In some parts of the Shelly there are ranges of benches of two and three flights. It is an imposing sight, to pass through the square late in the afternoon, just before they leave, and see all the Touaricks mounted on these benches. Row upon row, range upon range, they sit, closely jammed together, as thick as Milton's spirits in Pandemonium, and not unlike them, with their dark and concealed countenances, so mysteriously muffled up with the dread litham, having before them ranges of spears, parallel to themselves, a bright forest hedge of pines, awaiting their orders for war or warlike pomp. I have frequently passed this forest range of lances, and looked up fearfully to the dark enigmatical figures or shapes of human beings, reclining in the most profound death-like silence, not exchanging a word with one another. A most trivial call of attention, a rustling or breath of an accident of novelty, nevertheless, is enough to put instant action and fire into these ranged masses of ice-congealed or stone statue-like warriors, who will then rush down upon the attractive object headlong, one falling over the other, until their childish curiosity being satisfied, the wild tumult subsides, and they themselves sink into their wonted blank inanity. But it is a fact, they will sit motionless thus for hours and hours, and not condescend to speak to their best friend amongst the merchants. This is their idea of dignity and superior rank over their fellows. It would appear, from the account of the Sultan of Bornou, that he, also, never condescends to speak when he receives a foreign envoy. "Slowness of motion," in Barbary, and I imagine in The East, is also considered a mark of dignity. A full-blown fashionable Moor always walks extremely slow. The Touarick usually rises up slowly, and deliberately walks out of the house in the same way, but otherwise he continues a fair pace. What is curious, a Touarick never speaks and salutes when he leaves you; his compliments and inquiries of health, are all on his entrance into your house.
It now seems pretty well agreed upon by all parties who converse about my affairs, that I should return and make greater preparations, and bring with me two or three others, fellow-travellers, so as to render an expedition of this sort more useful and respectable. But the disadvantage always is, if it get abroad that such a mission is coming, laden with presents, money and provisions, the danger is tenfold augmented, whilst an indigent person like myself is in comparative security. A single person has also his own advantages over a mission of two or three, or more. He is his own master he is responsible alone for himself. Who knows, but what something disastrous had happened if I had had with me some hot-headed companion? A man will lose his life any time in The Desert in five minutes if he cannot keep his temper. He may occasionally assume airs of being angry for policy's sake, and check the insolence of some low fellow, and with other advantages. But the point is, to be cool in danger and embarrassments, which, if a man cannot be, let him go into The Great Desert at his peril. It was for the same reason I would not bring with me an European servant from Tripoli, whose fluency in Arabic might have been attended with the greatest danger to us both instead of assistance. Said is pestered with questions about me or my affairs; but at times Said is stupid enough, and people get tired of asking him questions. I must mention, however, one thing to his credit and to his cunning sagacity; although a thousand times questioned, whether he himself were a slave, and how he came with me, he never let out that he was a runaway slave from Tunis, not even to his dearest companions of travel. Generally when asked a question of our affairs, he says, Ma-Nârafsh, "I don't know," and this he does as much from his indolence in not wishing to talk as from policy. Here I shall take the liberty of stating the several objections to my proceeding this year to Soudan:—
1st. My health is beginning to sink under pressure of the climate, as well as under various vexations and annoyances. Amongst the latter, I have received nothing which I wrote for to Tripoli, to persons whom I considered friends of the mission, one thing excepted, and certainly not the least thing, the money. (And I embrace the opportunity of thanking gratefully Signor Francovich, Austrian merchant of Tripoli, for letting me have money whenever I asked him, promptly and immediately, and to any amount which I drew for).
2nd. Amongst the things written for to Tripoli, and which did not arrive, were medicine, and some common instruments of observation. The medicine was packed up by Dr. Dickson, but neglected to be sent until the caravan had left Ghadames. The instruments, which could easily have been procured in Tripoli, were of the greatest consequence, in making a more extended tour intelligible.
