24th.—Yesterday and to-day employed in writing for the Shantah (Turkish, for mail). Rais in a good humour this evening. Two camels came in from The Sahara, one day's journey, laden with wood for the Rais. His Excellency offered some to me. The fact is, I purchased a camel-load a few days ago, and his Excellency's servants had nearly begged it all away. People generally burn dried and dead branches of the palm, which, in this season, is abundant. It is not good fire-wood; there is plenty of flame and smoke, but little heat. Said, on my return from the Rais, assures me he has heard from his visitors, the Touarick slaves, that now the Touaricks do not beat their slaves, but esteem all men souwa, souwa, ("equal"); it was not so in former times. Free and enlightened America may have yet to learn lessons of freedom and humanity from the savages of The Sahara!
Purchased a Thob[32], a species of large lizard. It is common in The Sahara. The Touaricks eat them, and say they are medicine for a pain or weakness in the back. This may have been surmised from the ideal resemblance between the strength of their backs, which is scaly and bony, and strongly bound together, and the strength it is likely to communicate unto persons having a weak or crippled spine. They are pretty good eating, and taste something like the kid of the goat; the tail is esteemed the greatest delicacy. I tasted of this which I bought, and liked it. There is no lizard of this species in Soudan. A Touarick told me that, having found one in The Desert, he carried it to Soudan, where a Negro prince fell in love with it, and gave him for it the present of a young female slave. The Arabs tame the Thob, and he grows very fond. Some of them are very large. This I purchased is only twenty inches in length, and about ten round the thickest part of the body. The head is large and tortoise-shaped, with a small mouth. It is covered with scales, or "scaly mail," and its tail is about four inches long, composed of a series of broad thick and sharp bones. It has four feet, or rather hands, for, as the Arabs say, "It has hands like Ben-Adam (mankind)." All the body, back and flanks, are covered by shining scales, of the colour of a darked-spotted grey, with spots white and light under the belly. It runs very awkwardly on account of its bulky tail, and to look at is a miniature aligator or crocodile. It is almost harmless, fighting a little now and then; its appearance, however, is rather forbidding. It hides in the dry sandy holes of The Sahara. A drop of water, say the Arabs, would hurt it. The traditions of the Mohammedans mention that Mahomet did not himself eat the Thob, at the same time he did not prohibit it to his followers. The Saharan merchants, in traversing The Desert, frequently make a good meal of the Thob. Whilst talking of the Thob, the people said the flesh of parrots was poison for Ben-Adam.
25th.—Another of my patients dead, of a raging fever caught, it is said, "by sleeping on the top of the house in the open air." The moon struck him, they say. According to the Psalms, "The sun shall not smite thee by day, nor the moon by night."
They let him remain seven days without sending for me, when it was too late to administer my fever powders. I fetched an old gentleman who could bleed to have him bled, but they refused, saying it was now late. The old blood-letter vexed at their refusal, said, "Well, if I mustn't bleed him, let me pray for him;" and, immediately offered up a short prayer, in which they all joined willingly. On telling a Ghadamsee I ate some Thob, he said, "Ah, that's forbidden; the Thob was formerly a human being, before it had its present shape. Don't you see its hands are still human?" The notion of the transmigration of souls lingers in these parts, but it is a doctrine not generally received. I observed this man afterwards fattening his sheep with date-stones, broken into small pieces. Almost every family, however small, have their sheep to fatten. Pounded date-stones are also given to camels for fattening. Writing for amusement with my taleb, I recollected a verse in the Koran, which I wrote:—
ارسلناك الّا رحمة للعلمين
This filled him with surprise and horror, and he immediately scratched it out, as too pure and holy a thing to be in the possession of an Infidel. The translation is:—"We (God) have sent thee (Mahomet) only for mercy to mankind;" or, "Thy mission to man, O Mahomet! is only mercy." Such credit all impostors and pretenders to revelation claim for themselves, and such an object they declare to be the end of their mission, although at the same time, and in the same breath, they don't forget to doom all those who reject their authority to perdition. This, it would seem, is a necessary evil in propagating new religions and new sects. But enough of this—may the world grow more kindly—let us hope it will. This morning arrived a single Arab from Fezzan. It would appear extreme hardihood when we reflect, that for nine days, there is not a house, and scarcely a resting-place. The Arab was mounted on a camel. This arrival, as Essnousee's departure, shows the security of the routes in some directions. The Arab told me he made his journey in nine days, and stopped occasionally on the road to sleep and refresh himself. In the night he tied his camel's leg to his own leg, so that if it attempted to stray, it would awake him.
