another increase of taxes of which the people bitterly complained, I said, "The Mahometan princes are now the greatest oppressors of the people, whilst the Christian kings are more tolerant, and people enjoyed more security under our Governments."

My taleb replied, "Yes, it is the truth, Yakob, and this is the reason.

The Devil knows that all the Christians, and Jews, and black _kafers_, belong to him. So he troubles them not, they are his safe property and sure possession. But he is always stirring up amongst us Mussulmans evil pa.s.sions, and leading our sovereigns to oppress the people, and one Mussulman to oppress another." Such is the reasoning of a bigoted Moslemite, and with him and others it has considerable force. Indeed, a Christian stands a very poor chance with these subtle orthodox doctors.

_26th._--The mornings grow colder and colder. I feel the change sensitively, more so than the natives; am exceedingly chilly. I perceive the hot weather has dried up or torn off the flesh from my bones, and my feet are very skinny. Attribute this a good deal to the water. Rais is almost worn to a skeleton. This morning he called his servants to attest, how stout he was when he first came here. But as the heat is gone, I shall not now drink so much water. The more malicious, in revenge for Turkish oppression here, hope and pray the Rais will die of the climate, and every Turk who succeeds him.

To-day the Touarick _women_ leave for Ghat. No men go with them, only some of their little sons. About ten women form this caravan. They have camels to carry their water, and ride on occasionally when they are fatigued. I asked a Ghadamsee whether these women were not afraid to go by themselves, particularly now as banditti are reported to be in the routes. He replied, "These Touarick women are a host of witches and she-devils. No men will dare to touch them." This ghafalah of women is a perfectly new idea to me. Some of the women are quite young and pretty, and delicate, and don't appear as if they could bear twenty days'

desert-travelling. One said to me, "If you will go with us women, we will take better care of you than the men can do."

_27th._--Occupied in writing. Rais paid me a visit in the afternoon. Gave one of the slaves who came with him a pill-box, which highly delighted the boy. I found when I visited Rais again, that his Excellency himself had become so enamoured with the pill-box, as to purchase it from his slave. Said continues bad with ophthalmia. The disease seems to attack mostly people of this country, and not strangers. At any rate it would seem that we require to be acclimated to catch these diseases, as well as acclimated to resist them. Rais took it into his head to preach to me about the decrees of Heaven. "You and I," said his Excellency, "were great fools to come to this country; I to leave Constantinople, you to leave London. But it was the decree of G.o.d that we should come to this horrible country." The decrees of Heaven, or the acknowledgment of such, are the _bona fide_ religion of Ghadames. "What do the people eat?" I said to a man. He replied, "What is decreed!" Another interposed, "Don't be afraid of the Touaricks; you will not die before the time which is decreed by Heaven for you to die." Such is consolation in man's misery.

Are we to believe this? or why not believe it?

_28th_, _29th_, and _30th._--Employed in preparing routes of The Desert.

This evening the Governor received a letter from his spies in Souf, which reports that the Shanbah had left their country four days before they wrote, which is now fifteen days. It is not known whether the banditti have taken the route to Ghat or Ghadames. His Excellency has taken precautionary measures, and sent soldiers to look out in the routes near our city. He has also sent to bring back a merchant who started yesterday to Touat, and another to Derge. The freebooters are 100 horse, and 400 camels strong. The Giant Touarick taking the alarm, and mounting his strongest and fleetest Maharee, has gone off to protect his family and country. He was one of the expedition last year, and slew a dozen Shanbah with his own hand. In the meanwhile _caravaning_ to all quarters is to be stopped.

_31st._--Purchased an outfit for Said. Afterwards he would put them on, and walked all over the town, and left me to cook the dinner myself. I said nothing to him, humouring his vanity. No people are so fond of new and fine clothes as Negroes.

