Heard a great deal about the Foullans, Foulahs, and Fellatahs, the predominant race in Soudan. Foullan (فلّان فلّانين فلّاني) is the Soudanic term, Fellatah the Bornouese, and Foulah what is used to denominate them among the Mandingoes. According to information here, they were once the most miserable race of Arab wanderers in The Desert. But at last they settled down as neighbours to the Negroes, some 700 years since. They continued to increase in numbers and importance, abandoning tents and building villages and towns, and intermixing with the Negroes, till about forty-five (and others thirty-five) years ago, when they expanded their ideas to conquest and renown. About this time they made the conquest of Kanou, Succatou, and the other large cities of Housa. Never a people rose to greater fame and power. They were assisted, like the Saracens before them, by religious fanaticism, and so far corresponded with them, in extending the boundaries of Islamism. They went on conquering and to conquer till within the present year, when their power received some check by the daring exploits of the Tibboo prince of Zinder, a vassal of Bornou. This prince has taken from them a few towns. The complexion of the ordinary Fullanee is a deep olive, with pleasing features, not much Negro, and long hair.
Negroes in Nigritia are known by the Shoushoua (شوشوا), or scarifying. Generally in Negro countries, which profess the Mohammedan religion, the Shoushoua is abandoned as haram or prohibited. It is mostly the sign of paganism. The operation is performed by a sharp cutting instrument, and is never effaced from the face during life. The annexed drawing presents the Shoushoua of the Negroes of Tombo, near Jinnee, who are pagans. Whenever the slaves see these marks they know the country of the other slaves who bear them. Formerly it could be ascertained whether a slave was born on the coast, or brought from the interior, by the presence or absence of the Shoushoua. Now it cannot, because the practice is discontinued in countries subject to Moslem rule, whence slaves are sometimes brought. In Ghadames a freed slave is called mâtouk (معتوق) or horr (حرّ). The terms waseef (وسيف) and sometimes mamlouk (مملوك) are employed for a single slave, and âbeed (عبيد) for many. The Arabic terms قايد الوصفان "the chief of slaves," are used to denote the person who is responsible for the conduct of slaves, or the "Sheikh of the slaves." The word Razzia, which the French are said to have invented, and which has acquired such a triste celebrity by their butcheries of the Arabs in Algeria, is derived from the same word as designates a Slave-hunt (ghazah)[53] amongst our Saharan people. The verb is غَزَا ghaza, "petivit," which in the second conjugation means, "expeditione bellica petivit hostem," and the noun in use is غَزَاة ghazah, "expeditione bellica." The Bornouese word to denote a slave-hunt, as carried on by the Touaricks, is Din, applied to private kidnapping expeditions, and means, I think, simply "theft," showing that not by war, as captives, but by "theft," "stealing," the "man-stealing" of the Apostle Paul, are slaves generally procured in Central Africa. It is only just that razzia and ghazah, the same words, should be so closely allied in application to their different actions. The French, to do the thing properly, and in their usual style, should erect a monument upon the "Place" of the city of Algiers, to the new invention Razzia, with its derivations from ghazah, "a slave-hunt." A prize essay might also be proposed to the Oriental Chair of Paris, and its various students, now looking for distinction as interpreters in the land of Razzias or "butcheries," for the best derivation and historical progress of the term Razzia, as used by Christian and civilized nations, in relation to infidel and Mohammedan barbarians. At the bottom of the monument erected by the French to the Demon Razzia, may be appended the following veracious words, copied from the late proclamation of the Duc d'Aumale, on his assumption of the high post of Governor-General of Algeria (Moniteur Algérien, October 20, 1847):—"You have learned by experience, O Mussulmans! how just and clement is the Government of France." The Duke unpardonably forgets to cite one of the last proofs of this just and clement Government, the roasting of a tribe of Arabs, men, women and children in the caverns of the Atlas! . . . . Will not the Lying Bulletin (native of France) be proclaimed till doomsday?
