I.—"Yes, and all Christians know God."
The Gardener.—"Why, then, are you an infidel?"
I repeated, "All Christians pray and know God;" and left him puzzled out of his wits. Ghat townsmen are beastly ignorant zealots, and confound Christians with the Pagan Negroes of Central Africa, whom also they call "Ensara." Since Negroes worship the "fetish," they think also we don't know God. The Governor asked the other day, if the children of Christians learnt to read and write like his children, the noisy hum of their reading coming into the room whilst we sat talking. I might have answered, "Some do," but used more general phraseology, "Both boys and girls with us learn to read and write." "My girls learn also," replied the Governor, with an air of triumph. I was glad to see female education encouraged in Ghat by the Marabout, as it is also in Ghadames.
Touaricks are afraid, and distrust Arabs; and Arabs are afraid, and distrust Touaricks; and both these are afraid of, and distrust Turks. There is no mutual confidence in these various Mahometan people. Nevertheless, except the Shânbah incursions, everything goes on pretty quietly, and I hear of no murders, or acts of violence, in this region of The Sahara. There is certainly no Irish or Indian Thuggism amongst Saharan barbarians.
14th.—The weather during these three days has been fine, no wind (the horror of our people), and very warm. Our departure is protracted from day to day. Time may be money in England, here it is as valueless as the sand of these deserts. Got up very early, as I sometimes do, and went to see the Governor. I was alone. In the distance (it was scarcely daylight), I saw a tall figure looming, embodying forth. I continued, and it neared me. This shadowy figure at length became visibly formed, and expanded itself into the full stature of Shafou, who was like myself all alone. His Highness was as surprised to meet me as I was surprised to meet him at this time of morning. Shafou stopped suddenly, and then putting his hand to his tobacco pouch, which he carried on his left arm, and without speaking, gave me to understand that I had not sent the tobacco which I had promised him. Indeed, I could not get it from Haj Ibrahim. I addressed this silent admonition of my forgetfulness or short-coming, by saying, "Yes, I understand, I'll send the tobacco." His Highness then slowly passed on, just raising his hand to salute me at parting, but without uttering a word. Afterwards, called on Hateetah, who had heard from the messenger about my wonderful liberality in giving a dollar to the Sultan, and was very angry. "Who is Shafou?" he peremptorily asked. "He is nothing. You have given him a large present, and me very little. Now, if any body hurts you, I shall be silent." I took no notice whatever of this ungracious speech. A son of the Governor paid me a visit on my return, and was very saucy, calling me a Kafer. I instantly turned him out of the house. Then came in my young Touarghee friend, which was a positive relief to me. I said:—"Are you not afraid to go warring with the Shânbah?" He answered me pathetically, prospectively submitting himself to the Divine Decrees:—"If it be the will of God that I go warring against the Shânbah, and fall and die there, what then? for go it is inscribed in the Book of Heaven." As to the justice of the war, like our young soldiers, it never occupied his thoughts. He merely goes to war because his master and prince goes to war. What would the Peace Society say to him?
People in Ghat have a very primitive way of making bread. They place a large earthen cylinder, with one of the ends knocked out, upon the ground, and make it fast with clay or mud mortar, like "setting a copper." This always remains as much a fixture as a copper. When they want to make bread, they fill it full of lighted date-palm branches, or other fuel. After the flame is extinguished, and the wood ashes have fallen to the bottom, the sides of the cylinder are heated red-hot. These sides are now rubbed round with a green palm-branch, and made clean. This done, the paste or dough is pulled and made into small loaves like pancakes, and clapped on the hot sides, until all the surface is covered, the little cakes sticking on with great tenacity. The top of the cylinder is now covered over to retain the heat. In a few minutes the covering is removed, and the new-baked bread is pulled or peeled off the sides of the fast-cooling cylinder. But sometimes there is heat for baking two batches of bread. Bread is frequently piled up, layer upon layer, like pancakes, in a bowl, and a strong highly-seasoned sauce with oil or liquid butter is poured upon it; from which bowl it is eaten, and called âesh, or "the evening meal." Sometimes a number of very small pieces of meat is placed on the pile of sopped bread; but this is a delicacy or luxury.
