After taking leave of Gameo, I waited for Mohammed and Said; we had gone on quickly with the donkeys. They came up with the camels, but instead of encamping within the village, the ghafalah had brought up outside. This annoyed Mohammed, who kept exclaiming, as we went to the rendezvous of the merchants, "Ah! Gameo, that's him, Gameo, Gameo! What trouble he has brought upon us, Gameo! Gameo! he a tabeeb? Not fit to give physic to a dog. Gameo! Gameo! always talking—always talking; the devil take him, for he's his son." We reached the encampment as the shadows of night fell fast; we did not take supper, or pitch tent. My spirits gave way, and I felt fearful and saddened at the prospect of going into the interior absolutely alone. I had not a single letter of recommendation to any one, after waiting so long at Tripoli, and so much talk with all sorts of people about the necessity of having letters for the chiefs of The Desert. This was, indeed, bad management; yet I could not insist upon the Pasha giving me a letter, nor could I importune the British Consul: but it often happens, where there is less help from man, there is more from God. Many of the Ghadamsee merchants, whose acquaintance I had made in Tripoli, came now to me and welcomed me as a fellow-traveller. Janzour is a small village, with gardens of olives and date plantations.
August 3rd.—Before starting to-day, it is necessary to give some account of my equipment. I had two camels on hire, for which I paid twelve dollars. I was to ride one continually. We had panniers on it, in which I stowed away about two months' provisions. A little fresh provision we were to purchase en route. Upon these panniers a mattress was placed, forming with them a comfortable platform. As a luxury, I had a Moorish pillow for leaning on, given me by Mr. Frederick Warrington. The camel was neither led nor reined, but followed the group. I myself was dressed in light European clothes, and furnished with an umbrella for keeping off the sun. This latter was all my arms of offence and defence. The other camel carried a trunk and some small boxes, cooking utensils, and matting, and a very light tent for keeping off sun and heat. We had two gurbahs, or "skin-bags for water," and another we were to buy in the mountains, so each having a skin of water to himself. Said was to ride this camel, and now and then give a ride to Mohammed the camel-driver, to whom the camels belonged. We were roused before daylight. I made coffee with my spirit apparatus (spiriterio). In half an hour after the dawn, we were all on the move, and soon started. The ghafalah presented an interminable line of camels, as it wound its slow way through narrow sandy lanes, hedged on each side with the cactus or prickly-pear. We progressed very irregularly, and the camels kept throwing off their burdens. The Moors and Arabs, who manage almost everything badly, even hardly know how to manage their camels, after ages of experience. It is, however, very difficult to drive the camels past a prickly-pear hedge, they being voraciously fond of the huge succulent leaves of this plant, and crop them with the most savage greediness, regardless of the continual blows, accompanied with loud shouts, which they receive from the vociferous drivers to get them forward. I wore my cloak for two hours after dawn, and felt chilly, and yet at noonday the thermometer was at least 130° Fah., in the sun. We emerged from the prickly-pear hedges upon an open desert land. Here was an encampment of Arabs, with tents as "black" and "comely" in this glare and fire of the full morning sun, as "the tents of Kedar!" (See Solomon's Songs i. 5.) Nothing indeed is more refreshing than the sight of these black camel's-hair tents, when travelling over these arid thirsty plains. The whole households of the tents were alive, but their various occupations will be seen better in the following sketch than pictured to the mind by any elaborate description.
Encamped at Jedaeem about 10 o'clock, a.m. Remained here only two hours and proceeded to Zouweeah, a large village, situate in the midst of most pleasant gardens, or rather cultivated lands, overshadowed with date groves. These gardens are considered superior to those of the Masheeah around Tripoli. Passed through the whole district by 3 p.m., and then entered what is usually called the Sahara, this side the Mountains. This desert presents sand hills, loose stones scattered about, dwarf shrubs, long coarse grass, and sometimes small undulations of rocky ground. It is, however, overrun by a few nomade tribes, who feed their flocks on the ungrateful and scant herbage which it affords. Tripoli, in general offers a remarkable contrast to Tunis and other parts of Barbary, in having its Arab tribes located in stone and mud houses or fixed douwars, whilst nomade Arabs are found thickly scattered all over the West, as far as the Atlantic. Zouweeah is the last belad, or paesi, (i. e., "cultivated country,") before we reach The Mountains, which are two days' journey distant. I therefore sent Mohammed to buy a small sheep, but he could not succeed although there were many flocks about, the people absurdly refusing to sell them, even when the full price was offered. The Arabs themselves never eat meat as the rule, but the exception, supporting themselves on the milk of their flocks and farinaceous matter. Olive-oil and fat and fruit they devour. Of vegetables they eat, but with little gusto. Their flocks are kept as a sort of reserve wealth, and to pay their contributions. Our course to-day and yesterday was west and south-west. At sunset we encamped at Beer-el-Hamra ("red-well"), which is a well-spring of very good water, ten feet deep, the water issuing from the sides of the rocky soil. Here we found artificial pits or troughs for the sheep and cattle to drink from, and trunks of the date-palms hollowed out for the camels. When a ghafalah passes a well there is the greatest confusion to get all the camels to drink, and the people quarrel and fight about this, as well as for their turn to fill their water-skins. This quarrelling at the wells forcibly reminds the Biblical reader of the contest of Moses in favour of the daughters of Jethro against the ungallant shepherds. (Exodus i. 17.) We take in no more water till we get to The Mountains.
