15th.—The wind continued all night and the following day. It dropped down on the afternoon of the 16th; on the 17th a pleasant breeze sprung up, and continued until we got within a couple of miles off Tripoli. We were followed for three hours by a shoal of porpoises, some nearly as big as our bark, which enjoyed highly the run with us, "perceiving," as the captain said, "our motion." The first night of our anchorage in the Tripoli Vecchia, we had several alarms that the tiny bark had dragged its anchor, and was about to take us out into the open sea: no one could sleep. After the wind subsided, our Christian sailors were alarmed that we might have our throats cut by the Ishmaelite Arabs from the shore the next night. When it was quite calm we went on shore to search for water; we found a well of good water on the N.E. landing of the port. A palm beckoned us to the spring, but a single palm is often found where there is no well or water; and it is not true, as vulgarly supposed, that where there are date-palms there must be water. The country in this vicinity is a perfect desert, yet on this arid waste shepherds drive their flocks in the spring, and up to May and June. The captain considered Tripoli Vecchia, which is a very ancient port, and the site of a once famous city, more secure than that of Tripoli itself, though certainly much smaller. Whilst we were here no bark visited it. Good-sized ships occasionally anchor in it. Like Tripoli, it is defended with a sunken reef of rocks, some peaks of which rise several feet out of the water. Along this line is a strong surf always chafing and roaring. There are two mouths of entrance; the deepest water within is about twelve or fourteen feet. There is another but much smaller port, two miles further east; the coast from this to Tripoli offers nothing to the tourist. Twelve miles this way begin those forests of fine broad-waving palms, which form so noble a feature in the suburban landscape of Tripoli. When we got off Tripoli we had a dead calm, and myself looking about for the wind, the Moors got angry, and said, "Be still; if you restlessly stare about, and wish the wind to come, it will never come: you cast the 'eye malign' upon it." These superstitious ideas are not peculiar to the Moors. An English captain once told me, if I continued to stay below, the wind would never be fair. Tripoli looked here very bold, massive, and imposing from the sea; its broad lime-washed towers, and the graceful minarets beyond, all dazzling white in the sun, contrasting with the dark blue waters of the Mediterranean. Such is the delusion of all these sea-coast Barbary towns; at a distance and without, beauty and brilliancy, but near and within, filth and wretchedness.
A word of my fellow passengers and crew. Our Maltese Rais, although he broke his agreement with me, behaved well; I therefore paid him, requesting the Chancellor of our Consulate only to scold him, and warn him for the future. He is a good Maltese Christian; and when I told him Malta had fifty years' possession of Tripoli, he replied, "Ah, how the world changes! what a pity God has given this fine country into the hands of rascally Turks." Sometimes he would kick the Moors about and through the ship like cattle: at other times he would say, "Aye, come, bismillah[9]," and help them to a part of his supper. The Moors provided for only four days' provisions, a day over the average time, and they were all out of bread before arriving at Tripoli. The captain consulted me as to what was to be done; we arranged to supply them with a few biscuits every day, I taking the responsibility of payment, pitying the poor devils. If a Moor has a good passage at sea, he says, "Thank God!" if not, Maktoub, ("It is written,") and quietly submits to the evils which he has brought on himself by sheer imprudence. Their provisions, in this case, consisted of barley-meal, olive-oil, a few loaves of wheaten bread, and a little dried paste for making soup. The soup was made of a few onions, dried peppers, salt, oil, and the paste. On first starting, some of the more respectable had a few hard-boiled eggs, with which the Jews most frequently travel; and others had a little pickled fish. When the paste was finished, the barley-meal was attacked, and when this was gone, the greater part lived on biscuits sopped in water. We tried to buy a sheep from a flock driven by the shore, for which I furnished a dollar; but the current was so strong, that the man could not reach the land. One poor old Moor lived actually on bread and water all the time he was on board, and would have nothing else, telling me, "What God gives is enough." Yet he was cheerful and talkative. One of the two Jews was also a very old blind man, clothed in rags. He, too, mostly fared on biscuits sopped in water; nevertheless, he also was quite happy! "Where are you going, Abraham?" I said to him. "Where God wills I go," he replied; "but I wish to lay my poor bones in the land of our fathers. Many long years God has afflicted us for our sins, but it will not be for ever." The old gentleman was going to get a passage from Tripoli to the Holy Land. How little suffices some! How much does faith! So mysterious are the ways of the Creator in distributing contentment. For myself, I fared extremely well in the midst of this happy melée of misery and starvation, Mr. Pariente, of Jerbah, having filled for me a large box of provisions, consisting of a leg of lamb, a fowl, pigeons, fish and bread, besides wine and spirits. But this was as liberally distributed amongst all as given to me, and not a crumb was left on arriving at Tripoli. When we were getting safe into port, I gave the grog to the crew; they had often cast wistful eyes at the acquavite, but none was poured out whilst at sea. Two or three drunken sailors would have sent our cockle-shell to the bottom; still, in spite of the coffee-drinking vessels, a little spirits may occasionally be very usefully distributed to men, fighting and wrestling with the wild waves and the tempest. Our bark was from six to eight tons' burden, and the cabin was just big enough for me and the captain to move in; the woman and child slept in the forecastle, and all the rest on deck. Each Moorish passenger paid half a dollar for the voyage. I have been thus particular in describing our coaster and its live freight, to show what misery is endured in these coasting voyages. It was, however, a fit introduction to my painful journeyings through the still more inhospitable ocean desert.
