Evening, just at sunset, the Mandara slave came near to my encampment and mumbled something to my Negro servant. Looking at him, I saw he asked Said to beg me to do something on his behalf. In a few minutes, a slave belonging to another master came up to him and began to console him, saying, "Go, go." They both then took up handfuls of sand and scattered it upon their foreheads and chins, as if performing some incantations to avert an impending evil. This done, they both burst into tears, and sobbed aloud. By this time, I learnt from Said that Haj Essnousee had sent for the Mandara slave to beat him. I then asked, "For what?" The slaves replied, "For nothing." This I could not believe. Looking towards the encampment of Essnousee, I saw the slave-driver greatly excited, and heard him call to two other slaves, "Fetch him, fetch him." These slaves, (I almost cursed them in my heart,) came running to my encampment like two bloodhounds, and seized the wretched slave, their brother in bondage, and dragged him off to the enraged slave-driver. The poor fellow, from fear and trembling, could not stand upon his legs, and was held up by his captors. The Mandara slave being brought to Essnousee, and the two captors having pinned him down, this ferocious Moor took him aside and flogged him with a huge slave-whip until The Desert was literally filled with his cries! continuing to flagilate his bare body until he (Essnousee) was himself exhausted by administering the brutal flogging. The Arabs of our caravan, who were near, got upon their legs, from sheer annoyance at the sound of the whip and the cries of the slave, but, like dastardly wretches, contented themselves with looking on, silent and motionless. I felt, at the time, extreme contempt for what are called "the brave and gallant sons of The Desert." I was not near enough, on my journey to Tripoli, to justify any effectual interference on my part. Afterwards I went up to Haj Essnousee and asked him, why he had flogged the slave? He answered still greatly excited, "He'll not eat; he's a devil; it is necessary there should be one devil amongst my slaves." His nephew observed, as a hopeful pupil of his merciless uncle, "He's a thief, he robs us." This is the only satisfaction I could get; but from the rest of the caravan I learnt that the poor Mandara slave was flogged for no other reason except to gratify the capricious cruelty of Essnousee. This Sockna Moor was born to be a slave-dealer and slave-driver, a cunning ferocity and genuine Moorish sensuality being impressed upon his Cain-like countenance. I was enabled to study his character on our way, but study was scarcely requisite to discover the mark of the first murderer stamped on his brow. When too indolent to beat his slaves he would throw stones at them; when flogging the female slaves, if he could not succeed in rousing their sensibilities as they dropped from exhaustion in The Desert, he would poke up their persons with a stick. This Saharan villain was thoroughly imbued with the principle of an English duke, "That he (Haj Essnousee) had a right to do what he liked with his own," and did not scruple to mutilate a slave to satisfy his demoniac caprice, in spite of its losing half of its price or value in the market. Poor miserables are those pro-slavery writers, who argue that a man will take care of his slaves because they are his own property! Why did not the imperial tyrants of Rome defend the liberties of their people, because they were their own people? Neither human nor divine law can permit any man, even a good man, to have absolute property in his fellows, much less a bad man or a tyrant. But Haj Essnousee is not altogether an unmixed monster; he has something of enterprise and an active intelligence about him, to redeem him from complete execration. Seeing me disconcerted about his whipping the slave, he observed,
"There are two fine wells here, have you written them? You must give a good account of everything to your Sultan."
I then returned to the other slave-masters, owners of seven slaves, and said, "Why do you let a poor wretch be flogged to death in this way and not interfere?"
They replied, "Oh, you yourself should interefere; we're frightened at Haj Essnousee."
I.—"You then wish me to interfere,—I, who am a Christian, and an Englishman, and we English have no slaves,—and you wish me to meddle with your business?"
Another Moor said, "Ah, Yâkob, we know if it had been a Christian flogging a Christian, you would have interfered. But we are an accursed race, our merchants fear not God. And when one does wrong, another will not speak to him, and tell him he does wrong to himself and God."
After this we had no more flogging to Sockna. I hinted to these people, something might be said by the English Consul to the Bashaw of Tripoli about this flogging work. The remark was probably reported to Essnousee. I made up my mind, if the poor fellow was flogged again, to get him to run away at Tripoli, or into a consulate, and then divulge the affair. It may be mentioned here, that two days before arriving at Sockna, I turned to look at one of the female slaves, who was last of all, and being driven along by the whip, with several others, and thought I saw symptoms of insanity marked in her face. "Why," I observed to the driver, "this woman is mad!" "Mad!" he replied; "No, she went blind yesterday." On examining her, I found she was both blind and mad from over-driving. What a happiness if the poor creature had died or been flogged to death! She would then have escaped two of the heaviest of human calamities, as well as the curse of slavery.
17th.—On leaving Omm-El-Abeed, after a couple of hours, we traversed some sand hillocks, all dismounting to lighten the camels. The sand deceived my vision frequently in walking. Looking at some heaps over which I was pacing, I imagined them at a considerable distance off, when, to my amazement, I found them under my feet in an instant. It might be partly owing to the dizziness of riding. The sand was a deep shining red. At another time a hillock of sand seemed projecting near my face, and putting out my hand to feel it, I found nothing but thin air. More sand encumbers this route than that between Ghadames and Ghat. After a couple of hours of sand we ascended an elevated rocky plateau, continuing our route north till night. This was a long, long day, full of weariness and misery. Nothing for the camels to eat, and we were obliged to give them dates. The poor slaves drooped and were dumb. The frown of God was stamped on this region! For—
"Here rocks alone and trackless sands are found, And faint and sickly winds for ever howl around."
18th.—Continued our course over the plateau. It was now become hard sun-baked earth, and bare of herbage. As upon the plain of the celebrated Tenezrouft, objects here become greatly magnified in the distance, exceeding the most powerful magnifying lens. In the simple and bold language of our camel-drivers, "A man becomes a camel, and a camel becomes a mountain." Some bones of a camel, at a distance of less than a quarter of a mile, looked like a living camel going along with several people, the white bones representing the burnouses of the men. A small white stone, not ten inches high, appeared to be several feet in height, at the distance of a quarter of an hour's ride. And so of the few other discernible objects on this wide expanse of optical delusion. Mirage was seen at times, but nothing pretty. We encamped late, midway through the vast plateau, when shadowy night began to establish her sable throne, in "rayless majesty," over this silent, sombre Desert. On such a horrid waste as this, when crime and murder shall have depopulated the world, the last man will breathe his last sigh! Another long and weary day was this. With difficulty could I descend from my camel, and when I did, I was unable to stand. My plan is, immediately on descending from the camel to take a table-spoonful of rum and swallow it neat. This restores me to a consciousness of the objects around me, and then I lie down an hour, whilst supper is preparing. An hour's rest generally enables me to get up and walk. If restored sufficiently, I go to chat half an hour with my companions of travel; if not, I never rise till the next morning. I found the rum of essential advantage in restoring me to consciousness. I am indebted to the Greek Doctor for it. One bottle lasted me from Mourzuk to four days within reaching Tripoli.
