Commandant Billet told me many amusing anecdotes of these children of nature, who are so sober and abstemious in their daily life, and who can subsist for days in the desert almost without food.
Once a “Targui” (the singular of Tuareg) happened to come to him at one of the stations. “Are you hungry?” asked the commandant.
Yes, it was long since he had tasted food; so an enormous quantity was set before him, enough to have satisfied six or seven ordinary folk. When he had consumed all this he went to see a captain, by whom he was as generously treated. One might have supposed that he would then be satisfied; but no, half an hour later the insatiable son of the desert called on a third official, and again complained bitterly of hunger, and was fed with a couple of dishes of “kus-kus.”
It is inconceivable how any one man could swallow so much food, but probably it had never before fallen to his lot to fully satisfy his appetite.
Apparently the Tuareg are at present anxious to keep on friendly terms with the French. On several occasions small caravans have travelled as far as the southern stations of Tunisia, most of them certainly with a view to trade, mais enfin, it is always a move in the right direction, which, prudently encouraged, may lead farther.
It would be to the signal advantage of the French that the old caravan road to the Sahara should be reopened, so that traffic from Rhadamés could proceed direct to Gabés or other towns of Tunisia, instead of, as now, viâ Tripoli. The chief impediment at present lies in the fact that the caravans, not being permitted to carry slaves, are not profitable. The baskets, leather goods, weapons, etc., which the last caravans brought with them—though in small quantities—were disposed of with difficulty in Tatuin and Medinin, which will not tend to induce them to make another trial.
No; that traffic through the Sahara may be remunerative, slavery is essential. In fact, so long as slavery continues to flourish in Tripoli, so long will the stream of trade flow that way.
A TUAREG.
Neither does slavery appear so terrible at close quarters as it does when read of in heartrending romances in the style of Uncle Tom’s Cabin. The truth is, that slaves are well treated everywhere in the East, so well that even if given their freedom, as they were by decree in Tunisia, they, as a rule, remain in their master’s house.