_1st November._--A strong wind blowing from the south-east, or nearly east. Not very cold, clouds thick and dark, and no sun. The music of the wind in the date-palms is very agreeable, and tunes my soul to a quiet sadness. The Ghadamsee merchant who was overtaken on his road to Tourat, refuses to come back, and says he trusts in G.o.d against the Shanbah. Some Souf Arabs have come in to-day, giving out that the French wish to a.s.sume the sovereignty over their country. The able-bodied men of the united oases are calculated at 2,000.

Visited the gardens with my taleb as _cicerone_. Was much gratified with the rural ramble, although there is nothing remarkable to be seen. The three princ.i.p.al productions are dates, of which there is a great variety, some thirty or forty different sorts[56]; barley and _ghusub_[57]. The ghusub is grown in the Autumn and the barley in the Spring; in this way two crops of corn are reaped in the year. A little wheat is now and then grown, but does not thrive. The native date is the _madghou_ (??????) which is also common in Seenawan and Derge. It is small and filbert-shaped, of a black colour, very pleasant when fresh, but when dry very indifferent. I saw no black dates in any other parts of The Sahara. The gardens furnish besides a few vegetables and fruits, such as pomegranates, apricots, peaches, almonds, olives, melons, pumpkins, tomatas, onions, and peppers, a few grape-trees and fig-trees in the choicest gardens, but all in small quant.i.ties. There is scarcely a flower or fancy tree but the _tout_. No person of my acquaintance, except my turjeman, showed much fancy for botany. He had brought an aloe from Tripoli, and planted it in his garden. It is the only one. He has another tree or two besides, which n.o.body else has. The merchants have brought the varieties of the date-palm from the different oases of The Sahara. Nearly every householder has a garden, and some several. Sometimes a date plantation is divided between two or three families, each cultivating and gathering the fruits of his pet choice palm. Herbage is grown in the gardens for fattening the sheep. Pounded date-stones both fatten sheep and camels. In summer the gardens are intolerable, but in winter deliriously pleasant.

Sheikh Makouran is the largest landed-proprietor. He has seventeen gardens; "nearly half the country," as a person observed. So Europe is not the only place in the world where there is such an unequal division of the land. The gardens are small, and the whole number is some two hundred and odd, only the half of which are regularly watered from the Great Spring. As the people can never depend upon rain, the whole culture is conducted on irrigation. The Ghadamsee garden-gate, of all the absurdities of inconvenience is the greatest I ever met with. It is scarcely large enough for a small sheep to enter. Every person entering a garden must not only stoop but crawl through the gate. It is fortunate there are no l.u.s.ty people here, all being bony and wiry like the Arabs. Not being dependant on rain, the gardens only suffer from the locusts, and now and then a blighting wind. In the Spring of this year these insect marauders pa.s.sed over the oasis and made a pillage of the date blossoms for thirty days, besides doing much damage to the barley. I encountered a flight of the same horde, which emerged from The Desert and then took to sea, and were scattered over to Malta and Sicily by the wind, when I was travelling from Tunis to the isle of Jerbah late in the Spring. From Ghadames they proceeded _en ma.s.se_ to Tripoli and Ghabs, inflicting great damage. When they pa.s.sed near the gardens of Ghabs, the people climbed up the fruit-trees and made a great noise, screaming and shouting, which kept them from settling in ma.s.ses on the fruit-trees and vegetables. They also kindled a fire and tried to smoke them away. Many of those which did settle were gathered, cooked, and eaten with great _gusto_ by the people. I met them myself on the immense plains of Solyman; they were the first flight of locusts I ever saw. I had seen locusts on the hills near Mogador, where they are bred in great numbers. Millions of small green things were just starting into being. The locust is a somewhat disproportioned insect, the wings are too fine for the bulk and weight of the body, which explains why they are unable to struggle against the wind; as it is said in the Scriptures, "and when it was morning the east wind brought the locusts." (Exod. x. 13.) They do not fly high, and when they settle on the ground they roll over very clumsily. A flight at a distance looks like falling flakes of snow in a snow-storm. They are mostly of a reddish colour, with lead-coloured bodies, and some of a glaring yellow. The yellow ones are said to be the males, and are not so good eating as the others.

