Of the four routes to Ghat, the next to us on the west, is the shortest. People say the route which we are now travelling is only frequented in this season, and mostly by large caravans, or scarcely ever in the summer.
8th.—Rose at day-break and started at sunrise: as usual, the sky overcast and in an hour the wind got up and blew a strong gale awhile from the south-east. To-day Sahara looked unusually dark and drear; night as a dread pall seemed to hang on the day and all visible things—all life and animation was extinct but our lone, solitary, melancholy caravan! We moved on in deep and weary silence, not a noise, a cry, a murmur, the grumbling of the camels was even hushed. Nothing broke the horrid silence of The Desert. We wound round long-long winding valleys—
"Through many a dark and dreary vale [We] pass'd, and many a region dolorous—" "Where all life dies."
Most of the stone scattered en route was black shingle, and all the region had a volcanic look. In one wady through which we passed were found several stones rounded into (shall I call them?) cannon-balls, scattered about, and some were of prodigious size. They were as round as if artificially made. There were also a great many halves, or half balls. Our people to divert their minds from the gloom hanging around them dismounted and amused themselves with these cannon-balls of nature. Some would say that nature furnishes a type of every thing in art. Our Touaricks assured us, "These balls were made by the Jenoun, who on occasion of quarrels, pelted one another with them. A traveller was once killed with some of these balls during the night, although a friend of the Jenoun." In a former period, I imagine the action of water produced these specimens of stony rotundity, for they were embedded in a deep wady. On leaving this valley, I had also something else to relieve me from the gloom of this day's march. On mounting a small ridge of rock, abrupt, and full of sharp stones, I was pitched off in a summerset style from the back of the camel, and if I had not been caught in my fall by a slave of the caravan, I should have fallen once and for ever in this world; as it was, I felt stunned and considerably hurt. This was my first and last fall from the camel. I learnt caution at a great risk. The people all crowded round to assist me, terribly frightened. My thick woollen clothes saved my bones. I could not help remarking the coincidence of being saved by a slave, for the benefit of whom I had chiefly undertaken this perilous journey. In general, the camel goes extremely steady, it is only in mounting and descending that they become unsteady, unwieldy, and dangerous. At other times, you may sleep, eat and drink, read and write, on the back of a camel. But as our days are short and nights long, we require no sleep, and my eyes are too bad for reading. Our people call camels by the Arabic term bâeer (بعير), the male camel is called jemel (جمل), and the female nagah (ناقه). As the she-camel is most valuable for the sustenance of the tribes, the Touaricks sometimes call the whole race of camels nagah. "We," say they, "have nothing but the nagah (she-camel)," thereby meaning, our property alone consists in camels. But the nagah is a great favourite with the Mussulmans of all nations. Mahomet mounted a milk-white nagah, when he ascended to paradise. The camels have all public and private marks, the former for their country, and the latter for their owner, and, strange enough, the public mark of the Ghadames camels is the English broad R. So when a camel is stolen, a man claims his camel by his mark. The marking is done by branding with a hot iron.
I can't help observing the habits of the camels, for our continued marching affords us ample leisure. When these melancholy creatures can find no other occupation en route, or when there is nothing en route, or after a full belly, they set to work, like men, and bite one another. Often one of the camels falls, or throws its load, in a regular encounter. The Moors and Arabs are bad loaders of the camels, and there is always some camel with its load falling off. In fact, the people do nothing neat and well. Even the little gear required for these animals is continually breaking and getting out of order. People look to the immediate hour before them: not excepting even the necessary articles of fodder and water, and food for themselves, of which they often neglect to take a sufficient supply. And yet if anything could teach a man to be provident it is The Desert. If this Saharan travelling were placed under the management of Europeans, it would be infinitely more secure. Our camels are nearly all coast-camels, we shall soon have to speak of the maharee. The Touarghee uses quite a different style of address when he coaxes along the camels; it is bolder and quicker in its intonations, suited to the language of the Touaricks. A frequent address of encouragement is, "Bok, bok bok, bokka bokka." The Arabs usually command the movement of the camels by "Tzâ;" and when they are to stop, by "Ush;" and, to kneel down, it is a prolonged pronunciation of the guttural خ or Kh-h-h. We may well suppose, however, that the camels which travel this route are expert linguists in the Touarghee and Arabic.
