CHAPTER VI.
The Oasis of Fezzan—Population—Ten Districts—Their Denomination and Condition—Sockna—Honn—Worm of the Natron Lakes—Zoueelah—Mixed Race—Improvements in Mourzuk—Heavy Ottoman Yoke—Results of the Census—Amount of Revenue—Military Force—Arab Cavaliers—Barracks—Method of Recruiting—Turkish System superior to French—Razzias—Population of Mourzuk—Annual Market—Articles of Traffic—Acting-Governor and his Coadjutors—Story of a faithless Woman—Transit Duties in Fezzan—Slave Trade—Sulphur in the Syrtis—Proposed Colony from Malta.
The Pashalic of Fezzan, although it occupies a considerable space upon the map—advancing like a peninsula from the line of Barbary countries into the Sahara—is in reality a very insignificant province. From all that I can learn, its entire population does not exceed twenty-six thousand souls, scattered about in little oases over a vast extent of country. It is, in fact, a portion of the Sahara, in which fertile valleys occur a little more frequently than in the other portions. Immense deserts, sometimes perfectly arid, but at others slightly sprinkled with herbage, separate these valleys; and are periodically traversed by caravans, great and small, which in the course of time have covered the country with a perfect network of tracks.
Fezzan is divided into ten districts, of which the principal is El-Hofrah, containing the capital, Mourzuk, and several smaller towns. It is here and there besprinkled with beautiful gardens, in which are cultivated, besides the date-palm, several of the choicest fruits that grow on the coast—as figs, grapes, peaches, pomegranates, and melons. In these gardens, as in most of the oases of the desert, the fruit trees that require most protection from the sun are planted between the palms, which make a kind of roof with their long leaves. Abd-el-Galeel destroyed many of these groves to punish their owners, refractory to his authority.
Two crops are obtained in the year: in the spring, barley and wheat are reaped; and in the summer and autumn, Indian corn, ghaseb, and other kinds of grain. All the culture is carried on by means of irrigation, the water being thrown over the fields by means of runnels of various dimensions twice in the day; that is, once early in the morning, and once late in the afternoon until dark.
Wady Ghudwah is a single town with gardens, and the other features common to all the Fezzan oases.
Sebha includes two towns, having a considerable population, with gardens and date-palms.
Bouanees includes three towns, well peopled, and has immense numbers of date-palms.
El-Jofrah contains the second capital or large town of the pashalic, Sockna, built of stones and mud, with nine or ten smaller towns, all tolerably populous.