The locust tastes very much like a dry shrimp when roasted. They are from an inch and a half to two and a half long. The head is large and square, and very formidable. Hence the Scripture allusion: "and on their heads were as it were crowns like gold, and their faces were as the faces of men." (Rev. ix. 7.) But the prophecy gives them a superadded power which they do not possess, "and unto them was given power as the scorpions of the earth have power;" (v. 3.) for when you catch the locust it makes little resistance and does not bite. Few of these were eating, and most of them were either flying or lay motionless basking in the sun, grouped in hundreds round tufts of long coa.r.s.e gra.s.s. My Moorish fellow-travellers didn't like their appearance. They said the locusts are bad things, and came from the hot country to devour their harvest. It was indeed, an unpleasant sight, this horde of insect marauders, and soon lost the charm of novelty. But the world is made up of the elements of destruction and reproduction. Such is the eternal order of Providence, and we must bear the evil and the good. I do not think that they come far south or from the inner Desert, for they could not be bred in regions of desolation, where there is no green thing.

Yet these flights were from the south of Ghadames, and at any rate they are bred in the Saharan districts, from the banks of the Nile to the sh.o.r.es of the Atlantic. The world is full of impostors. One of these went once upon a time to Morocco, and endeavoured to persuade the people he could destroy all the locusts by some chemical process. I believe he was a French adventurer.

_2nd._--Occupied in taking notes of routes. The whole day overcast but no rain. Rais alternately laughs and admires the Ghadamsee people. He was endeavouring to prove to me what profound respect the bandits of The Desert entertain for these Marabout people, and said, "If a camel of the Ghadamseeah falls down in The Desert and dies, and no person present has a camel to lend them, they leave the goods or the load of the camel on the high road until they fetch one. Should a bandit pa.s.s by in the meanwhile and see the goods, and recognize them to belong to an inhabitant of Ghadames, he does not even touch them, but pa.s.ses by and calls for the blessing of Heaven upon the Holy City of The Desert." This, one would say, is too good to be true, at the same time, I have no doubt the banditti of The Desert have a species of religious respect for these pacific-minded, unresisting merchants. I took an opportunity of asking Rais about the use and value of his charms. His Excellency replied, "They are to protect me when exposed to robbers like the Shanbah, or to other evils. These charms will then render me great a.s.sistance." I I have already said Rais is as big a ninny in these superst.i.tious matters as any of his Maraboutish subjects.

_3rd._--Am still in great doubt as to the route I shall take for the interior. Every route has its separate advantages, and separate dangers.

In this perplexity what can I do but wait the turn of events? . . . . .

Another overcast morning, as dull and foggy as Old England's November. A perfect Thames-London fog. I was accustomed to think that in the bright sky of an African desert such a ma.s.s of cloud and haziness was impossible. Still, though gloomy and drear, there is more boldness and definiteness of outline than in England. After a person has been living long under the bright skies of the Mediterranean, he may mistake a clear winter's day on Blackheath, as I have done, for a moonlight, owing to the want of those sharp angles by which nature draws her landscapes in Southern Europe. To-day the face of the heavens has cast its shadows upon the countenance of the population, for all is dull in business. Every one is awaiting the result of the skirmishes between the Touaricks and the Shanbah.

_4th._--A fine morning, and not very cold. No patients, everybody apparently in health. My old friend Berka, the liberated slave, is now occupied in turning or digging, or hoeing up a whole garden of good size, about two days and a half's labour, for which he will receive one Tunisian piastre! (Seven pence English money.) This is free labour. I am sure the slave labour, the princ.i.p.al here, cannot be cheaper. The implements of agriculture are few and simple in The Desert. Friend Berka had but a small hoe, which is well described by Caillie, who saw it used near Jinnee, and indeed it seems to be used throughout Central Africa.

