There is infinitely less enthusiasm for African discovery,—nay, more horror of African travelling in Tripoli than in London: in truth, the greater part of the Europeans of Tripoli, and in all Barbary towns, are a degraded unenthusiastic race, wholly occupied with their petty quarrels and intrigues. Of course, a man of my stamp was considered by them either "un sciocco" or "un matto."
It is the misfortune of Africa to be surrounded by a cordon of vitiated races, half-caste and mongrel breeds, propagated from adventurers and convicts from the other continents of the world. So that Africa learns nothing but the vices of civilization from its contact with the rest of the world. It is also certain, that the native tribes of Africa itself are more immoral and barbarous on the coasts than in the interior.
We have had the full moon during our last four days. Our route is always more or less south-west.
As I expected, Said is knocked up and lamed. The Marabout has cheated Said all along out of his rides, under pretence of his having made him a pair of shoes. This Marabout is the cunningest, cruellest rogue I ever met with. But I must here relate a service which he rendered me of considerable importance. Nobody could pronounce, at any rate recollect, my name. Mohammed said to me one day, "Ingleez, we have many names, have you no more than one? The ghafalah can't learn your name, it's too difficult. Make a name like ours, if you haven't one." I then told him I had another, James, and that it was in Arabic, Yâkob. Hereupon, his eyes moved round wildly with joy, and he cried out,—"That's it! that's it!" He immediately started off amongst all the people, calling out my name was "Yâkob." This second christening in The Sahara was an immense advantage to me. There is now not an oasis in the wildest and farthest region of the Great Desert but what has heard of Yâkob. When I arrived at Ghat I was astonished to find even the Touaricks calling me Yâkob, as if I had been brought up with them. Clapperton and the rest of his party adopted Mahometan names, and were wise in doing so. When I was in Fezzan, Clapperton's Arabic name of Abdallah was mentioned more than twenty years after his death in Soudan. Denham was called The Rais, being an officer.
The road from The Mountains to Seenawan is very good. The greater part, indeed, is beautiful broad carriage-road. It is generally well marked with camel-paths, about a foot wide. These well-beaten, well-trodden paths, are very sinuous, running one into another, and often are in great numbers, running parallel in serpentine style, and containing a united breadth of a hundred yards. There are a few places where no road-traces are apparent to the European eye, but the well-practised eye of the Bedouin camel-driver, like the eye of the Indian in the American Wilderness, can see things, and shapes, and signs in The Desert which entirely escape us. Along the line of route small heaps of stone are placed, said by my Marabout "to point out the way." We did not meet a single traveller all the four days, no small parties—no couriers—no one. I shall not soon forget our reaching Seenawan. It was a few hours after midnight. I looked forward to it as the haven of rest from all my sufferings. A fellow-traveller came up to me, (for I had been asking all night long to see it,) and said, "See, Yâkob, there is the Nukhlah (palms) of Seenawan." Looking through the shadowy moon-light, I thought I saw something very small and black, and made a start at it from my camel as if I was going to leap into a downy bed of rest under the eternal shade of grateful palms. When the object is grasped, how its value vanishes! We threw down the mattress under the shade of a little ruined round tower, and I fell asleep. But such a tempest got up that the people waked me, covered with sand, and made me crawl into a hole, called the door of the burge. Here, amongst heaps of stones and dirt, I fell asleep again, and did not wake till called next day near noon.
Seenawan is but a handful of date-trees, thrown upon the wide waste of The Sahara, with one or two pools of sluggish running water, sheltering beneath its palms thirty or forty inhabitants. There are four or five spots of vegetation, gems of emerald on the rugged brow of The Desert. The houses, if such they are, consist of half a dozen or more of mud hovels huddled together, here and there a little stone stuck in the walls, and some dark passages running beneath them. One or two had a couple of stories and a stone wall round them. Yet, within, they are cool, and have dark rooms to protect the inhabitants from both heat and cold. There are also two or three mud and stone burges, or round towers, to protect the few dates and spots of green. Nevertheless, in this pretence of existence, surrounded by the frightful sterility of The Desert, glowed the warmth of true hospitality. The Arab merchant, Zaleeâ, who lives here, and had been one of our caravan, made me come to dine with him in his house, and introduced me to his family. He gave me for dinner boiled mutton and sopped bread. When I started next day, he presented me a supply of eggs and two fowls, a sumptuous feast in The Desert! I found his wife and daughter suffering with ophthalmia, and made them up a pint-bottle of solution for washing the eye. I had had to wash the eyes of many poor Arabs during the last few days. I gave Zaleeâ's aged father half a dozen ship's biscuits, a part of one of which he sopped and ate. The old gentleman offered up a prayer for my safety, and said he would save one to eat on my safe return.
