During our two days’ stay in Sfʿakes we made the acquaintance of a Jew calling himself Baránes, but who is in truth the Jew servant named Jacob who accompanied Denham and Clapperton, and is several times mentioned in the narrative of those enterprising travellers as self-conceited and stubborn; yet he seems to be rather a clever fellow, and in some way or other contrives to be on the best terms with the governor. He communicated to us many anecdotes of the former expedition, and, among other things, a very mysterious history of a Danish traveller in disguise whom they met in Bórnu coming all the way from Dar-Fúr through Wadaï. There is not the least mention of such a meeting in the journal of the expedition, nor has such an achievement of a European traveller ever been heard of; and I can scarcely believe the truth of this story, though the Jew was quite positive about it.
The vessel in which we embarked was as miserable as it could be, there being only a small low cabin as high as a dog-kennel, and measuring, in its greatest width, from six to seven feet, where I and my companion were to pass the night. We thought that a run of forty-eight hours, at the utmost, would carry us across the gulf; but the winds in the Lesser Syrtis are extremely uncertain, and sometimes so violent that a little vessel is obliged to run along the coast. At first we went on tolerably well; but the wind soon became unfavourable, and in the evening we were obliged to cast anchor opposite Nekta, and, to our despair, were kept there till the afternoon of Tuesday, when at length we were enabled to go forward in our frail little shell, and reached Méheres—not Sidi Méheres, as it is generally called in the maps—in the darkness of night. Having made up our minds rather to risk anything than to be longer immured in such a desperate dungeon as our gáreb, we went on shore early on Wednesday morning with all our things, but were not able to conclude a bargain with some Bedouin of the tribe of the Léffet, who were watering their camels at the well.
The majestic ruins of a large castle, fortified at each corner with a round tower, give the place a picturesque appearance from the seaside. This castle is well known to be a structure of the time of Ibrahim the Aghlabite. In the midst of the ruins is a small mosque. But notwithstanding the ruinous state of the place, and the desolate condition of its plantations, there is still a little industry going on, consoling to the beholder in the midst of the devastation to which the fine province of Byzacium, once the garden of Carthage, is at present reduced. Several people were busily employed in the little marketplace making mats; and in the houses looms, weaving baracans, were seen in activity. But all around, the country presented a frightful scene of desolation, there being no object to divert the eye but the two apparently separate cones of Mount Wuedrán, far in the distance to the west, said to be very rich in sheep. The officer who is stationed here, and who showed us much kindness, furnishing us with some excellent red radishes of extraordinary size, the only luxury which the village affords, told us that not less than five hundred soldiers are quartered upon this part of the coast. On my former journey I had ample opportunity to observe how the Tunisian soldiery eat up the little which has been left to the peaceable inhabitants of this most beautiful, but most unfortunate country.
Having spent two days and two nights in this miserable place without being able to obtain camels, we resolved to try the sea once more, in the morning of the 11th, when the wind became northerly; but before the low-water allowed us to go on board, the wind again changed, so that, when we at length got under weigh in the afternoon, we could only move on with short tacks. But our captain, protected as he was by the Promontory of Méheres, dared to enter the open gulf. Quantities of large fish in a dying state, as is often the case in this shallow water when the wind has been high, were drifting round our boat. The sun was setting when we at length doubled the promontory of Kasr Unga, which we had already clearly distinguished on the 8th. However, we had now overcome the worst; and when on the following morning I emerged from our suffocating berth, I saw, to my great delight, that we were in the midst of the gulf, having left the coast far behind us. I now heard from our raïs that, instead of coasting as far as Tarf el má (“the border of the water”), a famous locality in the innermost corner of the Lesser Syrtis, which seems to preserve the memory of the former connection between the gulf and the great Sebkha or Shot el Kebír (the “palus Tritonis”), he had been so bold as to keep his little bark straight upon the channel of Jirbi.
Our voyage now became interesting; for while we were advancing at a fair rate, we had a charming view of the mountain-range, which in clear contours extended along in the distance behind the date-groves on the coast, seen only in faint outlines. The western part of the chain is very low, and forms almost a group apart, but after having been intersected by a gap or “gate,” the chain rises to greater elevation, being divided, as it would seem from hence, into three separate ranges enclosing fine valleys.
We had hoped to cross the difficult channel to-day; but the wind failing, we were obliged to anchor and await the daylight, for it is not possible to traverse the straits in the night, on account of their extreme shallowness. Even in the light of the following day, when we at length succeeded, our little bark, which drew only two or three feet, struck twice, and we had some trouble to get afloat again. On the conspicuous and elevated promontory the “Jurf,” or “Tarf el jurf,” stood in ancient times a temple of Venus, the hospitable goddess of the navigator. Here on my former journey I crossed with my horses over from the main to the Island of Jirbi, while from the water I had now a better opportunity of observing the picturesque character of the rugged promontory. After traversing the shallow basin or widening, we crossed the second narrowing, where the castles which defended the bridge or “kantara,” the “pons Zitha” of the Romans, now lie in ruins on the main as well as on the island, and greatly obstruct the passage, the difficulty of which has obtained celebrity from contests between Islam and Christianity in comparatively modern times.