15th.—Went to call upon Hateetah, and met in the way a son of Abd Errahman of Ghadames, who has just returned from the oases of Touat. He describes Ain Salah (or Ensalah), to be like the country where the Governor of Ghat resides, that is to say, sandy and surrounded with sand heaps, but abundantly supplied with water, as well as thickly populated. The oases of Touat have unwalled towns, or scattered hamlets, but the country is perfectly secure. He gives the inhabitants a good character; they are a mixture of Moors, Arabs, Touaricks, Berbers, and Negroes, like nearly all the oases in Central Sahara, or that portion of The Great Desert, extending from the oases of Fezzan to the Saharan towns of Arwan and Mabrouk, on the western-route line of Timbuctoo. He thinks I might travel in safety from Touat to Timbuctoo in summer, for during the dry season the banditti cannot keep the open Desert. Saw Hateetah, and gave him a dollar, which put him into a better humour. Although the soi-disant Consul of the English, and all the Christians who per hazard visit Ghat, he displayed to-day the greatest ignorance of the maxims and polity of Christian nations. I thought it as well, since he assumed to be the Representative of Her Majesty here in Ghat, just to remind him, (for I thought I had told him before,) there was a Queen in England, and that Her Majesty was his master. This greatly shocked Her Majesty's Touarghee Consul, and he asked, "Whether the Queen cut off heads?" I told Her Majesty's Consul, the servants of Government hanged murderers. The Touaricks have acquired these sanguinary notions of cutting off heads, from the reports of the Turkish and Moorish administration of justice. Such barbarous practices do not exist amongst these barbarians. He then demanded, "Should I go to England, would the English seize me and beat me?" This question from the English Consul really surprised me, whatever I might have expected from others, the vulgar error of Christians ill-using Moslems, being spread in Sahara. People think, if they were to visit Europe, we should capture them, beat them, and make them slaves. This unfavourable opinion of us has descended from the times of the Crusaders, when European Christians displayed their zeal for Christianity—notwithstanding its holy doctrines teach the forgiveness of injuries—by butchering or enslaving Jews, Mahometans, and heretics. Thank God, the chivalry of those days is gone, though worse may yet come. To-day, a mob of slaves, who idle about in the road to Hateetah, hooted after me, and one of the biggest came upon me and pulled hold of my coat. I could not let this pass, the hooting I don't care about. So I fetched some people to have the biggest fellow taken to Jabour. This we did to frighten them, for after one of my friends gave him a crack over the head, he was let off, promising to do so no more. The lower Moors and Touaricks, both here and at Ghadames, teach the slaves to call Christians kafer, "infidel." The blacksmiths, near Hateetah's house, mostly salute me as I pass by them, with "There's no God," &c. Sometimes they are extremely insolent. Any resistance to this zeal for The Prophet, would be putting your head into the fire. It would not be quite so bad if I did not go out so much alone. I ought always to have a good strong fellow, an Arab or Touarghee, with me, a sort of physical-force argument against this moral hooting, which is intelligible everywhere, and more especially in The Desert. But as I soon leave, I do not wish to adopt any new measure, which would show want of confidence in the people.
Evening visited my little queer friend Bel Kasem. Found with him as usual his mighty lord, Khanouhen. The Prince began to ridicule Hateetah and his brothers, and scold me on the subject of presents:—"Yâkob, if you give those rascally brothers of Hateetah presents, I shall have to spear you," clenching hold of his spear. "Kelāb" (dogs), said his jester, "they'll strip you of everything, leaving you no bread, nor even a water-skin, to return to Tripoli." I assured Khanouhen I had not given Hateetah's brothers anything but a bit of sugar for some of their children. "Good," said the Prince. Khanouhen now began in the style of un esprit fort: "Yâkob, you're a Marabout. Our Marabouts are all rogues, and are always exciting the people against us and our authority (as Sultan). Are you such a rogue?" Here was a glimpse of another contest between the civil and spiritual power in The Desert. I told the Sheikh I was no priest, but a taleb. "Ah! good," said the Prince, giving me his hand. "But when you die, where are you going to? Are you and I going together on the same camel, or do you take one route of The Desert and I another, with different camels?" I replied, "What is the use of such conjectures?" "Right," said the Prince, "don't you remember (turning to Bel Kasem) that Wahabite the people had here, and how they buffeted him, about? Yâkob, (turning to me) I saved a poor devil, a Wahabite, from being killed by the mob in Ghat, and I'm ready to save you. What's the good of killing a man for his religion?" I thanked the Prince for his noble feelings of tolerance, and left him and his clown to their tête-à-tête. Khanouhen is one of the few of those strong-minded and right-thinking men, who see the utter folly and direful mischief of forging a creed for the consciences of his fellows. Had he been a Christian prince of the times of Charles V., he would not, like that celebrated monarch, have passed all his life in binding the religious opinions of men in fetters, and then at the end of his days, disgusted with his work, repented of his folly. No, from the beginning of his career, Khanouhen would have proclaimed and defended with his sword the liberty of the human conscience in matters of religion.