We continued all day till the last dull departing solar ray of the west had left us. A long dark, dismal, dreary day it has been. We encamped amidst two long ranges of Saharan mountains as a shelter from the wind. Our people detest the wind, they prefer burning heat to wind. The mountains only deserve the name from their frightfully gloomy aspect, not from their consistence or magnitude, for in reality they are so much stony and earthy rubbish shovelled up into long ridges. There is nothing in shape or consistence of granite. I picked up several pieces of petrified wood, but none of them pretty or remarkable. So far as I can judge, there are no minerals or rare stones to repay the researches of the geologist in these regions of desolation. Noticed a quantity of soft grey stone, as also of slate stone: observed some lime-stone gradually acquiring the consistence and colour of fine streaky marble.
9th.—Rose as the day broke, and started with the first rays of the sun. Continued through the same kind of country, with an addition of a little sand here and there, for five hours, until we arrived at the well of Nijberten, to our great joy, for it is a well of deliciously sweet water. Around the well, I was pleased with the sight of several dark bushes scattered upon the small sand-hills. Anything in the shape of a tree now gladdens the heart. I observe again, that vegetation often springs out of the sand in preference to the hard or even softer earth in The Sahara. A little sand, scattered over the hard earth, and oftener solid rock, enables vegetation to spring up, when the mould of Sahara produces nothing. But there is little or no herbage for camels. Give my nagah the barley which I provided for my own use. People ridicule the choice of Rais Mustapha in the purchase of the camel, and say she will never carry me to Soudan.
I'm now writing the journal of yesterday. I can't write every day. Sometimes several days elapse. Often wonder how Denham could write his journal every day, as he asserts. The wind is high and is scattering sand in every direction. Certainly I require no supply of sand when turning over my sheet wet with the ink.
Before we get to the water, we are obliged to scoop out the sand as at Mislah. Many pits in Sahara are in this predicament. But we are infinitely more repaid for our pains, for we find most refreshing nectar-like water, as good as the last was bad. I imagine I drank off a full gallon at once. I was praying night and day for this water, and was obliged to go from tent to tent, begging a drop of the water which was left of Nather well, until all the skins were empty of that water. Some of the merchants kept a little in a small skin as a luxury. But I must do our people justice, for seeing I could not drink the Mislah water, they gave me often their sweet water and themselves drank the brackish. I must add, I see no striking moral difference between the people of this Desert caravan, and the people who fill an English mail-coach or a French diligence. Mankind are morally much the same everywhere. The last sixteen centuries have added little or nothing to discovery and amendment in morals, however orthodox we may all have become. Our Christendom has been chiefly occupied in resisting the worst features of the Mosaic economy as engrafted by the corruptions of the Church on the Christian system. The commission to Moses, "to extirpate the Canaanitish tribes," has been the universal war-cry of the dominant party in the Church to burn and empale heretics. There are still many divinity professors who think it right to kill heretics and infidels. The society of the nineteenth century is still eaten up by the most rancorous bigotry, and morality is proportionably at a low ebb. Nevertheless, with all our present Desert hardships, we are an easy journeying caravan; the patience of no one is particularly tried, and there is no event to draw out the real passions of the soul. We are now five days from Ghat; to-morrow being the Ayed Kebir, we shall make but a short day. Had a little private conversation with a Souf Arab. There are some fifty families of Jews in Souf, occupied in commerce. Speaking of the eternal quarrel of the Shânbah and Souafah, I found him a strong partisan of the Shânbah. "Fine fellows are the Shânbah, like us the Souafah; one Shânbah would kill five Touaricks," he exclaimed. Souf is a rich country. This Souf Arab has thirty fine dughla date-trees, one of finest species. Riches are estimated by the number of date-trees. He has two brothers now returning from Soudan, bringing slaves and elephants' teeth for the markets of Algeria.
The notorious Mohammed Sagheer, who slaughtered thirty Frenchmen in cold blood at Biscara, is now at Tozer, in Tunis. This flight of fugitives will continue as long as France is in North Africa. It is inevitable. When a political refugee is quiet his person should be held sacred; and it was very dastardly on the part of the French to demand to have this Arab Sheikh given up. But the French mind is incapable of comprehending what is a political asylum, or even what is constitutional freedom. Local politics still stick close to our ghafalah, and the people have such faith in my power and influence, that they really believe I could, if I would, get Ghadames freed from paying tribute to the Porte. An Arab of Derge said, "If you return from Soudan, and speak to the English Consul and English Sultan, you will then serve us in Derge and Ghadames, but if you don't come back we are all lost." The British Consul of Tripoli might, indeed, do something for these oppressed people, and save the Saharan commerce from impending ruin. I quiet the people by telling them, (and which is the fact,) I have repeatedly written to the English Consul of Tripoli about their affairs, and to obtain some mitigation of the oppression of their Government.