I shall now give the reader a chapter of the domestic history of Ghadames, referring to one of the principal families. Most of the rich merchants of this city have two and some of them three wives. My venerable friend, the Sheikh Makouran, came in possession of one of his present young wives in the following romantic way. (His wives by whom he had his children are long ago dead.) A friend of the Sheikh's died and left a young and beautiful widow, whose wit and grace was the theme of all the city, for such things are esteemed also here. The eldest son of the Sheikh immediately set his heart upon the possession of this beauty, but unfortunately he did not communicate his intentions to the disconsolate lady, who remained in ignorance of his attachment. Meanwhile, El-Besheer, as a party in the firm of his father, purchased the house over the widow's head and made everything ready for the future wedding, and then took a journey of business to Touat, intending on his return to send some old lady, which is mostly the practice, with his message of love and marriage to the widowed solitary. Perhaps he thought the widow could not fail to discover his intentions in what he had already done, mostly preliminary to marriage. But we often imagine others are thinking about us when we are never in their thoughts. So he left for twenty days' journey through The Desert, with all these hopes and fears crowding about him. On his return, to his consternation, he found his old father, of some seventy years of age, had got possession of the young blooming widow, the object he had so fondly cherished on his weary way over the solitudes of The Sahara! But like the doomed Pasha, who receives the imperial order of his decapitation from the hand of the executioner, and kisses it and then bows his head to the stroke, so the young merchant, full of filial veneration for his aged sire, submitted silently and without a murmur to this cruel decree of heaven. It is said of the lady that she pines and mourns out her life for the son. She was kept in profound ignorance of his love until she found herself in the withered, cold, and shrunken arms of the father. She accepted the father to keep a house over her head. Alas! poor woman, whether sold at Paris or London in a marriage of convenance, or in The Desert, she is always the victim of man's galling tyranny.
The Ghadamseeah are a strictly religious people. One of my best friends would not allow me to touch a religious book of his, concerning the future world, alleging it was haram ("prohibited"). A young rogue of a Touarick now came in and asked me impudently, whether I knew God and prayed? He added, "Say Mahomet is the prophet of God." As several aged men were present I made no answer. These people believe that there can be no more question of believing in Mahomet than in the sun when shining in its full strength, and are astonished that I who read and write Arabic don't know better. One said, "You are afraid of scorpions, believe in Mahomet and they will do you no harm." I could not help thinking of the parallel, for all Oriental phraseology is so much alike:—
هاهوذا اعطيتكم سلطا نا لتدوسا الحيات والعقارب Luke x. 21.
"Serpents and scorpions" have a peculiar application to The Desert. There are still more dangerous animals in The Desert, and I have heard the epithet of "a race of vipers," applied to the Shânbah banditti. This morning the people showed me a wooden figure of a fiddler, placed on a box, in which was inserted a handle, turning round and making a squeaking noise. None of them could understand what it was. A boy was playing with it as a toy. They told me, as news, "This came from the country of the Christians; it ought not to have been made, it is haram." All toys of men and animals are considered by these rigid Moslems as so many violations of the commandment "Thou shalt not make unto thyself any graven image."
According to my turjeman there are many Wahabites in this neighbourhood. Besides Jerbah and its mountains, many Wahabites are found in the Tripoline districts of Nalout, Kabou, Fessatou, Temzeen and Keklah. The Ghadamsee people detest them and say; "The Wahabites will be the carriers of the Jews to hell-fire in the next world." The Wahabites assert, there are five orthodox sects, of which they form the fifth, and hate cordially the other four. Wahabites have great difficulty in eating with other Mussulmans, and some refuse absolutely to eat with other than their own sect. Wahabites are very numerous in the oasis of Mezab, belonging to Algeria, which is confirmed by the Morocco marabout El Aïachi, who made his pilgrimage to Mecca in 1661. The Wahabites of Jerbah are subdivided in the Abadeeah, or The Whites, who wear a white scull-cap, in contradistinction from those who wear red caps, like most Mussulmans of the coast. Generally the Wahabites differ from other Mohammedans as to the observance of the five daily prayers. They also require that, in the observance of the Ramadan, a person should purify and wash himself at the hour of the day in which the fast may begin. The sub-sect of Abadites will neither eat nor drink from the same vessel with any other sects. Wahabites in general will not weigh or touch weights, for fear of doing wrong. Other persons do weighing for them, they looking on, like the Jews who will not touch the candle on their Sabbath, and get Mussulman or Christian servants to snuff a candle or trim a lamp for them. It seems what is a sin in them, may or may not be a sin in others.
My turjeman is surprised we Christians receive the books of the Jews as sacred and inspired, and so are many other people. They are quite astonished when I tell them that Christians esteem the Scriptures of the Jews equally divine with their own. They have a confused notion that the whole of the Jewish Scriptures consist of the five books of Moses, which they call the Torat, and the Psalms of David. Some of them say Abraham was not a Jew. I explain to them, that the Christians give a different interpretation to the Jewish Scriptures from the Jews themselves, and believe "the Son of Mary" to be the Messiah of the Jews and all the world. They hardly believe me; and say, "The Jews are corrupt and their books corrupt." When I told them one day before the Rais that we had had Jews in India, they flatly replied it was a lie, for said they, "It is impossible for such a miserable being as a Jew to be a soldier."
Footnotes:
[43] Shaving off the hair from different parts of the body is a species of religious rite. The barber in North Africa is highly esteemed. One of the antiquities in Kairwan (Tunis) is the tomb of Mahomet's barber. This city is also the third holy city of the Moslemite world, on account of this important personage being buried there.
[44] Ghour, قور, Sterculia acuminata, Pal. de Beauv.
[45] He did not know there was a new world before I told him.