Here mention must be made of the strength of our caravan, as all are to rendezvous at this well for safety, to start together over The Desert to The Mountains. It was half a day's advance of this where the Ghadamsee ghafalah had been lately plundered of all its goods and camels. As soon as the Sebâah banditti appeared, the merchants, who were without escort, all ran away like frightened gazelles. One man alone had his arm scratched. Our ghafalah, besides casual travellers going to The Mountains, consisted of some two hundred camels, laden chiefly with merchandize for the interior, Soudan, and Timbuctoo. Thirty or forty merchants, nearly all of Ghadames, to whom the goods belong, accompany these camels. To ascertain its value would be hopeless, for the merchants, with the real jealousy of mercantile rivalry, conceal their affairs from one another. Two of the principal Ghadamsee merchants are with us, the Sheikh Makouran and Haj Mansour, besides a son of the great house of Ettence. These merchants belong to the rival factions of the city, and accordingly have separate encampments. The greater number of the merchants of our ghafalah are only petty traders, some with only a camel-load of merchandize. We are escorted by sixty Arab troops on foot, with a commandant and some subordinate sheikhs on horseback. They are to protect us to The Mountains, where it is said all danger ends. They are poor, miserable devils to look at, hungry, lank, lean, and browned to blackness, armed with matchlocks, which continually miss fire, and covered with rags, or mostly having only a single blanket to cover their dirty and emaciated bodies. Some are without shoes, and others have a piece of camel's skin cut in the shape of a sole of the foot, and tied up round the ankles: some have a scull-cap, white or red, and others are bare-headed. I laughed when I surveyed with my inexperienced eye these grisly, skeleton, phantom troops, and thought of the splendid invincible guard which the Pasha promised me. And yet amongst these wretched beings was riding sublime an Arab Falstaff.
4th.—Morning. Find the greater part of the ghafalah has not yet come up. We are to wait for them, being the advanced body. Expect them in the afternoon. It is exceedingly difficult to keep these various groups of merchants together; each group is its own sovereign master and will have its own way. The commandant is constantly swearing at each party to get all to march together; now and then he draws his sword and shakes it over their heads. "You are dogs," he says to one; "you are worse than this Christian Kafer amongst us," (myself,) he bawls to another.
Have, thank God, suffered little up to now, although intensely hot in the day-time, and my eyes so bad that I cannot look at the sun, and scarcely on daylight without a shade. They were bad on leaving Tripoli, having caught a severe ophthalmia from the refraction of the hot rocks when bathing. My left arm is also still very weak, from the accident of falling into a dry well a little before I started. I can't mount the camel without assistance, but begin to ride without that sickly sensation, not unlike sea-sickness, which I felt the first day's riding. Drink brandy frequently, but in small quantities and greatly diluted, and find great benefit from it; drink also coffee and tea. Eat but little, and scarcely any meat. The Arabs of the country brought a few sheep to sell this morning, but asked double the Tripoli price; so nobody purchased. Bought myself a fowl for eighty Turkish paras. The people of the ghafalah civil, but all the lower classes will beg continually if you are willing to give. Each one offers his advice and consolation on my tour; but Mohammed keeps all the hungry Arabs at a respectable distance, lest I should give to them what belongs to his share, like servants who don't wish their masters to be generous to others if it interferes with their own prerogatives.