This hoe is about a foot long, and eight inches broad; the handle, which is some sixteen inches in length, slants very much. With this hoe they turn up the earth instead of the plough, and prepare and open and shut the squares of irrigated fields. For reaping they make use of a small sickle without teeth. The caravans usually have a supply of these sickles for cutting up Desert provender for the camels. The use of the hoe requires constant stooping to the ground and is consequently laborious, but the Saharan fields are very limited, and are soon hoed up. The smallness of s.p.a.ce is compensated by a redundant fertility, and double and even treble crops in the course of the year. Pa.s.sing by a group of gossipping slaves to-day, one came running up to me and said, "Buy me, buy me, and I will go with you to Ghat. I shall only cost you 100 mahboubs." This is humiliating enough, but those who offer their services for sale, like hundreds in the metropolis of London, to write up a bad cause and write down a good one, or to--

"Make the worse appear The better reason--"

"With words cloth'd in reason's garb--"

certainly perform a greater act of degradation than these poor debased bondsmen.


A few evenings ago intelligence arrived that a Souf caravan of eight camels and five persons were seen about a day and a half from this city, proceeding in the route of Ghat. This gave rise to suspicions that the news about the Shanbah and Touaricks was a hoax of the Souafah, in order to frighten the people of Ghadames, and allow them (the Souafah) to get first to the market of Ghat, and buy slaves cheaper. So reason the merchants with the usual jealousy of such people. Rais, on receipt of the above, summoned his Divan, and it was debated, "Whether the Souafah should not be brought in here by force?" The question was decided in the affirmative, and late at night, fourteen Arab soldiers, two Arabs of Seenawan, intimately acquainted with the routes, and an official of the Rais, went off to seize the caravan. This bold measure may bring us unpleasant consequences. First of all, the Governor has no right to seize a caravan in a district where the Sultan, his master, has no authority, decidedly neutral ground, especially a caravan of strangers. Then the Souafah, in revenge, may attack the caravans of Ghadames. Again, it is a question whether the caravan will come in without fighting, for the Souafah are tough men to deal with. It will be a poor excuse for the Governor to plead before the Pasha, that the caravan was guilty of this hoax, supposing it so, and giving this as the reason for seizing the peaceable caravan of an independent state. Indeed, who shall decide that they gave false intelligence of the Shanbah? And if they did, should this be the punishment for spreading a false report? Many other disagreeable thoughts occur. It is clear there is a violent infraction of international law committed on our neighbour's (the Touarick's) territory.

Talking with a gossip about the character of Moors, and he saying they were "_friends of flous_ (money,)" _i. e._ mercenary, and adding that the Touattee was the best fellow amongst them. Said, who was present, said to me, "Yes, it is so, and because he is a black man." Said often repeats to me, "In Soudan it will cost you nothing to live; being a stranger, everybody will feed you in our country." Another free black took upon himself to ridicule the const.i.tution of the white man. "Ah," he cried, "what is a white man! a poor weak creature; he can't bear Soudan heat; he gets the fever, and dies. No, it is the black man that is strong, strong always. He never droops or sinks! Look at the strength of my limbs." Such are the traits of character of coloured men in this Saharan world. I add another anecdote. Speaking to Berka one day, I said, "I shall have that Tibboo himself sold as a slave; what right has he to bring people here as slaves and sell them?" Berka mistook my meaning, thinking that, because the Tibboo was black, I wished to have him sold and punished, and not for being a slave-dealer, and the old gentleman got into a great pa.s.sion, sharply reprimanding me in this style: "Yes, Christian! drop that language; when you get to Soudan you will find everybody black. Drop that language; don't fancy, because the Tibboo is black, you can sell him.

Drop that language, for all are black there."

_7th._--This morning, after a pursuit of three days, our soldiers brought in the Souf Arabs, which has made a great clamour in the town, as it always happens in disputed cases, the people arranging themselves on different sides as partisans, some for the Rais and others for the Souafah. Called upon the Governor and told him I hoped he would not take the _gomerick_ ("duties") for the goods of the caravan, as the people were brought here against their will. His Excellency said he would not, but merely reprimand them for spreading false news. It appears there is some slight evidence of a hoax, but nothing to justify such a violent measure. The Governor wants to make it out that they might have been Shanbah, when it was well known before their capture they were Souafah.

