[55] So we find Paul declaiming that he will not suffer a woman to speak in the churches. It was the Greek women who wished to assert the dignity of woman by teaching in the assemblies of the saints.
CHAPTER XXX.
FROM SOCKNA TO MISRATAH.
Well of Hammam.—Innocent game of the Negresses.—Baiting at noon.—Bird's-nests and Birds in Sahara.—Ghiblee or the Simoum; its terrible effects on our Caravan.—Delusions of Desert, and bewilderment of our People.—Disastrous Fate of the Young Tuscan.—Snakes.—Small capital of some Slave-Merchants.—Arrival at Bonjem.—Visit the Roman Ruins of Septimius Severus.—The newly created Oasis.—Regulations to mitigate Saharan Slave-traffic.—My Imbroglio with Essnousee.—Imbroglio of an Arab with the Kaed of Bonjem.—Description of the Fort of Bonjem.—The Disease of the Filaria Medinensis, and its Cure.—My Journal confused and fragmentary.—Route from Bonjem to Misratah.—Enter the regions of Rain and Open Culture.—Bughalah, or the Rock, where Abd-El-Geleel was assassinated.—Wells of Daymoum and Namwah.—Sudden changes of Temperature in North Africa.—Well of Saneeah Abd-El-Kader.—Stream of Touwarkah.—Ecstatic joy on arriving near the Sea.—How diminutive all things are become in comparison with the Vast Sahara.—Arrival at Misratah.
In the afternoon, about three, we left Sockna en route for Tripoli; we arrived at Hammam in a couple of hours. On the road, we met not less than three hundred camels laden with provisions and ammunition for the troops at Mourzuk, shewing evidently the dread which the Turks have of the Arabs under the son of Abd-El-Geleel, and any sudden attack by them on Fezzan. This is a bad speculation for the Turks. Fezzan can never pay at such a rate.
Hammam, is a collection of small sand-hills grouped together, around and upon which are palms. There is also a well of tolerably good water. The name Hammam ("hot-spring"), is derived from the circumstance of there being here a hot-spring; but now said to be covered up by the sand-hills. This is what the people have received by tradition. Very hot this evening; the sun burnt us most extraordinarily. We felt it more after having been shut up some days in Sockna; we took in a supply of water at Hammam in preference to the waters of Sockna. This evening, the Negresses played their usual sweet innocent little game. They form an alley by taking hands, blocked up at the end. At the top enters one of their number backwards. As she passes along the opposite pairs, each couple put their hands across and form a sort of seat for her, by which she is bumped backwards from one seat to another seat of hands, through the whole alley. When arriving at the end, she falls into the chain of hands. Another now enters, being bumped backwards on her broad bustle like her predecessor, and caught by the hands stretched across the alley. I don't know whether this is intelligible, but the game is very simple and full of mirth. The point of tact is, their always sitting down on the hands, and not falling back on the ground, when, like every body who attempts to sit down on a chair and suddenly finds himself on the floor, they would look very foolish. But as the Devil leaped over the fold of Paradise, so he may be expected to creep in everywhere, and the Negro lads are always peeping about, at a respectful distance, to see what they can see, when these falls take place; and I imagine the zest of the thing, both amongst the lads and the lasses, turns upon this naughty circumstance. So much for poor innocence, and innocent games.
31st.—Started, as the sun shewed his broad face above the horizon. Route till the afternoon, over a sandy, gravelly plain; then entered some hilly country, where we came to the well of Temet-Tar. Excessively hot again to-day, apparently the precursor of the Simoum the following day. In this Fezzanee caravan, it is our practice to halt at noon, or thereabouts, to take a little refreshment. I am informed all the caravans of this route do so. The Ghadamsee caravans, on the route of Ghat, never halt in the day-time, continuing from morning to night. Our people carry a few dates in a bag, or on the camel's back, all ready for the luncheon. These they throw down upon a portion of a barracan spread on the sands. Sometimes a piece of bread is broken over the dates. They then squat round this repast in groups. The slaves save from their previous day's supper, or from the morning, a few dates for this time of the day, and are allowed each a drink of water. Noticed a bird's nest on a furze of The Desert. This is only the second I have ever seen in Sahara. A few small birds are now hopping about on the line of route. But I have observed the colour of the birds to vary with the region through which we pass. Now they are yellow, now black, now black and white, and all as small as linnets. These birds have no song, only chirping and twittering about. A few larks I have seen where water and palms and other trees abound. We encamped about 4 p.m. The water of the well is by no means sweet, but not being brackish, it quenches thirst sufficiently.
1st April.—Rose early and started early. A terrible day! A ghiblee in all its force[56]. The wind is directly from south (قبلي "south"). It is quite dry, unlike the sirocco which blows at Malta. Sirocco is damp and most enervating, and south-east in its direction. Probably, however, it is the same wind, but sweeping over the sea it attracts moisture, and changes to south-east. I was praying for, and prophesying all the morning, up to 9 a.m., a cool day. The reverse has happened, as so often happens in answer to our most ardent wishes. I never was so astonished as when I saw the negroes on this day. Mr. Gagliuffi had said to me, "If you have ghiblee, the slaves can't go." But I could hardly believe a hot wind to be so injurious to these children of the sun. They seemed as if they could bear any cold better than a hot south wind. They got behind the camels or stooped under their bellies; they held up their barracans, taking it by turns to hold them up, by which means they sheltered five or six together; they concealed their faces and their bodies with their tattered garments; they invented all sorts of expedients to shelter themselves a moment against The Desert simoum. I could not help observing how superior the white man was to the black man in his physical make. Our Arabs and Moors kept up erect, facing this furnace blast, and bore the heat and burthen of the day a thousand times better than the Negroes—these children begotten by the sun from the slime of the Niger, on whose swampy plains heat reigns eternally with all its fiery fervour! I had always thought the Negro, being naturally a chilly creature, could not be affected with a hot wind. We all drank plentifully today, ten times as much as on other days. But this being a ghiblee day, it was necessary to drive on the slaves quick, and with violence, the camels not carrying a sufficiency of water for a couple of days of this sort. Essnousee now showed how eminently qualified he was for this infernal traffic. He did drive them on most furiously, while as to one wretched Negress, I thought he would have left her dead on the spot, flaying her most unmercifully. The miscreant Essnousee was only prevented from the perpetration of this horrid crime by the main-force interference of Mohammed Azou, another slave-dealer travelling with us, with seven slaves, and who, I must record, was a humane man, though a dealer in the flesh and blood of his fellow creatures. I have not observed him even once beating his slaves, which is saying a great deal. The conduct of this humane Moor proved that it was not absolutely necessary to beat slaves when driving them over Desert. The Touaricks of Aheer, indeed, know this, and never lay a finger on their poor captives. We, at length, got through this day of horrible heat and thirst, for God gives an end to all things. Never will be effaced from the tablet of my memory the prayer of a poor Negress girl, who, in the height of the simoum came running up to me, her eyes bloodshot, her face streaming with tears, "Buy me, Yâkob, O, buy me! I am very good, I will be good wife to you, and sleep with you. O, I'm dying! take me, buy me, buy me, Yâkob. The wind kills me."