We left in the afternoon and encamped in The Desert at Shouwabeeah. The Desert here presents nothing but long coarse grass and undulating ground. I observed a patch which had been cultivated, the stubble of barley remaining, which the camels devoured most voraciously. Chopped barley-straw is the favourite food of all animals of burden in North Africa; horses will feed on it for six months together, and get fat. En route the chief of the escort had great trouble to keep the caravan together; he made the advanced parties wait till the others came up, so as all to be ready in case of attack. One would think the merchants, for their own sakes, would keep together; but no, it's all maktoub with them; "If they are to be robbed and murdered they must be robbed and murdered, and the Bashaw and all his troops can't prevent it." This they reiterated to me whilst the commandant bullied them; and yet these same men had each of them a matchlock and pistols besides. The Sheikh Makouran had no less than four guns on his camel. I asked him what they were for. He coolly replied, "I don't know. God knows." The camels browse or crop herbage all the way along, daintily picking and choosing the herbage and shrubs which they like best. My chief occupation in riding is watching them browse, and observing the epicurean fancies of these reflective, sober-thinking brutes of The Desert. I observe also as a happy trait in the Arab, that nothing delights him more than watching his own faithful camel graze. The ordinary drivers sometimes allow them to graze, and wait till they have cropped their favourite herbage and shrubs, and at other times push them forward according to their caprice. The camel, with an intuitive perception, knows all the edible and delicate herbs and shrubs of The Desert, and when he finds one of his choicest it is difficult to get him on until he has cropped a good mouthful. But I shall have much to write of this sentient "ship of The Desert." It is hard to forget the ship which carries one safely over the ocean, whose plank intervenes between our life and a bottomless grave of waters: so we tourists of The Desert acquire a peculiar affection for the melancholy animal, whose slow but faithful step carries us through the hideous wastes of sand and stone, where all life is extinct, and where, if left a moment behind the camel's track, certain death follows.
5th.—Rose at daybreak, and pursued our way through the Desert. Saw the mountains early, stretching far away east and west in undefined and shadowy but glorious magnificence,—some of deep black hue, and others reddened over with the morning sunbeams. It is a gladdening, elevating sight. The presence of a vast range of mountains always raises the mind and imagination of man. Encamped during the Kailah قايلة, or from 10 o'clock a.m., to 3 p.m. This is the siesta of the Spaniards, and it is probable the Moors introduced it into Spain. It is also the mezzogiorno of the Italians and the Frank population of Barbary. But the Italians usually dine before they take their midday nap. Our object here is to shelter ourselves from the greatest force of the heat of the day. None of us dine. In the afternoon the Arab soldiers, being without water, began to seize that of the merchants, after having demanded it from them in vain. In one case they robbed a merchant under the pretext of getting water. They also attempted to take water from my camels, but I resisted, threatening to report them to the Bashaw. After a scuffle with my negro servant and camel-driver, in which affair Said drew out manfully from the scabbard the old rusty sword which I presented to him on leaving Tripoli—to gird round him as a warrior badge—they desisted and retreated. The sub-officer of the escort came up to me afterwards, and begged that I would say nothing about the business. I gave him a suck of brandy-and-water, and we were mighty good friends all the way. Our course was south to-day, striking directly at The Mountains. We encamped about midnight at the Wady Lethel, the name of which is derived from the tree Lethel لذل, frequent in the Sahara.
With regard to the conduct of the poor Arab soldiers, justice requires it to be said, that they are allowed nothing for the service of the escort, whilst if they do not serve when they are called upon, they are fined. The consequence is, they generally have nothing to eat, and no skins to put their water in. Perhaps a camel with a couple of skins is allowed to twenty men. As there was water for scarcely two days of our slow marching, (we only march about twelve hours per day,) these miserable victims of Turkish rule had no water left. It is hunger and misery in this, as in most cases amongst the poor, and not the native unwillingness of the heart to perform good actions, which excite them to deeds of violence and plunder. This night the heavens presented an appearance of unexampled serenity and soft splendour; all the constellations glowed with a steady beauteous light; there were the "sweet influences of Pleiades," the bright "bands of Orion," "Arcturus with his sons," and the infinitude of sparkling jewels in "chambers of the South." All the stars might be seen and counted, so distinctly visible were they to the naked unassisted eye. In encamping our ghafalah carried on its delightful system of confusion, and the night fires of the various groups glared wildly in every direction. I had not yet become familiar with these nocturnal lights of Saharan travelling, and my senses were confounded. I felt tormented as with an enchanter's delusive fire-works in some half-waking dream.