16th.—A warm morning and hazy, but the much-dreaded wind got up at noon. The departure of all the ghafalahs is now fixed for the 25th, and ours for 23rd. The Rais of Ghadames has sent word for all his subjects to return together; this I'm sure they will not do. It is extremely difficult to make up a large caravan. The Soudan caravan is now departing in small detachments of half a dozen people. Found Said crying to-day. "What's the matter, Said?" "You are going to Soudan, the Touaricks will kill you and cut you into bits, and I shall be again made a slave. I wish to return to Ghadames with the Ghadamsee ghafalah." I had often caught Said crying, and I imagine his grief came from the same source. I now told him positively I was about to return to Fezzan, and never observed him crying afterwards. As at Ghadames, Said is here a great man amongst the lady negresses, and spends all his money in buying them needles and beads. Hateetah called and scolded Said for crying, who had not yet dried his tears. The Sheikh told him the Touaricks were better than the Turks or Arabs; and I supported Hateetah by reminding Said of what our friend Essnousee observed, "Targhee elkoul zain, (all the Touaricks are good fellows)." I now spoke to Hateetah seriously about devising some means for stopping the progress of slave-caravans through the country. He pretended that the profit derived from the slave-caravans was infinitely greater than it is, making it some one thousand dollars per annum; he did not think the Sheikhs would suppress it. "They had carried it on always, and would for ever," he observed. "But," he continued, and very justly, "stop it at Constantinople, or at Tripoli, and then it will be stopped here." Hateetah is right. This is and must be our plan, and I am happy to see that Lord Palmerston has made, during the present year, a most decisive effort near the Sublime Porte, to get the demand for slaves cut off at Tripoli and Constantinople, by the closing up of the slave-markets. Spent the evening with Haj Ibrahim. The Haj was occupied in making under-garments for the slaves he has purchased. Moors do strange things. It is curious to see the richest and most extensively occupied merchant of the Souk sewing up shirts and chemises for his slaves.
17th.—Shafou left this morning for the country districts. The quiet old gentleman has had enough of the bustle of the Souk, which still continues. His Highness, before his departure, arranged for the Queen's letter and the presents. Called early upon the Governor, and found him in the house of Khanouhen, where there was a full assembly of Sheikhs. I was obliged to talk politics with them, which were translated as the conversation proceeded, by the Governor himself, to the Sheikhs. I surprised them by telling them of the great number of Mussulman troops employed by the French in Algeira, and how the French Government paid all the priests of religion, even Mussulmans. They questioned me about, and I explained to them the existence of deism in France and Europe. Now and then a solitary Mussulman deist may be found in North Africa. But how few have courage enough to resist the divine mission of The Prophet! Still fewer question the probability of a Revelation. In general conversation, I have always despised the system of running down the Algerian French, whilst travelling in these wilds. It serves no earthly purpose, but to increase the arrogance of the Moors and Arabs against Christians of all nations. Whatever the conduct of the Algerian French, the conquest may have a salutary influence upon Saharan fanatics, though it increases the danger of the European traveller. The Moorish Governments of the coast deserve much censure. They often foster and fan the flame of fanaticism against European tourists. Besides, the conduct of the Maroquines towards the Jews ought not now to be permitted by the Governments of France and England. A missionary to the Jews, (himself a converted Jew,) who visited Tangier with me, could not help exclaiming, on seeing how badly the native Jews were treated, "God give the French success in Algeria!" It is difficult for a philanthropic mind to suppress such feelings, whatever our national prejudices, and how much soever we may brand the Razzias as an indelible stigma on European civilization. It would be better, and certainly more just, to civilize North Africa by civilizing the established Moorish Governments of The Coast. But if The Coast is to fall under European domination, it is to be hoped England will secure the Bay of Tunis for shipping, and the Regency of Tripoli, as being the natural route of Saharan commerce. The rest may be safely left to France, excepting our old military post of Tangier, in order to maintain our influence through the Straits of Gibraltar. The conversation of the Sheikhs at length turned upon the Turks, and the country of Gog and Magog—whence they came, whom we all agreed to abuse as much as possible, since our antipathies were pretty equal. The Sheikhs then began very naturally to vaunt of their power in The Sahara, and I may embrace this opportunity of giving some outline of the Touarick nations of The Great Desert.
