On the 10th we came to the well of Saneeah Abdel Kader, ("Garden of the slave of the Most Mighty," or God). At this place was a ruined fortress, looking over an immense district of country, a great quantity of which was under cultivation, presenting light-green and orange-brown patches of grain. We passed the stream of Touwarkah, a name apparently derived from Touwarick, or Touarick. The bubbling running stream was looked upon as a wonder by our slaves. They rushed into it, and washed and bathed themselves, like so many mad things; indeed, after so much dry desert, the stream was a wonder to us all. I had almost begun to think I should never see again a large running stream. But I have seen the negresses wash their faces, hands and legs, on the coldest morning. An Arab or a Moor hardly washes himself once a month. These habits of cleanliness the negresses bring from the banks of the Niger. We had the village of Touwarkah on our right, to which was attached a forest of palms, nearly half a day's journey in length. I had scarcely spoken a word to Essnousee during these last five days, but, on the morning of the 11th, he entered voluntarily into conversation with me, informing me there was an English quarantine agent at the port of Misratah. The slave-driver, getting nearer to the coast, had cunningly abated his ardour for beating the slaves. He now began to fear he might get reported to the Bashaw. Sometimes, however, he would throw a stone at the poor things, that is, when too idle to go and flog them. I looked about in vain for the Atlas chain, or the last of its eastern links; one mass of undulating country stretched to the sea-shore. What feeling of excessive joy thrilled through my nervous frame when our people talked of the sea, for though not visible to us, we were near enough to breathe its invigorating air. Now, indeed, all was changed, and new life took possession of the entire caravan. The green and pleasant spring cultivation, the darkly fair verdure of several young olive-trees, here and there a graceful palm, now broad leafy shadowy fig-trees, the delicate almond and the pretty pomegranate, all the treasures of the gardens of Misratah, raised our joy to ecstasy. I myself often thought I should never see again Tripoli, or the sea; now they seemed restored to me, and I to them, as if at one time they had been hopelessly lost! But how small had all objects become, how diminutive, how confined, limited and contracted their dimensions, and how pretty yet how petty, compared to the vast huge and limitless lines of existence, which form and circumscribe the Great Saharan Regions! where I had travelled so many long months. When I first arrived in Africa, I looked upon the dark and purple mountains of the coast with a species of mysterious feeling, as if such mountain groups were boundless in extent, unfathomable and unsearchable in their stronghold foundations. But now, returning again to the regions of Atlas, the chains of this celebrated range in Tripoli, Tunis, and Algeria, seemed like old familiar faces to me, or so many contracted domestic objects. My eye had been so accustomed to gazing day after day over plains without an apparent bound, on mountain ridges running along weeks and weeks of Desert journeying, that it could now only regard all the African coast scenery as so many pretty little painted landscapes, which might be reduced and easily accommodated to stage scenery at a minor theatre.
On the arrival of our ghafalah at Misratah, I was introduced to the quarantine agent, Signor Francesco Regini, an Italian born in Tripoli, but under British protection, and having a Maltese wife. Regini begged me to put up in his house, and I accepted his kindly proffered invitation, when his wife cooked me a fowl and I dined like a prince. I now thought I would return to Tripoli by sea, to get a little bracing sea-air, but afterwards I determined to continue with the caravan of slaves to Tripoli, to see the last of the poor things, or accompany them till their arrival at the Tripoline market of human flesh.
Footnotes:
[56] As the description of the Simoum ("poisoned" wind, from سمّ "poison"), given by the following writers, is the account of men, who were bonâ fide Saharan travellers, I shall take the liberty of transcribing their various relations:—
"Nothing can be more overpowering than the South wind (Ghibee,) or the East, (Shirghee), each of which is equally to be dreaded. In addition to the excessive heat and dryness of these winds, they are impregnated with sand, and the air is darkened by it, the sky appears of a dusky yellow, and the sun is barely perceptible. The eyes become red, swelled and inflamed; the lips and skin parched and chapped; while severe pain in the chest is generally felt, in consequence of the quantities of sand unavoidably inhaled. Nothing, indeed, is able to resist the unwholesome effects of this wind. On opening our boxes, we found the many little articles, and some of our instruments which had been carefully packed, were entirely split and destroyed. Gales of the kind here described, generally continue ten or twelve hours."—Lyon.
"I derived some benefit from fastening a strip of cotton over my eyes, and another over my mouth, to keep off the burning air which parched my lungs. The burning East wind which was beginning to blow rendered the heat insufferable, and the scorching sand found its way into our eyes, in spite of the precautions which we took to exclude it. Tepid water was distributed, which we thought delicious, though it had little effect in quenching our thirst. My thirst was so tormenting that I found it impossible to get any sleep. My throat was on fire, and my tongue clove to the roof of my mouth. I lay as if expiring on the sand, waiting with the greatest impatience for the moment when we were to have our next supply of water. I thought of nothing but water—rivers, streams, rivulets, were the only ideas which presented themselves to my mind during this burning fever. In my impatience I cursed my companions, the country, the camels, and for anything I knew, the sun himself, who did not make sufficient speed to reach the horizon."—Caillie.
"The Simoum felt like the blast of a furnace. To describe this awful scourge of The Desert, defies all the powers of language. The pencil assisted by the pen might perhaps afford a faint idea of it, winged with the whirlwind and charioted with thunder, it urged its fiery course, blasting all nature with its death-fraught breath. It was accompanied by a line of vivid light, that looked like a train of fire, whose murky smoke filled the whole wide expanse, and made its horrors only the more vivid. The eye of man, and the voice of beast were both raised to heaven, and both then fell upon the earth. Against this sand tempest all the fortitude of man fails, and all his efforts are vain. To Providence alone must we look. It passed us, burying one of my camels. As soon as we rose from the earth, with uplifted hands for its preservation, we awoke to fresh horrors. Its parching tongue had lapped the water from our water-skins, and having escaped the fiery hour, we had to fear the still more awful death of thirst."—Davidson.
[57] This disease is the Filaria Medinensis, or Guinea Worm. The rude Arabs give a sort of Shakesperian witches' receipt for the cure of this disease, such as the liver of a vulture, the brains of an hyæna, the dung of the ostrich, mixed with other wonderful ingredients. This reminds me of the receipt of my Ghadamsee Doctor for the cure of Night Blindness, which here followeth:—"Description of a remedy by which affliction (or blindness) of the sight is cured at night. Take the liver of a goat, or the liver of a camel, and cut off a piece of it, mince it small, and take also a couple of سحر? and reduce it to a fine powder, and rub them together, and place them on the fire so that the water boils or simmers, and then drop (or pour) the water on the eye, and it will straightway see."