I have now to mention my runaway servant, Said. This negro was the slave of Sidi Mustapha, Consular Agent of France in Jerbah. Mustapha was formerly Consular Agent of England, and being found to possess slaves, he was dismissed. He got up however false documents, to show that he had disposed of his slaves; but this being discovered, the cheat did not avail, and he was not allowed to be any longer England's Consul. Then, seeing his imposture had failed, he again resumed power over his slaves, and Said was still his slave on my arrival at Jerbah. Hearing of this, I told Said to go on board, and wait till the boat left. He did so. The captain winked at it, and apparently every one else, for Said was securely numbered on the vessel's papers as a passenger. This, of course, happened before the Bey of Tunis finally abolished slavery, which important event took place in the beginning of the year 1846, to the eternal honour of the reigning Mussulman prince. But, even if slavery had continued in Tunis, Mustapha, the French Consular Agent in Jerbah, could have had no legal right over Said, after having given a document to the British Consul-General, certifying that he had liberated all his slaves. The runaway Said was in reality a freed man. The reader, however, will be pleased to understand that I am not justifying my conduct for enticing a slave to run away. I despise such an attempted justification. On the contrary, I consider that every man, who has the means of striking off the chains from a slave, and does not embrace the opportunity of doing so, is the rather the man who commits an offence against natural right. As to the French Consular Agent, I asked some people why the French Government did not dismiss him also for his premeditated forgery of public documents? I was told that, on the contrary, this was a reason for keeping him French Consul—that he could not be disavowed in connexion with British affairs, or, if disavowed, he must be pensioned off. A French Consul, whose acquaintance I made in North Africa, replied to me, on rallying him on the various disavowals of French functionaries in different parts of the world: "I assure you, the only way to get distinction in our consular service is to get disavowed. When disavowed about English differences, we must be decorated, or the mob of Paris and its journals would not be satisfied."
Our captain gave me a hint that, on arriving at Tripoli, there would be exhibited a good deal of fantazia, ("humbug[10]") by the health-office department. Accordingly, after we had been an hour in port, the health officer came alongside, and affected great surprise at our not having passports, and asked me, with great pomposity, what was my "reverito nome?" The Turks always adopt and caricature the worst parts of European civilization, leaving its better forms wholly unimitated. This is, perhaps, in the nature of the struggles which a semi-barbarous power may make to attain the standard of its civilized neighbour.
On landing, I went off with Said to the British Consulate. Although I had seen Colonel Warrington at Malta, I was now so sea-worn and browned with sun and wind, with an incipient desert beard, that he did not immediately recollect me. I therefore presented my letter of introduction, mentioning my name, when at once the Colonel recognized me. "Ah!" observed the Colonel, "I don't believe our Government cares one straw about the suppression of the slave-trade, but, Richardson, I believe in you, so let's be off to my garden." I rode one of the Colonel's horses, which had been so long in the stable without exercise, that I found the Barbary barb no joke. A most violent gregale swept the bare beach of the harbour as we proceeded to the gardens and plantations of the Masheeah, and the restive prancing of the horse was not unlike the dancing about of the cockle-shell bark to which I had been condemned for the last ten days. The British Garden I found to be a splendid horticultural developement, containing the choicest fruit-trees of North Africa, with ornamental trees of every shape, and hue, and foliage—all the growth of thirty years, and the greater part of them planted by the hands of Colonel Warrington himself. The villa is on the site of an ancient haunted house—for what country does not boast of its haunted house? The spot which once was visited nightly by some Saracen's-head ghost, in the midst of a waste, is now the fairest, loveliest garden of Tripoli! Amongst its rich fruit-trees is an immense peach-tree—the largest in all this part of Africa. It is a round, squatting, wide-spreading tree, not nailed up to the walls, but the size of its girth of boughs is enormous.
I must take the liberty of leaving off daily dates here. I detest daily note-writing, although the reader may find for his peculiar infliction so long a journal as these pages.
19th.—A ghiblee day. The wind from The Desert is coming with a vengeance. Its breath is the pure flame of the furnace. I am obliged to tie a handkerchief over my face in passing through the verandahs of the garden. I had not the least idea it could be so hot here in the middle of May. At 2 p.m. the thermometer in the sun was at 142° Fahrenheit.
Neither Tunis nor Tripoli has been sufficiently appreciated by the politicians of Europe. Indian and American affairs are the two ideas which occupy our merchants. And yet the best informed of the consuls in Tripoli say, "The future battles of Europe will be fought in North Africa." At this time there is considerable agitation and political intrigue afoot here. Algerian politics, also, envenom these squabbles.
The aspect of the city of Tripoli is the most miserable of all the towns I have seen in North Africa. And they say, "It grows worse and worse." Yet the present Pasha, Mehemet, is esteemed as a good and sensible man. Unfortunately, a Turkish Governor can have very little or no interest in the permanent prosperity of this country. His tenure of office is very insecure, and rarely extends beyond four or five years; so that whilst here he only thinks of providing for himself. The country is therefore in a continual state of impoverishment as governed by successive pashas. Each successive high functionary works and fleeces the people to the uttermost. Even in our own colonies the exception is, that the Governor cares more for the welfare of the colony than for his own immediate benefit. In Turkish colonies we must therefore expect the rule to be, that the Pasha should govern only for his private benefit and personal aggrandizement.