The morning of the 20th was horribly hot, but I was housed and sheltered in the old burge. I received a present of some fresh dates. This was the small black date of Ghadames, which is peculiar to two or three oases about here. They were delicious as fruits of the garden of the Houris, and certainly now more esteemed by me. The Commandant, seeing me write to-day, wished to have the honour of his name being written in my journal. It is Omer Ben Aly Ben Kareem Bez-Zeen Laseeâ. The people showed no jealousy at my writing notes. Indeed, they were quite aware this was part of my business, and often assisted in telling me the names of persons and places. Never went an European into the interior with less suspicions flying about him amongst his fellow-travellers. I attribute this, in a great measure, to the frankness with which I spoke about Government and the Turkish authorities, as well as the Consular people of Tripoli. Besides, I never affected to conceal my objects. Here a man wrote in my journal the names of abuse applied to the lazy, lagging camels, for his own especial amusement; viz., "Ya kafer, Ya kelb, Ya Yehoud, 'Oh thou infidel!' 'Oh thou dog!' 'Oh thou Jew!'" In a quarrel, the Arabs transfer them complacently to one another, with sundry additions and oaths, too broad for ears polite. Kafer, ("infidel,") and Deen El-kelb, ("religion of a dog,") are the most odious terms of abuse which they can throw at one another.
21st.—We left early this first sprinkle of Seenawan vegetation, and passed the 22nd at the larger spot of the oases. This second spot is called Shâour; but both oases are included in the first name, as Ghat and Berkat are included in Ghat. It is necessary to make these distinctions in order to guard against error in laying down the routes. Shâour consists of a few stunted date-trees, a little gusub, a grain esteemed almost as much as wheat, and one or two fig or other fruit-trees. The united oasis, though but containing a population of sixty souls, and all very poor people, pay 600 mahboubs per annum to the Pasha of Tripoli. The oldest man of the place told me, that, from the first hour of his observation and recollection, to the present time, the water had always been the same in quantity. There is always a little more in the winter. It is running water, and as it runs and bubbles up to the surface it is distributed over the little garden plots and patches. I asked him why he did not make the gardens larger? "God bless you," he replied, "we would if we had more water." It is surprising to notice the regularity of even this scanty supply of water through the years of an old man's life, upwards of eighty, in the heart of The Desert, for such is the site of the oasis of Seenawan. I looked about for birds, but saw none. My aged informant said, "In the winter there are some doves." No wild beast haunt the environs; they cannot get at the water. The people keep a few sheep, goats, and fowls. There are also a dozen or so of camels. It is remarkable that the soil of this speck of vegetable existence is entirely sandy, and all the water comes out of the sand. But in places, indeed, on the coast of Barbary, the finest and most vigorous vegetation often bursts forth out of a purely sandy soil. By the time all the ghafalah had taken their supply of water, and the camels had drunk, the pools were dried up or exhausted, and the people of the village had to wait for the running of the water. I put a last question to my aged Saharan Cicerone,—"How do you live here, do you work?" "I am always sleeping," (or kāéd, "reposing.") "But, how do you get anything to eat?" "Oh, I eat every other day, when I can get it, and sleep the rest of the time: what can I do?" Such is vegetable and animal existence here! Nevertheless, this show and sham of life looks fair, fresh, nay, enchanting, after the five days' desert; and all, as well as myself, welcomed Seenawan as a little Hesperides.
We were a tolerably harmonious caravan, but had now and then a good quarrel. To-day a serious misunderstanding broke out between the Commandant Omer and one of the merchants. I could not learn what it was about, but Omer drew his sword twice to strike the merchant, and was only prevented doing so by the bystanders rushing on him. The Sheikh Makouran came to me apart and said: "Now, if they ask you who's to blame, say both." We then advanced to the parties, and the Sheikh turned to me, and said: "Yâkob, who's to blame?" I immediately said, though I knew nothing of the business: "Everybody, all of you." This was the signal for a burst of laughter, and the group separated. The quarrel, however, did not finish, it was carried to Ghadames and settled there. The Arabs enjoy a good quarrel, and, like good ale, they prefer it, not being too new, but caulked up a bit. The greater part of their occupation and amusement is supplied by quarrels.
Before leaving Seenawan the merchants dispatched a courier to Ghadames, and Mohammed wrote a letter to the Governor, telling him very pompously: "The English Consul of Ghadames was approaching the city under his protection." Mohammed said he had submitted the letter to the Sheikh Makouran, and it was approved. I approved of anything that had not my name attached to it.