This oasis is very diminutive; but two caravan-routes, one from Murzuk and one from Ghadámes, join at this point. The inhabitants are of a mild disposition, and enjoy the fame of strict honesty. Everything is here considered as secure; and the camels which cannot find food in the neighbourhood, are driven into the green valley at four or five minutes’ distance, and left there without a guardian. I make these statements advisedly, as reflections of a different kind have been made on their character. The people seem to suffer much from sore eyes. When we asked them about the most remarkable features of the road before us, they spoke of a high mount, Teránsa, which, however, we did not afterwards recognize.
In the afternoon I made an excursion with Overweg to Jebel Durmán, situated at the distance of a mile and a half south-east. It is rather a spur of the plateau jutting out into the broad valley, and, with its steep, precipitous, and washed walls, nearly detached and extremely narrow as it is—a mere neck of rock—looks much like a castle. Upon the middle of its steep side is a small zawíya belonging to the Zintán. The prospect from this steep and almost insulated pile could not, of course, be very extensive, as the mount itself is on the general level of the plateau; but we obtained a fine view over the sea of heights surrounding the broad valley and the several tributaries of which it is formed. Night was setting in, and we returned to our tent.
Having heard our Zintáni make frequent mention of an ancient castle with numerous sculptures, and situated at no great distance, I resolved to visit it, and set out tolerably early in the morning of the 9th of April, accompanied by the Arab and one of our shoushes. We had first to send for one of our camels, which was grazing at about three miles’ distance, in the sandy bottom of the wady south-east from our encampment. It was only on this occasion that I became aware of the exact nature of the valley of Mizda, and its relation to the Wady Sófejín; for we did not reach this latter wady until we had traversed the whole breadth of the sandy plain, and crossed a mountain-spur along a defile called Khurmet bu Mátek, at the distance of at least eight miles from our encampment. This is the famous valley mentioned, in the eleventh century, by the celebrated Andalusian geographer El Bekri. Figs and olive-trees adorn its upper part, which is said to stretch out as far as Erhebát, a district one day and a half beyond Zintán; barley is cultivated in its middle course, while wheat, from which the favourite dish ʿajín is made, is grown chiefly in its lower part near Tawárgha. The valley seems worthy of better fortune than that to which it is reduced at present; for when we marched along it, where it ran S. 20 W. to N. 20 E., we passed ruins of buildings and water-channels, while the soil exhibited evident traces of former cultivation. I listened with interest to the Zintáni, who told me that the valley produced an excellent kind of barley, and that the Kuntarár, as well as the people of Zintán, his countrymen, and the Welád Bu-Séf, vied with each other in cultivating it, and, in former times at least, had often engaged in bloody contests for the proprietorship of the ground. When I expressed my surprise at his joining the name of his countrymen with those of the other tribes hereabouts, he gave me the interesting information that the Zintán had been the first and most powerful of all the tribes in this quarter before the time of the Turks, and held all this country in a state of subjection. Since then their political power and influence had been annihilated, but they had obtained by other means right of possession in Mizda as well as in Gharíya, and still further, in the very heart of Fezzán, by lending the people money to buy corn, or else corn in kind, and had in this way obtained the proprietorship of a great number of the date-trees, which were cultivated and taken care of by the inhabitants for a share of the produce. Formerly the people of Zintán were in possession of a large castle, where they stored up their provisions; but since the time of the Turkish dominion, their custom has been to bring home the fruits of their harvests only as they want them. In Wady Sháti we were to meet a caravan of these enterprising people.
While engaged in this kind of conversation we entered a smaller lateral valley of Wady Sófejín, and reached the foot of a projecting hill on its western side, which is crowned with a castle. Here it was that I was to find marvellous ancient sculptures and drawings; but I soon perceived that it would be as well not to cherish any high expectations. The castle, as it now stands, is evidently an Arab edifice of an early period, built of common stones hewn with some regularity, and set in horizontal layers, but not all of the same thickness. It forms almost a regular square, and contains several vaulted rooms, all arranged with a certain degree of symmetry and regularity. But while we pronounce the main building to be Arab, the gateway appears to be evidently of Roman workmanship, and must have belonged to some older edifice which the Arab chieftain who built this castle probably found in the place,—a conjecture which seems to be confirmed by several ornamental fragments lying about.
It is a pity that we know so little of the domestic history of these countries during the period of the Arab dynasties, though a step in advance has been made by the complete publication of Ebn Khaldún’s history; else we should regard with more interest these relics of their days of petty independence. This castle, as well as another, the description of which I shall subjoin here, though it was visited some days later, is called after a man named Khafáji ʿAámer, who is said to have been a powerful chief of great authority in Tunis no less than in Tarábolus (Tripoli).