Travels in the Great Desert of Sahara, in the Years of 1845 and 1846 Part 8

"So, does he say?"

(_The Youths._--"But the Sheikh _is_ the Sheikh.")

"I am," says the Sheikh, "from Timbuctoo; all the people are Mohammedans, and fast. Do you fast?"

_I._--"I eat and drink what is good at all times, even wild-boar."

_The Sheikh and Youths._--"Oh, wonderful!"

_They._--"You write Arabic?"

I wrote that G.o.d was _one_.

_They._--"And write Mahomet was the Prophet of G.o.d?"

I wrote Mahomet was the Prophet of the Arabs and the Touaricks?

_The Sheikh._--"Ah, ah, I see, I see, you're very cunning."

_The Youths._--"Who is your Prophet?"

_I._--"Aysa (Jesus)."

_The Youths._--"Have you any books of your Prophet?"

_I._--"Yes, here is one:" (Giving them the New Testament.)

_They._--"Oh, see, let us read it, let us take it home."

_I._--"No; if you were men, yes. But if I allow you to read it, or read it to you, your Bey and the people will be offended with me, and send me out of the city. When you go to Tripoli, you can see and read the Christian books."

I was surprised that a well-informed man like the Sheikh Makouran should ask me whether the Emperor of Morocco was also Emperor of Fez, and whether Morocco was a large country. "Ghat," says the Rais, "like all the Touarick countries, is a republic. All the people govern." Walked out this evening for the first time to-day. The people are vehement in their complaints against the oppressions of the Turks: "All the wealth of the country is dried up, and the merchants are all running away. We are ruined unless the English save us."

It has been very hot and sultry to-day. Not a breath of air. The sky overcast--a profound, deathlike tranquillity sleeping over the environs!

The Rais sent supper as usual. After visiting him, he had a fit of writing, and wrote for the courier all night. Thank G.o.d, there are no gnats in Ghadames. I have not seen nor felt any. It is probably owing to the absence of no water, stagnating here, all being absorbed in the dry earth of the gardens.

_7th._--Read eight chapters of the Arabic Testament. Some of the phrases very strangely rendered into Arabic. The Moors cannot understand them. My Testament wants some verses: it is the ordinary Arabic Bible circulated by The Bible Society. There is no good translation of The Scriptures into Arabic, from what I have been able to learn. Continue to think all day long and dream of Timbuctoo. Had a conversation with the Touaricks about a journey there. The difficulty is, the strongest Touarick escort practicable cannot always pa.s.s through the Touarick districts, there being such a great variety of tribes. It is the quarrels of the Touaricks themselves, and not our not being able to trust them individually, which renders the route so dangerous.

Slave-dealing is so completely engendered in the minds of the Ghadamsee merchants, that they cannot conceive how it can be wrong. A young man wrote me down the objects (very few) of exportation from Soudan, and in the following order, viz., "Cottons, elephants' teeth, _bekhour_ (perfume), wax, slaves, bullocks' skins, red skins, feathers, (of the ostrich)." Human beings are just summed up with the rest as an article of commerce, as a matter of course, in the most mercantile style.

It will be next to impossible to propagate anti-slavery notions in Central Africa, supported as slavery is by commerce and religion. We can only say, "With G.o.d nothing is impossible."

All the people bring their griefs and malcontentments to me. It's not so pleasant to be bored by them, let alone the policy of my listening to all they have to say. But the ill humour of these poor fleeced people must have a vent, or _sfogo_, as the Italians term it, and what can I do? An intelligent merchant came to me. "Yakob, _bisslamah_, (how do you fare?) The Rais is always collecting money, don't you see? That's the business of the Turks. This city is 4000 years of age. It flourished before Pharaoh, in the time of Nimrod. Now the Turks come to destroy it; their business is to destroy; such is the will of G.o.d." I might elaborate the idea. The genius of the Turks is to destroy. The hand of the Turk blasts as mildew everything it touches; it has destroyed the fairest portions of the earth. Happily, however, it so destroys itself, for it is not desirable for truth and civilization that the sway of the Osmanlis should be restored to its pristine strength.

Among the most friendly people to me in Ghadames are the Arab soldiers.

Now, whilst I write, not less than twenty of these poor fellows are lying around my door, and in the _skeefah_ (entrance-pa.s.sage or room) of my house. They tell me always, my house is their house, and their mountains my mountains. They all speak in the highest terms of Mr. Frederick Warrington, son of Colonel Warrington, whom they call _Fredreek_. They consider him as one of themselves, and so he is as to habits, manners, and language, and frequently dress. When they quarrel in Tripoli, the ultima ratio, or dernier ressort, is not to go to the Pasha, but _Nimshee lel Fredreek_, "Let us go to Frederick!" This is "the settler." It has often been said amongst the Consular corps of Tripoli, that, in case Great Britain thought it expedient to a.s.sume the Protectorate of Tripoli, Frederick Warrington would be their man, the instrument of revolution.

There is not a single Arab in the Regency but what would flock to his standard. He has been all his lifetime in Tripoli.