Every part of the date-palm is turned to account. The fibrous net-work, which surrounds the ends of the branches where they attach themselves to the trunk, is woven into very strong and tough ropes, with which the legs of camels are tied, and horses picketed. The very stones are split and pounded, to fatten all animals here. The branches make baskets of every kind; the dried leaves are burned, and the trunk builds the houses, supplying all the beams and rafters. One day, on looking up to some palm wood-work, the old men present said, "How old do you think that wood is, Yakob?" "I can't tell," I replied. They observed, "That wood is upwards of three hundred years old. Indeed, we can't tell how long it has been there. Our grandfathers found it there, and it looked just the same then as now." It was large beams of the trunk of the tree, with platted thin pieces of the boughs across them, forming a fantastic zig-zag joice of wood ceiling. The fruit of the date-palm supports man, in many oases, nine months out of twelve. In Fezzan, all the domestic animals, including dogs, and horses, and fowls, eat dates. Such are some of the various and important uses to which this n.o.ble tree is turned. The Saharan tribes, likewise, are wont to live for several months of the year upon two other products, viz., milk and gum. Milk I have mentioned as supporting the Touaricks exclusively six or more months in the year. Gum, also, in the Western Sahara, furnishes tribes with an exclusive sustenance for many months. Even the p.r.i.c.kly-pear, or fruit of the cactus, will support a Barbary village for three months. It is, therefore, not surprising the Irish peasant may live on potatoes and milk the greater part of the year.

The bead on the date-stone is the part (vital) whence commences germination, and sprouts the new shoots of the palm. New shoots spring up all over the oases, but particularly in those places where water is abundant, and within and about the ducts of irrigation. These shoots are collected for the new plantations, and the female plants carefully separated from the males, and these latter destroyed. Only a few male plants are kept for impregnation.

_8th._--Warm this morning, the cold weather gone apparently for a short time. No patients. The long-expected ghafalah from Tripoli has arrived by the way of Derge, avoiding the more dangerous route of Seenawan, by which latter I came here. No mail. All the people now in a hurry to be off to Ghat, as their goods have arrived. I begin to feel extremely irritable and irresolute at the prospect of the new unknown Desert journey. The old bandit called, and asked, "Well, are you going?" I answered, "Yes, very soon, but I must first have a letter of permission from the Pasha of Tripoli, so the Rais says, for the Pasha is greatly afraid you Touaricks will cut my throat." "G.o.d! G.o.d! G.o.d!" exclaimed the bandit; "I'll risk my head that you'll go on safe to Ghat and Aheer. But, as for those villains, the Touaricks of Timbuctoo, those, I'll grant you, are cut-throats." As I was about to take leave of the old brigand, I gave him a piastre, and said, "Now tell me fairly, and as an honest man, what is the reason that the Touaricks kill Christians, and why did they kill the English officer who went to Timbuctoo?" "Stop, stop," the brigand replied, very pleased with the piastre, "I'll tell you. There are three reasons. First (scratching with his spear on the ground), the Christians will not say that Mahomet is the prophet of G.o.d. Second (again scratching with his spear on the ground), the Christians are the brothers of Pharaoh, and have plenty of money; we are poor, we kill you for your money. Third (again scratching), you wish to take our country. You have nearly all the world; you have robbed us of Algeria, and Andalous. Why don't you stop in the sea, where you are? We shall not come to you. We don't like the sea." Seeing I could make nothing of the old sinner, so cunning was he, I gave him a piece of sugar for his little son, and he went away. I thought often of the words which I had recently read in the Arabic, "The time will come when those who kill you will think that they render service to G.o.d," (John xvi. 2,) when discussing so repeatedly this question of the killing of Christians by the Touaricks with the Rais, with the people of Ghadames, and with the Touaricks themselves. But has this principle alone reference to the wild tribes of The Sahara? Has it not had a pointed application in all the authenticated annals of the world? Take our own era. The Jew thought he did service to G.o.d by killing those who confessed Christ. Then the Imperial Roman, he immolated the Christian who worshipped not the image of Caesar. Then the Roman Christian killed the heretic Donatist, lighting up the flames of persecution in this Africa. Then the Catholic killed the Protestant, and deluged Europe with a sea of blood. Thus in England we enacted our penal laws against Catholics and Protestant Dissenters, some of which, to our shame, still exist on the statute book. What a horrid heritage of murder for conscience' sake has been transmitted to us in this nineteenth century?

