Our people suffer much from their fasting. But the Tuaricks do not fast, and seem to look with scorn upon the Moors and blacks for doing so. Yusuf says he shall not fast when he in en route. A camel has broken down on the road, and it is found necessary to kill it, to prevent its dying. Hateetah has given out his decree for its sale. The Tuaricks are to purchase half and we half of the carcase, at ten reals, or fifty Tunisian piastres. Of our five reals the Germans take one and a half, and the Sfaxee a half. This will make it lighter for me. Our people made a regular feast of the camel's flesh, some of them sitting up and gorging till midnight. Their noise did not disturb me, for I had slept a good deal in the day.
I had done very little indeed but sleep and lie down. We felt the heat severely at noon. A gust of hot wind nearly carried away our tent.
The Tuaricks use spoons, and do not eat with their hands like the Arabs and Turks; but the latter pretend that the Tuaricks never wash their hands at all, whilst they, before and after eating, always take this precaution. In saluting, the Tuaricks do not spread out the fingers much when they raise their hand, but present the palm and fingers outstretched to you. One of these gentlemen, whom I call the noisy one, has got a poor little slave-boy, about seven years of age, who works like a man, and goes quite naked.
To-day I found a young scorpion in the canvass-case of my writing-desk; he cocked his tail in a hostile attitude, as if daring any one to touch him. In his tail seems to be all his power, and so of all the scorpion host. Yesterday was taken a locust: this destructive insect is not bred in the desert. In this bare and thirsty region there is nothing for the young ones to eat, and the old ones likewise would soon perish in the Sahara. They are bred in the cultivated fields near the desert, or in the fertile lands of the coast, as in the neighbourhood of Mogador, where millions of the young have been seen, like so many small green buds of trees.
Dr. Overweg made an excursion to the Ghât mountains, or rather the smaller hills or offshoots from the range. He found them sandstone, but very singularly formed or broken into huge blocks—some like the masses which I saw on the route from Ghadamez to Ghât, with a very narrow base, on which they might turn as on a pivot.
11th.—We stopped here another day. We were to have started in the afternoon, but the Tuaricks had some visitors come to see them, and detained us for their own comfort and amusement. I am not sorry for it, as we have had a tremendous gheblee. All the day I felt it extremely hot, and so have all the people. I was obliged to lie down on the floor of my tent nearly all day; but I have so arranged my table that I put my head under it, which gives additional and most important protection from the sun. All these little expedients must be resorted to in travelling over the desert, and may sometimes save a man's life. It is surprising what protection a piece of cloth or linen, or a piece of board, in addition to the tent, will give against the intensity of the sun's fierce rays. The Moors and blacks of the coast seem to suffer as much as the Europeans.
There are two ways from this wady to Ghât—a difficult, and an easy but longer one. I and the Germans go, with Hateetah and Shafou, the difficult one; and we leave the heavy luggage and the caravan to go the easy route. This, at least, is the arrangement talked of this evening. The morrow may bring something new.
The Tuaricks who arrived to-day expected a supper: Hateetah sent to the Germans to find them one; the Germans referred them to Moknee; and we provided.
We must take care we do not have too many customers of this sort, or we shall never get up to Aheer with the present stock of provisions.
To call the wind under which we are suffering gheblee, is a perfect misnomer; for the hot wind of to-day and yesterday came directly from the north, "Bahree!" As Yusuf said, however, when I told him where the wind was from: "Where now is the sea? It is a long way from the sea."