Salt is procured in a few hours' journey beyond Sidi Mâbed, and is considered superior to that procured at the Salinæ of the coast. This Saharan salt is only obtained after there has been some rain, the earth being impregnated with it, and the water washing away the earthy particles. It is gathered in the dry season.
19th.—Amuse myself with Arabic reading and philological studies. The mornings continue cool. Administer now little medicine, for I have but little left. Ordered an Arab to be bled by the old Moor, who possesses a good lancet. The big hulking Arab proved a greater coward than a child. How sickness unnerves a man, the hardiest and strongest of men! I once took a passage from Algeria to Marseilles in a French transport of convalescents. There I saw the brave and brilliant French troops cry and whine like children under the influence of fever. When the old Moor had bled the soldier, he said to me, "Where's the money?" This shows that, though they rarely think of remunerating the services of the Christian Tabeeb, they have a perfectly clear conception of what is due to the labour and skill of a doctor when the case refers to themselves. Some time after, I went to the old Moor again, and asked him to bleed another soldier attacked with fever. He refused to bleed him, alleging that he must be paid. "He will die," I said. "Let him die," returned the unfeeling old blood-letter; "why do they bring soldiers here, we don't want them?" This afternoon I visited the barrack, where several Arab soldiers were laid up with the fever, which they had caught at Emjessem. One was very bad. The Arabs said to me, "You must give him money to buy some bread, and a little meat to make some broth." I told them they must go the Rais; it was his business to look after his troops. It is distressing to witness the condition of these wretched Arabs. At different times I have given them a little meat, and bread, and oil; but now my stock of provisions is getting down, and the communication between Tripoli and Ghadames is very precarious. In the evening I saw the Nāther, and said to him—expecting he would mention it to the Rais, "See that soldier lying on the stone-bench; he is sick, and has nothing to eat."
The Nāther.—"Yes, he is ill."
I.—"But he has nothing to eat; can't you get him something to eat?"
The Nāther,—"Pooh, he must die."
The other Moors present laughed at my simplicity in begging something to eat for a fever-worn, emaciated wretch of a soldier. The matter of fact is, these poor fellows are detested by the inhabitants, and starved to death by the Government. The soldier had caught the fever of Derge, whilst sent there on business, which is a bad tertian fever, prevalent in some oases of The Sahara.
Lately, as my turjeman and Said, with several negroes, were chatting, and saying people would have husbands and wives in the next world, I asked, in the manner of the Sadducees, "If a woman had three husbands in this world, whose wife would she be in the next?" They all answered, "The wife of the last." As some of the group of these theologians and diviners of the future state were negroes, I asked, "What colour will people be in the next world?" They replied, "All white, and alike; and not only will their skins be white, but all their clothing will be white." White, indeed, is the favourite colour of Mussulmans; and a sooty-black Mohammedan negro will set off his face with a white turban, as our Christian niggers do their japan with a lily-white neckcloth. But white is the colour of purity, of religion in North Africa and The East, as in Biblical times.—περιβεβλημένους ἐν ἱματίοις λευχοῖς. (Rev. iv. 4.)
20th.—Weather continues fine and cool. Less meat to be had; nothing decided about the new levy of money, except that the people will not or cannot pay. The Sheikh Makouran tells me he is greatly in debt to Messrs. Silva and Laby, and so are all Ghadamsee merchants. The money now employed in commerce is chiefly that of European and other merchants of Tripoli and Tunis. "We have no money," says Makouran, "we cannot pay any new levies. If Rais persists, he must collect our money at the edge of the sword; and this can't last, for we shall all soon die of hunger." These continual complaints make me melancholy, and added to my impatience "to be up and doing," make me very peevish. O Dio! but such is the lot of man, to suffer always, either in mind or body. Much annoyed at my taleb for eating Said's dinner, even before my face. These Moors, at least some of them, have neither honour nor conscience. I suppose the taleb is pinching his belly to pay his portion of the new contribution. To punish the taleb, I give Said coffee before him, without asking him to take any. I may observe, the Moors don't like to see me treat the poor blacks and slaves as their equals. I frequently give the negroes tea and coffee before I serve them, to show I despise such distinctions, although, perhaps, against propriety.
The taleb began boasting about Soudan, and he has much reason to boast of it, if we compare what Mohammedans have there done with what Christians have done on the Western Coast of Africa. He said, "There's no gomerick (Custom-house), no oppression, for the people are Mussulmans." Such were the reasons for their not being oppressive. It is a great question how far a country may be civilized, and in how short a time, without actual conquest? Civilization has progressed in Central Africa with the spread of Islamism. When it reaches the point of Mahometan civilization it will stop. The question with us is, "Whether we shall civilize the Mohammedans, and so work on Central Africa, or reconquer their conquests?" There appears very little chance of civilizing Africa without arms and conquest. Bornou, Soudan, and its numerous cities, Timbuctoo and Jinnee, formerly all governed by the Kohlan—كحلان, or "blacks," are now governed by strangers, either Arabs (pure) or Touaricks or Fullans. These are the present most important kingdoms of the ancient Nigritia, and include a population of some millions. I continue to pursue my inquiries respecting the Fullans. All agree in representing them as originally Arab, but now greatly mixed, of very dark colour, some being nearly black, others, and most of them, a dark brown and yellow red, and some nearly white. The fortunes of the Fullans, emerging filthily from the dregs and offscouring of The Sahara, have become as great as the old Romans formerly in Europe, but they will always have powerful and vindictive rivals in the Touarghee and pure Arab and Berber races. The Revd. Mr. Schön has given a too unfavourable report of the Fullans, in his Notes and Journal of the Niger Expedition, biassed against them in his Missionary zeal, simply because they are Mahometans. It is true that the Fullans are great slave-dealers, but so are nearly all the princes of Africa. The mild and equitable administration of the kingdoms of Kanou, Succatou, Kashna, and other immense centres of population, as carried on by the Fullans, is notorious throughout The Great Desert. No people of Nigritian Africa has so profoundly excited my best sympathies as the Fullanee races[55].
The Moors do not fondle and dandle their children on their knees, as parents are accustomed in Europe; and when grown up, the children appear as distant from their parents as strangers. This arises from the absolute authority assumed by parents over children during their minority. I have often been angry to see some of the lower people here teaching the children to call me Kafer ("infidel") as a sort of religious duty, lest, I imagine, the children should see at last that there is no very great difference between a Kafer and a Moslemite.