And is the present fratricidal war in Switzerland unconnected with this principle of blood and persecution! No; and again, no! How, then, can we find fault with the barbarians of the Great Desert? Nay, contrarily, those who follow me through The Desert, will find the Saharan Barbarians infinitely more tolerant than the mild, and the gentle, and the polished, and the educated, and the civilized, and the Christianized professors of religion in our own great Europe!

This afternoon the first portion of the Ghadamsee Soudanic caravan left for Ghat, consisting of about twenty-five camels, and some ten merchants and traders. This is merely a detachment. The larger portion of the population went to see them off, and several families were dressed in their best clothes, as on festas. It is the usual custom on the departure and return of caravans. Two or three mounted on saddled Maharees accompanied the caravan a day's journey. I have many offers of the people, as in The Mountains, to accompany me to Ghat: a strange infatuation for such rigid Moslems as the Ghadamseeah!

To-day I witnessed in my court-yard or _patio_ a tremendous struggle between an ant and a fly: both species of insects are very numerous in Ghadames, and there is a great number of various coloured ants. The ant got hold of the muzzle of the fly, or its neck, and there grasped it with as firm a grasp as it is possible to conceive of one animal grasping another. In vain the fly struggled and flapped its wings; over and over again the combatants rolled as these weak defences beat the air: and yet they must have had great force in them, for they flung over the ant, of a good size, some hundred times. The struggle continued a full half hour. I once or twice took them up on a piece of straw, but the ant never let go its hold on the fly, and paid no attention to me. At last, the fly was exhausted, and ceased to flap its tiny wings. The sanguinary ant strangled the poor silly fly, as some sharper strangles or ruins his poor dupe. After death, the ant seemed busy at sucking its blood. Satiated with this, the ant attempted to convey the fly away, dead as it was, but thinking better of the matter, the carcase was abandoned. I observed that the combat went on in the midst of a thousand flies, but alas! these rendered their fellow, in this his death-struggle, against a common foe, no a.s.sistance. Such is the way the tyrants of the earth succeed! They strike down the friends of freedom one by one, and the people, as silly as the flies, leave their champions to struggle alone against the common oppressor of mankind, only thinking of what they shall eat and drink, in which fashion adorn themselves, and how they shall fill up sufficiently the measure of their idle days of folly.

The whole phraseology of the Mediterranean is very loose in the designation of persons and objects. The Italians call every Mussulman _un Turco_, "a Turk." The French of Algeria call every Mohammedan resident amongst them "_un Arab_." So the Moors and Arabs here call all people who are not Mussulmans _Ensara_, ?????????, "Christians," whether Pagans, Idolaters, or what not. I was writing some information from the mouth of a Moor, and got into a sc.r.a.pe. He told me there were plenty of _Ensara_ in Soudan, and I thought these might be Abyssinian Christians, until I reflected that it was merely the ordinary denomination of those who are not Moslemites.

_9th._--Slept very little during the past night; always dreaming of Timbuctoo. The further an object is from you the nearer it is to your thoughts. The morning broke with a violent wind from the south-east, which is exceedingly disagreeable. Rais continues very gracious, and sends me constantly cakes, being a portion of what he receives as presents from the people.