M. Carette, in his brochure of the _Commerce of Central Africa_, says, "Timbaktou, Kanou, et Noufi sont les trois marches princ.i.p.aux du pays des Noirs. Les voyageurs du Nord ne parlent pas du Niger; c'est une limite qu'ils ne franchissent pas; ils paraissent n'avoir aucunes relations avec les populations Mandingues de la rive droite:" (p. 26). This is inexact.

The merchants do speak of the Niger frequently to me, calling it the _Wady Neel_, thinking, and which is a very ancient opinion, that it is a continuation of the Nile of Egypt. They also visit the opposite sh.o.r.es or banks of the Mandingoes. Some of them go to Noufi, as M. Carette admits; on my leaving for Ghat, a merchant going to Noufi was my fellow traveller, and promised to accompany me there. Here Mr. Becroft has recently, from the south-east, ascending the Niger, shaken hands with the merchants of the north. An old slave, a native of _Sansandee_ (or _Sinsindee_ ????????) says of the Niger, "The river is like the sea of Tripoli and all sweet" (water.)

The Sheikh Makouran does not approve of my Timbuctoo ideas. Says the city is always in an uproar with the Touaricks, who are robbers and not like the Touaricks of Touat. Walked through the town at noon, and met Essnousee, had not seen him for some time, and wondered what had become of him. He was very friendly, and wanted to bring me lemonade in the street. But as there was a large concourse of people present, all fasting, poor devils, at this time of the day; I thought common decency required me to go with him to his house. I waited in a dark corner close by his door, and here I quaffed the forbidden draught in the high-noon of the Fast. He smiled at me when I finished, and said, "Well done, Yakob."

He gave me also a fine melon to bring home with me. I considered this feat of drinking lemonade, under the circ.u.mstance related, a remarkable trait of tolerance. People usually put into their lemonade pieces of rag steeped in lemon-juice and dried; in this way the juice is preserved from evaporation. Essnousee had just lost his wife. "Have you any other wives?" I said. "Oh yes," he replied, "one here and one in Ghat." Many of the merchants, like the roving tar who has a sweetheart at every port, have a wife at every city of The Desert and Soudan where they trade.

Several of the children now in Ghadames were born either in Timbuctoo or Soudan.

_8th._--Few patients on account of the Ramadan. Weather extremely sultry.

People bear the fast remarkably well, and with good humour enough. The Rais persists in sending me supper though I would rather he did not.

After ma.s.s and chanting prayers in the evening, his Excellency holds a court. He abused the Sultan of Constantinople and called him an a.s.s for spending his money like a fool, and this license before all the people!

Smoking, drinking coffee, talking, and writing for the courier, all together, so his Excellency pa.s.ses his Ramadan evenings. Said, my negro servant, is becoming as great a man as his master in Ghadames. He receives visits from all the slaves of the city, as well as the free negroes. Being slaves, I am very indulgent, and sometimes they stop all day with him. The slaves of the Touaricks also come. Said manages to talk with them all in all languages. I see there is a sort of free-masonry amongst negroes, and they all (which is greatly to their credit) stick close to one another, and take one another's part. Said is impatient about his _atka_, or freedom ticket. He said to me to-day--

"Oh, Sidi, where's my atka? The people will steal me and sell me again."

"No, Said," I replied, "have patience, if they steal you, they must steal me also."

Visited with Said to-day "the Street of Slaves." This is a little dark street appropriated for the rendezvous of the slaves in my part of the city, where they enjoy the cool of the evening and chat together. I squatted down to chat amongst them, which awakened their curiosity.

"Who's that naked boy there?"

_They._--"The Touaricks brought him from Bornou."

"What are they going to do with him?"

_They._--"The Touaricks will send him to Tripoli, and sell him; will you buy him?"

"No, no; if I buy him, my sultan will put me in prison."

(_They_, one to the other.--"Do you believe him?")

"The English had many slaves, but gave them all the _atka_; and soon, please G.o.d, they will destroy slavery in all the world."

_They._--"Ah, ah," (laughing), "that's right; we wish to have the _atka_."

I found some were from Soudan, others from Timbuctoo, the greater part from Bornou. About a score of them were present; their greatest delight was in exchanging their various lingos. When they heard I was going to Kanou, one jumped up like a fury, saying, "Oh, I must send something to my mother." This was a poor grey-headed wrinkled-faced old man! His poor mother, alas! may have been long ago whipped to death upon the cotton plantations of South Carolina, where the blood of the slave is poured out to fertilize the fields of pampered republicans, and give tongue to the braggadocio of the free sons of the Model-Republic!

To-day, saw three swallows in a garden for the first time at Ghadames.

They darted over the heads and through the foliage of the graceful palms, performing sweet eccentric circles. To me, they were winged messengers from the fair bowers and silvery brooks of Paradise.

To give an idea of the general ignorance of the Ghadamsee people on European geography, I have only to record a part of a conversation with them.

_They._--"Where's your country; is it near Rome?"

"No; further to the west and north."

_They._--"Did not the English spring from the Arabs?"

"No; the English are from the north, a colder country; the Arabs are from a hot country."

_They._--"Are the Greeks like the English? and is their country near yours?"