This morning the merchants asked me why the English did not drive out the French from Algeria. They had often badgered me with this subject. I thought it better to speak plainly at once, and for all. I began by asking, why should the English drive out the French? and continued, "France and England are now at peace. They don't wish to make war at all, and England does not consider Algeria of such importance as to go to war about it. England did not derive much benefit from Algeria when Mussulmans ruled there; besides the Algerines were always sea-robbers. The English were obliged to go and chastise them several times before the French captured their country. And do not think, that if war did take place between England and France, and the English should drive the French out of Algeria, the country would therefore be given up to the Sultan and the Mussulmans. The English might wish to rule there themselves. Upon no account wish for war in Algeria, for the miseries of the war would chiefly fall upon you, Mussulmans." This completely settled them, and exasperated them, as well it might; they said no more. The Mussulmans always have in their memories the conduct of the English when they drove out the French from Egypt, and discussing this kind of politics, it is quite natural.
Afterwards I heard a Souafee holding forth to another group. His theme was, the Shânbah, Warklah, Touaricks, Tugurt, Souf, and Ghadames, and it was evident to him that besides the people now enumerated there were no others in the world. A respectable Moor observed at the time, "That Souafee is a rascal. He's as great a robber as a Shânbah bandit. Mussulmans are not like Christians. The Christians have but one word, and are brothers. The Mussulmans have a thousand and ten thousand words, they don't speak the truth, and they are enemies to one another." The ingenuous Moor knew little of the history of Europe and America. I did not disabuse him of his good opinion of us. He was a Ben Wezeet, and complained that now the Nāther (ناظر), or native overseer of the city, and the Kady or judge, and some of the richest merchants belonged to the Ben Weleed, and added mournfully, with a sigh, "It was not so in my father's time. But the world has changed, and this is the new world."
In reading the Arabic Testament, I have noticed several parallel customs or habits between The East and North Africa. Take this:
"But Jesus stooped down, and with his finger wrote upon the ground." (John viii. 6.)
People of Ghadames are writing daily with their fingers on the ground. They are also wont, with fancy ornamental sticks, which they usually carry, to illustrate their ideas on the sand or dust of the streets, by drawing figures. In speaking with them on geography, they sketch shapes of countries. They cast up all their ordinary accounts by writing figures on the sand. They have also certain games which they play by the use of sand. Sand is their paper, their ledger, their boards of account, their pavement, and their auxiliary in a thousand things. It is said in the Gospels, that The Saviour escaped to the mountains[54], either from the pressure of the people, or from the persecutions of his enemies. Persons are accustomed to escape to the mountains in Barbary, more particularly in Morocco and Algeria; but also in this country. Our Saviour, besides, gives the same advice to his disciples: "Let them which are in Judea flee to the mountains." (Luke xxi. 21.) It has always been difficult to apprehend fugitives in the mountains, especially in ancient times, when a good police did not exist. The conqueror has always had great difficulty, and exposed his conquests to imminent risk, by pursuing the conquered in mountainous districts. Such are the instincts and habits of men in all ages. The Desert has, besides, afforded an asylum to the fugitive and unfortunate, as well as the persecuted. Our Saviour was wont to retire to desert places. In this country, the discomfited defenders of their country's liberties have invariably escaped to The Sahara. How many times has Abd-el-Kader escaped to the mountains of Rif, or the solitudes of The Sahara? But it is unnecessary to pursue this obvious idea farther, otherwise it also will escape to The Mountains or The Desert.
The "five barley loaves," (John vi. 9,) reminds me of the barley bread of these countries, more frequent than any other sort of bread. Wheaten bread is rarely eaten by the lower classes.
It is needless to cite all the passages of Scripture where the people in the towns and villages are represented as bringing out their sick of every kind and description. (Matt. xiv. 14, 35, 36.) So it is in North Africa. Whenever an European visits these countries with any pretensions to medical skill, all the sick of the place are brought out to him. When I see the sick daily brought to me—as also when I was in The Mountains—I cannot help thinking of those affecting pictures of disease and misery which were providentially exhibited to demonstrate the divine skill of the Great Physician of mind and body.