3rd. Kanou, being reported by all the merchants as "a country of fever," it would have been exceedingly imprudent for me to have gone further without a good stock of medicines. We have no right to plunge ourselves into the flood of the Niger, and then accuse the hand of Providence for not saving us from a watery grave. One might have escaped the fever, as one might have been picked up by the swimming of a black man; but such a "might" belongs to accident, not the planning and arranging of legitimate expectation.
I shall not trouble the reader with ten or more reasons, all having more or less of weight, which I have recorded in my journal, but which are more curious than sensible. I mention, that, on my departure from Ghat, I wrote to the Sultan of Aheer, by the advice of my best friends, informing him of my intention to visit him at some future period. It is a mistake that, the taking of these Saharan princes unawares; they consider it infinitely more friendly to be written to beforehand. A stranger, and especially a Christian, coming down upon them unexpectedly, excites suspicion which may never be afterwards removed. The Touarick Princes of Aheer are considered the only difficulty, so far as governments are concerned, in the rest of the route. The Fullan Princes of Soudan are represented as eminently friendly to every body, every stranger of whatever clime or religion. However, I do not pretend to know what effect the Niger expedition may have produced on the Fullans, with respect to Englishmen.
7th.—Stayed at home all the day. The fœx populi is a great worry to me. They have no encouragement from the Sheikhs, but are not less the cause of my shutting myself up at home. Evening, when the streets were clear, visited Haj Ibrahim. He has purchased the feathers of a splendid Soudan ostrich for five dollars, which in Tripoli he will sell for ten. The bird is skinned and the feathers remain unplucked. The quæstio vexata, as to who is Haj Ibrahim's "friend," sahab (صاحب), to whom he should pay his tribute-present, for visiting the Souk, is at length decided in favour of Berka. The old gentleman produced witnesses that all Jerbini belonged to him, or are under his protection, and as Haj Ibrahim is a native of Jerbah, he claimed the rich merchant. The several Sheikhs have the several merchants under their protection. Shafou has those of Tunis, Jabour those of Tripoli, under their respective protection, and so of the rest. The merchants pay for their protection from ten to twenty dollars, according to their means. Frequently a group of traders do not pay more than a single individual; some get off with paying only a dollar. These demands on the merchants are certainly very moderate, and the Touaricks scarcely deserve the epithets of exigeant and extortionate which are so freely applied to them by the merchants. Haj Ibrahim, who brings some thousand dollars' worth of goods to this part, pays only the paltry sum of some twenty or thirty dollars at the most. In fact, here is free-trade with a vengeance, existing long before it has been attempted to carry it out, with such tremendous consequences, as in Great Britain. France and the Zollverein must send agents to the Souk of Ghat, say half a dozen University students each, to study free-trade principles from the barbarians of The Desert. Indeed Touaricks carry out their system beautifully and like gentlemen, and the Aheer merchants pay nothing in Ghat, and the Ghat merchants pay nothing in Aheer, for the privileges of commerce, in the way of customs' dues. The merchants and Arabs of Derge pay nothing whatever, a privilege of ancient date granted to this class of Tripoline merchants. But the Souk flourishes with its free-trade mart, and excites the jealousies of the merchants of Mourzuk, and their masters the Turks, because some of the merchants pass from here direct to Algeria and Tunis, not touching the Tripoline territory, and in this way the Turks lose their much-coveted gomerick, or customs' duty. I am happy to record the present instance of these extortioners being overreached, or rather, vanquished by an honourable system of trade. Certainly, were it not for the high duties levied on merchandize at Mourzuk and Ghadames, many of the merchants of this Souk would visit those cities, and the Turks could not fail to benefit by this extra rendezvous of merchants. Haj Ibrahim does not think the whole of what all the Sheikhs together collect as presents, at the annual Ghat Souk, to be more than 250 or 300 dollars. In case Great Britain should think it worth while to bribe or buy the services of the Touaricks of The Desert, to intercept the slave-caravans, and so discourage the traffic, it certainly could be done for some 500 dollars per annum, or for very little more, if it were a question of money only.