Having passed safely through this difficult channel, we kept steadily on through the open sea; and doubling Rás Mʿamúra, near to which our captain had a little date-grove and was cheerfully saluted by his family and friends, we at length entered the harbour of Zarzís, late in the afternoon of Sunday, and with some trouble got all our luggage carried into the village, which is situated at some distance. For although we had the worst part of the land journey now before us, the border-district of the two regencies, with the unsafe state of which I was well acquainted from my former journey, and although we were insufficiently armed, we were disposed to endure anything rather than the imprisonment to which we were doomed in such a vessel as our Mohammed’s gáreb. I think, however, that this nine days’ sail between Sfákes and Zarzís, a distance of less than a hundred and twenty miles, was on the whole a very fair trial in the beginning of an undertaking the success of which was mainly dependent upon patience and resolute endurance. We were rather fortunate in not only soon obtaining tolerable quarters, but also in arranging without delay our departure for the following day, by hiring two horses and three camels.
Zarzís consists of five separate villages—Kasr Bú ʿAli, Kasr Mwanza, Kasr Welád Mohammed, Kasr Welád Sʿaid, and Kasr Zawíya; the Bedouin in the neighbourhood belong to the tribe of the Akára. The plantation also is formed into separate date-groves. The houses are in tolerable repair and neatly whitewashed; but the character of order and well-being is neutralised by a good many houses in decay. Near the place there are also some Roman ruins, especially a cistern of very great length; and at some distance is the site of Medinet Ziyán, of which I have given a description in the narrative of my former journey.
Besides the eight men attached to our five animals, we were joined here by four pilgrims and three Tripolitan traders; we thus made up a numerous body, armed with eight muskets, three blunderbusses, and fourteen pistols, besides several straight swords, and could venture upon the rather unsafe road to the south of the Lake of Bibán, though it would have been far more agreeable to have a few trustworthy people to rely on instead of these turbulent companions. Entering soon, behind the plantation of Zarzís, a long narrow sebkha, we were struck by the sterile and desolate character of the country, which was only interrupted by a few small depressed localities, where a little corn was cultivated. Keeping along this tract of country, we reached the north-western corner of the Lake of Bibán, or Bahéret el Bibán, after a little more than eight miles. This corner has even at the present day the common name of Khashm el kelb (the Dog’s Nose), while the former classical name of the whole lake, Sebákh el keláb, was only known to Tayyef, the more learned of my guides, who, without being questioned by me, observed that in former times towns and rich cornfields had been where the lake now is, but had been swallowed up by a sinking of the ground. The real basin has certainly nothing in common with a sebkha, which means a shallow hollow, incrusted with salt, which at times is dry and at others forms a pool; for it is a deep gulf or fiord of the sea, with which it is connected only by a narrow channel called Wád mtʿa el Bibán. The nature of a sebkha belongs at present only to its shores, chiefly to the locality called Makháda, which, indenting the country to a great distance, is sometimes very difficult to pass, and must be turned by a wide circuitous path, which is greatly feared on account of the neighbourhood of the Udérna, a tribe famous for its highway robberies. Having traversed the Makháda (which at present was dry) without any difficulty, we entered upon good arable soil, and encamped, after sunset, at about half a mile distance from a Bedouin encampment.
Starting from here the following day, we soon became aware that the country was not so thinly inhabited as we had thought; for numerous herds covered the rich pasture-grounds, while droves of gazelles, now and then, attested that the industry of man did not encroach here upon the freedom of the various orders of creation. Leaving the path near the ruins of a small building situated upon a hill, I went with Tayyef and the Khalífa to visit the ruins of a Roman station on the border of the Bahéra, which, under the name of el Medaina, has a great fame amongst the neighbouring tribes, but which, with a single exception, are of small extent and bad workmanship. This exception is the quay, which is not only of interest in itself, formed as it is of regularly hewn stones, in good repair, but of importance as an evident proof that the lake was much deeper in ancient times than it is now. Traversing from this spot the sebkha, which our companions had gone round, we soon overtook them, and kept over fine pasture-grounds called el Fehén, and further on, Súllub, passing, a little after noon, a group of ruins near the shore, called Kitfi el hamár. At two o’clock in the afternoon, we had directly on our right a slight slope which, according to the unanimous statement of our guides and companions, forms the frontier between the two regencies; and keeping along it we encamped an hour afterwards between the slope and the shore, which a little further on forms the deep gulf called Mirsá Buréka.