In the morning I took a walk round the village of the Tinýlkum, which exhibited some lively and interesting scenes. All the men were saying their prayers together upon a sand-hill on the north side of the principal cluster of cottages, while the women were busy in getting ready the provisions for the long journey about to be undertaken by their husbands, and the children were playing among them. About fifty or sixty huts were lying hereabouts, most of them formed into groups; others more detached. Some of them had pointed roofs, while others were flat-roofed; but all of them had a neat and orderly appearance. Besides camels, which constitute their principal wealth, as by means of them they are enabled to undertake those long annual journeys to Sudán, they possess a good many sheep. Two of our camel-drivers, Ibrahím and Slimán, whom I shall have occasion to mention repeatedly, together with their mother and sister, were in possession of a flock of about two hundred head, which they were sending to the fine pasture-grounds of Terhén in Wady Berjúsh. Besides the latter valley, the Tinýlkum also use the valley Táderart as their chief pasture-grounds.
On the east-north-east side of the village rose a hill about one hundred feet high, and affording a fine view over the valley-plain. From its highest summit, where a niche for prayers has been laid out with stones on the ground, it stretches from east to west, and forms a kind of separation in the flat valley, limiting the ethel-tree to its western part, all the sand-hills in the eastern prolongation being covered with palm-bushes, which, from a distance, have the appearance of a thick grove. Descending from this hill northwards, I came to the handsomely decorated sepulchre of Háj Sálemi, the brother of the sheikh, who resides in Múrzuk, and further on met a party of Tinýlkum en route for the wady, where numbers of them are residing. Another division dwells about Sebhha; but the whole body of the tribe comprises from 350 to 400 families, which are united by the closest bonds, and act as one body—“like meal” (to use their own expression) “falling through the numerous holes of a sieve into one pot.” About noon arrived the pilgrim-caravan of the Tawáti, which had been long encamped near Múrzuk, on their way home; it had been this year only 114 persons strong, with 70 muskets, while sometimes it musters as many as 500 persons. Their chief, or sheikh el rákeb, was an intelligent person of the name of ʿAbd el Káder, a native of Timímun, who had been leader of the caravan several times. They encamped at no great distance from us on the open ground.
Being obliged to buy another camel for myself (in order to be able to mount our servant Mohammed el Túnsi on a camel of our own, the Tinýlkum being very particular about their beasts, and not liking to see a man often mounting them), I bought, in the afternoon, a fine tall méheri from Háj Mohammed, for 69 Fezzán riyals or 55 Spanish dollars. I made a longer excursion along the eastern part of the wady, which here, where it is lower and collects more humidity, is adorned with some beautiful wild groups of palm-trees left quite to themselves; the valley extends towards Wady Ghodwa, which it joins. Keeping on in that direction, I came to a poor hamlet called Márhhaba inhabited by a few families, who bitterly complained of their poverty. Here was formerly a village built of clay, and a large spacious castle about sixty-five paces square. All is now deserted; and only a small part of the available ground is under culture, forming about six or seven small fields. The same picture is met with all over Fezzán, where the only places exhibiting to the eye some degree of life and prosperity are Sokna and Múrzuk. The population of this wide expanse of country falls short of even sixty thousand souls.
The heat of the day had already set in, when I returned to the tents, where I was extremely rejoiced to see the different members of our caravan collecting at last, so as to afford a fair prospect of our soon setting out for unknown and more interesting regions. There had arrived Mohammed el Sfaksi, a man with whom Mr. Gagliuffi had entered into a sort of partnership for a commercial journey to Negroland, and whom he had supplied with a tolerable amount of merchandise; and in the afternoon came the boat. The following day Yusuf Mukni, Mr. Richardson’s interpreter, came with the rest of the luggage, so that gradually everything fell into its right place, and nothing was now wanting but the Tuarek chiefs to set our whole body in regular motion. We therefore procured a load of dates from Aghár, and, getting everything ready, roused our spirits for the contemplation of novelties and the encountering of difficulties; for the latter could certainly not be wanting where the former were at hand.
June 19.—While the greater part of the caravan took the direct road to the well Sháraba, Mr. Overweg and I, with the remainder, chose the road to Tessáwa, or rather, more accurately, Tasáwa; but though our party formed but a small body of people, yet it presented a very animated spectacle. The lazy Arab mode of letting the camels go singly, as they like, straggling about right and left, strains and fatigues the traveller’s attention; but his mind is stimulated and nerved to the contemplation of great distances to be traversed when he sees a long line of camels attached one to the other, and led by a man at a steady pace without any halt or interruption. As for myself, riding my own méheri, I was quite at liberty to go before or fall behind, just as the circumstances of the road called for observation, or presented something worthy of attention.