I omit a great deal about Souf politics, not being anxious to worry the reader with French and Tuniseen Saharan diplomacy. But a Souafee's notion of hospitality is rather, I should think, rigid. I said to a Souafee, whose acquaintance I have made, "I shall come to your country, and write all about it."

"If you dare," he replied, "by G--d, the people will immediately cut your throat."

_I._--"I will get an _amer_ ('order') from the Bey of Tunis, which will protect me."

"No, no," rejoined the Souafee, "the people will tear the amer to pieces, and set the Bey, the French, and all Christians, at defiance."

No doubt the Souafah, the most interesting Arabs of all this region, are very fierce of their independence, which explains their jealousy of the French, and their determinedly withholding any mark of sovereignty, in the way of tribute, from the Bey of Tunis. It appears, however, two or three of the small districts have really consented to pay a tribute to the French, an act of decided usurpation on the part of France, as the Souf oases "formerly did acknowledge" the sovereignty of Tunis. It is, nevertheless, a pleasing trait in the character of the Souafah, that they have permitted some thirty families of Jews to settle amongst them, a concession not yet made by the Marabouts of Ghadames.

Within my couple of months' residence here, how rapid has been the impoverishment of the country! Everything gets worse and worse. Now, it is almost impossible to get change for a Tunisian piastre. I've been two days trying to get change, and have not yet succeeded. The money in circulation is princ.i.p.ally Tunisian piastres; but since the Turks have come, Turkish money also pa.s.ses. There are, besides, a quant.i.ty of Spanish dollars and five-franc pieces. Apparently, all the money has left the country, or is hidden by the people. A good deal, I have no doubt, has been hidden within a few weeks. The Governor himself laments that he changed a dollar yesterday for two karoubs (two pence) less than its current value in Tripoli. His Excellency is very low-spirited, and very sick. His Excellency prays that the Pasha will allow him to return to Tripoli a few months. Being a good man, the system of extortion which he is obliged to put in practice to meet the demands of the Pasha, makes his heart sick. His Excellency a.s.sured me, that if the Souf Arabs had not lately brought some money, with which they purchased slaves for the markets of Algeria, there would have been no money left in the country.

The merchants say their affairs must now be transacted in the way of barter, as in Soudan. I am particular in noticing these things, and the cause of the impoverishment of these unhappy people, as showing the curse of the Turkish system on the transactions of commerce.

My taleb wrote in my journal this splendid Arabic proverb:

"Men are locked-up boxes--experience opens them; the bosom of man is a box of secrets."

_10th._--To-day I ran about town to tire myself, in order to sleep at nights. This morning, one of the two expected ghafalahs of Tripoli, consisting of 117 camels and twenty traders of Ghadames, arrived; the other ghafalah will arrive in a few days. The ghafalah has brought goods only for the interior. The merchants just come report in town, "That Yakob (myself) has written to the English Consul of Tripoli, informing him how _Aaron_ (_Signor Silva_) lends money and goods to the merchants of Ghadames, with which goods and money to go into the interior, and traffick in slaves." This is substantially correct; but it was written in confidence to Colonel Warrington, and to no other person in Tripoli. I expressly begged Colonel Warrington not to divulge the fact, or my mention of such a matter, until I was out of the lion's mouth of the slave-dealing interests of this part of North Africa. The Consul, however, deemed it his duty to disregard my request, and to divulge or violate this confidence, and posted up a placard on the door of the Tripoline Consulate, stating, "That certain merchants, under British protection, were accused of slave-dealing with the merchants of Ghadames, and calling upon them to clear themselves from such an imputation." Of course, as there was n.o.body else likely to make such an accusation but myself, being well known as an anti-slavery man in Tripoli, the public attention was at once directed to me as the accuser. The other merchant alluded to is Mr. Laby (Levi), a Barbary Jew, and the head of a house in Tripoli. Mr. Silva is also a Jew, but from Europe. This report, circulating from mouth to mouth, has created a tremendous sensation in Ghadames; and the people fancy they see in it not only a blow aimed at them and the slave-trade, but the final ruin of their commerce, already sufficiently crippled by the oppression of the Turks. I am, therefore, obliged to Colonel Warrington, not so much for facilitating my progress in the interior, as for increasing my difficulties a hundred-fold. I was astonished that a high functionary, of thirty-three years' experience in these countries, should have committed such an act of egregious indiscretion, exposing the life of a fellow countryman to such increased danger, who was already without any kind of guaranteed protection. If I had been murdered in The Desert tract from Ghadames to Ghat, it would have most justly been attributed to the placard placed on the doors of the Consulate at Tripoli. Justice requires from me, however, that I should state an indiscretion also on my part. I wrote to the Consul that I had communicated the charge against Messrs. Silva and Levi to the Secretary of the British and Foreign Anti-Slavery Society, and did not add, as I ought perhaps to have done, that I had likewise begged of Mr.