Nothing new with Rais. Speaking of the Arabs, he says, "You know Arabs to be very devils. There are two ways to consider Arabs, but whichever way they are robbers and assassins. When they are famished, they plunder in order to eat; when their bellies are full, they plunder because they kick and are insolent. Now, we (Turks) keep them upon low diet in The Mountains; they have little, and always a little food. This is the Sultan's tareek (government) to manage them. Their spirits are kept down and broken, and they are submissive." He then told me he had held a Divan to obtain the extra contribution of 3,200 mahboubs, for the Pasha; but the people protested they could not pay such an amount. I wrote a letter to Colonel Warrington, stating this circumstance, and asked him if he could assist the people in any way. I thought it a bare possibility that the hand of foreign diplomacy might be stretched out to save this city, which had flourished in the pursuits of its own peaceful commerce for more than a thousand years. . . . To mitigate the apparent harshness of his demand, the Rais observed, that before the Sultan occupied Ghadames, the country between this and Tripoli was full of banditti. "The Arabs of The Mountains," he added, "were all banditti, those amongst whom you resided eight days. The Touaricks were not so bad, they generally protected Ghadamsee merchants. Now since the Sultan, there are only the Shânbah and the Sebâah, therefore the Ghadamseeah must pay." So, Audi alteram partem.
26th.—To-day, resident thirty days in Ghadames which time I have certainly not lost. Written a good deal of MS., such as it is, and several letters; besides, applied myself to reading and writing Arabic. Likewise distributed medicines to a considerable number of invalids. Wish to pass the next month as profitably as the month gone. My expenses of living, including a guard to sleep in the house at night, and Said, are only at the rate of eighteen-pence per day; this, however, excludes tea, coffee, and sugar. Besides, Sheikh Makouran refuses to take anything for house-rent, saying, "It would be against the will of God to receive money from you, who are our sure friend, and our guest of hospitality." Few patients, in comparison with the past. As the winter approaches, the cases of ophthalmia are less. In the precipitation of leaving Tripoli, brought little ink with me, and most of that I gave away; so am obliged to go about the town to beg a little. The custom is, when one person wants ink, he begs it of another. Went to Ben Weleed, who procured me a supply.
My intercourse has been mostly with Ben Wezeet, but to day I visited Ben Weleed at the Bab-Es-Sagheer, ("the little gate,") or the Bab-Es-Saneeah, ("the gate of the garden,") where there were about forty of the most respectable of this faction assembled in a sort of gossiping divan amongst themselves. They told me they met here every morning, and chatted over the news of the previous day. Usually they meet just after sunrise, and certainly in this way they pass a cool and fragrant hour, full of the odoriferous breathings of the gardens as the day is awakening. I asked one, who were the richer, the Weleed or the Wezeet? He replied, with an honourable frankness, "The Wezeet." Observed many of the men had their eyelids blackened, like the women, with Kohel[33], and also their finger-nails and toe-nails dyed dark-red with henna[34]. I confessed I was surprised at this monstrous effeminacy. One of these lady-gentlemen was the son of the powerful Ettanee family; he was brought up to the Church, and of great promise, bidding fair to be future Kady or Archbishop. He put a curious question to me, "How much is the expense of a journey from Malta to Constantinople?" When I satisfied him, he said, "I shall go and buy some slaves at Ghat, and then convey them to Constantinople. Don't you think I shall make money by it?" I told him he would not find anybody at Malta to convey slaves to Constantinople; and if he took them there, they would be set at liberty, for a slave once touching British territory became free. To this he replied only, "I know—I knew before." I was extremely glad he did know it. It is strange to see a young man of this description so avariciously turn himself into a slave-dealer, but Mohammedan priests frequently trade.
Marabouts in The Mountains are mostly camel-drivers; and the greater part of priests, marabouts, and kadys perform sacred duties gratis. An order of priesthood exists, though it is not kept up very distinctly from laymen, but it is an honour to them, "to work in the service of God for nothing," and is worthy of the imitation of Christians. My new clerical friend gave me a dissertation upon things having two names, a classical one and a vulgar one. The Kohel is also called Athmed, اثمد, which is its classical name. Senna is called hasheeshah, حشيشه, literally "herbs," its vulgar name, and سنا حرم, "senna of Mecca," (literally, of the inviolable,) which is its classical name. A little senna is found casually in the gardens of Ghadames; but the country of Senna, in The Sahara, is Aheer, where it is cultivated by the Touaricks. He pointed out to me the Tout, (توت,) the small white mulberry, which is planted in little squares of the city. Speaking of the Touaricks, he said: "These people are getting dissatisfied with us. Formerly we paid them better; but being robbed of our money by the Turks, we can't give them much. They smell also a disagreeable odour now. Formerly they came in and went out our city as a garden." "What odour is that?" I asked. "It's that Rais," he whispered in my ear. The fact is, the Touaricks felt themselves more at home before the Turks came here, which everybody can imagine.