Having passed some tolerably deep sand-hills accumulated in the wady, we obtained a sight of an advanced spur of the plantation of Aghár to our left, when the ground became firm, and the country more open. Then, keeping along the southern border of the principal plantation, we passed the village and our former camping-ground, and having left further on some deserted villages and a few scattered huts of palm-leaves, still inhabited, a little on one side, about noon we again entered a sandy region with a few detached palm-groups. Here I observed a specimen of a very rare sort of bifurcated or divided palm-tree (not the dúm, which is generally so), with two distinct tufts hanging down on the opposite sides: this is the only specimen I ever saw. We then passed the village of Tasáwa, which, with its clay walls and towers, looks much more considerable from afar than it appears when viewed from among the deserted houses within it; still it is one of the more wealthy and important places in the country. A little beyond it we encamped on the open sandy ground, when, as our small tent had by mistake gone on in advance, and our large tent was too bulky to be pitched for one night’s rest, we contrived a very tolerable airy shade with our carpets.
We had scarcely made ourselves comfortable, when we received the joyful news that Hatíta, with two sons of Sháfo, had just arrived from Ghát, and were about to call on us. Their arrival of course had now become a matter of the utmost importance, as Mr. Richardson had made his mind up not to start without them, though it might have been clear, to every one well acquainted with the state of things in the interior, that their protection could not be the least guarantee for our favourable reception and success in the country of Aïr or Asben, inhabited and governed by an entirely distinct tribe. And, on the other hand, the arrival of these chiefs made our relation to Mohammed Bóro extremely disagreeable, for, after waiting so long for us, he now clearly saw that Mr. Gagliuffi, in declaring that we relied entirely on him for our success, while we were in fact placing ourselves wholly at the disposal of the chiefs of Ghát, was only trifling with him. He therefore flew into a violent passion, threatening openly before the people that he would take care that we should be attacked on the road by his countrymen; and these were not empty threats.
After a hot day followed a very fine evening, with a beautifully clear moonlight; and cherishing the fervent hope that, with the assistance of the Almighty, I should succeed in my dangerous undertaking, I lay down in the open encampment, and listened with hearty sympathy to the fervent prayers of the Tinýlkum, which in melodious cadence, and accompanied with the sound há, há, sometimes in a voice of thunder, at others in a melancholy unearthly plaint, were well adapted to make a deep impression upon the mind, the tall palm-trees forming majestic groups, and giving a fanciful character to the landscape in the calm moonlight.
It is a remarkable fact that, while the Mohammedan religion in general is manifestly sinking to corruption along the coast, there are ascetic sects rising up in the interior which unite its last zealous followers by a religious band. The particular sect to which belong the Tinýlkum, who in general are Máleki, has been founded by Mohammed el Médani, who established a sort of convent or oratory (zawíya) near Masráta, and endowed it with a certain extent of landed property, from the produce of which he fed many pilgrims. The best feature of this creed is the abolition of the veneration of dead saints, which has sullied in so high a degree the purity of Islám. Mohammed el Médani is said to have died a short time ago; but his son continues the pious establishment. It is a sort of freemasonry, and promises to make a great many proselytes. In Tasáwa also reside a few Tinýlkum, who, however, have been intimately intermixed with the Arabs, while the others in general keep their blood pure, and do not intermarry with the people of Fezzán.
Having assured ourselves that, owing to the arrival of the Tuarek chiefs, we should have to make some stay here, we determined to pitch our large tent early the next morning, while the chiefs had a long dispute with Mohammed eʾ Sfaksi, the subject of which I must relate, as it throws some light on the history and the present state of this country. The northern Tuarek, when they occupied the country round Ghát, established a sort of tribute, or gheráma, to be paid by merchants passing through their territory, and on payment of which the trader should be no further molested, but enjoy full protection. At that time the Masráta—a section of a very powerful Berber tribe—had made, as we shall see, a colonial settlement in Ágades, and, owing to their great power, commercial activity, and near connection with the Tuarek, were considered wholly exempt from any tribute, while the inhabitants of Tunis, who seem to have exhibited the jealousy or hostility of the great lords of the desert, were subjected to the highest personal exaction, viz. ten dollars a head. Now Gagliuffi’s partner was a native of Sfákes; but having long resided in Masráta, he insisted upon being free from tribute, like the inhabitants of the latter place; but our friends were not to be cheated out of their right, and made him pay as a Tunisian.