Scoble not to make the charge public for the present. Colonel Warrington was afraid the charge would be known in London before he had reported upon it, and in this way his Consulate might suffer in the eyes of Government. Now I shall not trouble the reader with the proof of the charge. It must already have been seen, that as the merchants of Ghadames are drained of all their capital by the Turkish Government, they, the merchants of Ghadames, are obliged to fall back upon the merchants of Tripoli, who will give them credit, some of which latter are under British protection. So Sheikh Makouran complained to me he could not now trade without the credit of Silva, so the people told me the house of Ettanee, the other great mercantile firm of this country, had received several thousand dollars' worth of goods on credit from the Messrs. Laby, and so the Rais frequently has told me, the money of the merchants of Ghadames is in the holding of those of Tripoli, who are mostly under European protection. The question is, whether such a state of things can be brought under the provision of Lord Brougham's Act, for preventing British merchants from trading in slaves, or aiding others to trade in slaves, in foreign countries. It is a very delicate subject, because the modes of evading the Act, by private and secret contracts, are innumerable. British juries are also unwilling to convict parties under this Act, and the case of Zulueta failed not so much from the want of evidence as from the unwillingness of the jury to come to an impartial decision on the evidence.

Whilst reflecting upon my very critical position, my poor Said came in from the streets very much cast down, and very sulky.

"What's the matter?" I asked.

"Oh!" blubbered Said, "the people are all talking about your telling the Consul that the Jews lend them goods to trade in slaves. They hate you now."

"Never mind," I returned, "it will pa.s.s away soon."

Said had already become a staunch abolitionist, both from principle and circ.u.mstances, and often asked me, "When the English would put down the slave-trade in Tripoli?" Said is by no means so stupid as I first took him to be. I immediately determined not to go out for two or three days until the excitement had somewhat abated. In the evening I had many visitors, who all spoke of my accusation against Levi and Silva. I met the accusations by a deprecatory proposal of this kind: "Would the Ghadamsee merchants consent to abandon the traffic in slaves, on the conditions that some English merchants would furnish them with goods on credit at a lower rate than that which they obtained them from Levi and Silva: if so, I would write about it to the Consul? And, likewise, I would ask the Consul to get their Soudan goods charged only five per cent. importation, which was the sum paid for European goods coming into Tripoli; thereby equalizing the per centage of the imports and exports."

My merchant friends received this proposal very favourably, and swore there was no profit in slaves, and declared themselves ready to give up the traffic. Some proposed that they should try the gold trade of Timbuctoo, and leave the Soudan trade altogether. The traffic to Soudan is two-thirds in slaves or more. I knew, however, that to expect such a thing from the Turks, was all but hopeless,--their grand maxim of Government being to depress and to destroy, not to help and build up,--and I made to them the proposition chiefly with the object of diverting the odium of the accusation from myself. But yet, who does not see that the proposal is well worthy the attention of any Government that wishes to establish in Africa a legitimate commerce, a system of trade which a good man and a good Government may approve of and support?