25th.—Felt well enough to-day to call upon the Bashaw. His Highness's full name and title is Hasan Bashaw Belazee. I was introduced to him by Mr. Gagliuffi, who previously insisted upon sprucing me up a bit, and removing my Maraboutish appearance by getting me a new red cap or fez. My Christian hat was left at Ghadames. It was impossible to wear it in Desert or towns, for people always said I looked like a Christian devil when I wore the European black hat. We found His Highness just recovered from a month's indisposition. He received us very politely, and Mr. Gagliuffi tells me he is really a very good sort of man. His Highness gave us pipes and tea, which is becoming now a favourite beverage amongst the Moors of East, as it has long been in West Barbary, amongst all races of the Maroquines, who have introduced the fashion of tea-drinking and teetotalism at Timbuctoo. His Highness was very talkative and affable. He was amazed at my audacity in going amongst the Touaricks without a single letter of recommendation, and looks upon my arrival at Mourzuk as an escape from death to life. His Highness confessed, however, that the Touaricks are people of one word, and that, after having told me they would protect me, I did right in confiding in their honour. He added, "If you go to Aheer hereafter I will assist you all I can." Mr. Gagliuffi pretends the Bashaw has considerable influence amongst all the Touarghee tribes, and the Touaricks always follow strictly the recommendations which the Bashaw, as governor of the province of Fezzan, and a near neighbour, has taken upon himself to give them. Every person carrying a letter from His Highness to the Touaricks, has invariably been well received. His Highness is very fond of illustrating his conversation by similes, and related a little facetious palaver which he had with a Targhee of Aheer.
His Excellency thus to the Targhee:—"You always thought there was a great mountain separating you from us, protecting you from our armies. You besides always boasted of having an army of 100,000 warriors. But the other day there came to you a bee, and buzzed about your ears, and you all at once fled before the little bee. How is this? Where are your 100,000 unconquerable heroes?"
The Targhee thus to the Bashaw:—"Ah, ah, how amazing! it was just so."
H. E.—"But are you not ashamed of yourselves?"
The Targhee.—"Ah, ah, but we shall now go and fight them."
H. E.—"Well, we shall see your courage."
The Bashaw explained to us, how the Touaricks of Aheer were put to flight by the Weled Suleiman, whom he the Bashaw, and his master at Tripoli, only esteemed as so many troublesome little bees. This was the affair of the capture of the 1000 camels, when the Touaricks were carrying off the spoils of a Tibboo village, before mentioned. These Weled Suleiman have just joined the rest of the refugees under the son of Abd-El-Geleel. The Bashaw is the famous Moorish commander who captured and beheaded Abd-El-Geleel, and who has sworn to extirpate not only the family of this Sheikh, but all the tribes subjected to his son. The Bashaw received the appointment of Bey or Bashaw of Fezzan, for his hatred to this family, and his services in capturing and destroying its chief. Belazee is a fresh-coloured Moor, and rather good-looking, with a dark, piercing, and cruel eye. He is about forty years of age and very stout. Of his courage there can be no question, and his reputation as a military man is very great in all this part of Sahara. Mr. Gagliuffi had instructed me diplomatically to boast of the attentions which I had received from the Touaricks, for observed the Consul, "If you say the Touaricks did not treat you well in every respect, the Bashaw will commiserate you before your face, but laugh at you behind your back, and tell his people how happy he is (and I'm sure he will be happy) you have been well fleeced by the Touaricks, of whom the Turks here are jealous in the extreme." Mr. Gagliuffi also volunteered a diplomatic hit of another kind on his own account: "My friend, your Excellency, on entering the gates of Mourzuk, and looking up at the Castle, thought he was entering a town of the dead, it looked so horribly dingy and desolate." I said to the Consul afterwards, "Why did you say so?" He replied, "I am trying my utmost to improve the city, and want the Bashaw to whitewash the Castle. He has promised me he will do it." The Bashaw addressed me, "Think yourself lucky you have escaped, but for the future you must be placed in the hands of the Touaricks by us as a sacred deposit, and then if anything wrong happens we shall demand you of all the Touaricks by force." I thanked him for the compliment; I believe he meant what he said at the time. But such an insulting message could not be delivered to the brave, chivalric, and freeborn sons of the Touarghee deserts; they would trample your letter under their feet, or spear it with their spears.
Mr. Gagliuffi and myself then went to see the troops exercised. The commanding officer is trying to reduce them to order and discipline, and succeeds admirably. Before he arrived, great disorder reigned amongst them, and they were constantly found intoxicated in the streets. After the manœuvring, we visited the commander and his staff, who were all extremely polite. The Bashaw does not interfere with the discipline of the army. The Turks can well distinguish, if they please, between civil and military affairs. And it is wrong to consider the Turkish Government and people, like Prussia and other military nations of the north, as one great military camp. We afterwards visited the Kady, Haj Mohammed Ben Abd-Deen, an intimate friend of the Consul. He had under his care the Denham and Clapperton caravan, and is well acquainted with us English. I was surprised to find the Kady quite black, although his features were not altogether Negro. Mr. Gagliuffi says Mourzuk is the first Negro country. This statement, however, involves a very difficult question. Fezzan, Ghat, and other oases, contain many families of free Negroes, some perhaps settled formerly as merchants, and others the descendants of freed slaves. I do not think the real black population begins until we reach the Tibboos, although Ghatroun is mostly inhabited by Negroes. Certainly, the Negroes have never emigrated farther north in colonies. Mr. Gagliuffi has just received by the courier from Tripoli, several watches sent there for repair, belonging to the Sheikh of Bornou. They were given to the Sheikh by our Bornou expedition, twenty years ago. It is pleasing to see with what care the watches have been preserved in Central Africa, for they looked as good as new.
26th.—I must now consider myself recovered from indisposition. At first, people talked so much about Mourzuk fever that I thought I must have it as a matter of course, and felt some disappointment at its not attacking me. Three-fourths of the Europeans who come here invariably have the fever. I speak of the Turks. It attacks them principally in the beginning of the hot, and cold, weather, or in May and November. Fortunately, I am here in February. Mourzuk is emphatically called, like many places of Africa, Blad Elhemah—بلاد الحمة—"country of fever."
Amongst the Christian and European curiosities and antiquities which I have discovered in this Mussulman and Saharan city, is the following poetical scrap, published by myself, some four or five years ago, upon that beautiful rock of Malta, or, according to the Maltese, Fior del Mondo, "The flower of the world."