Wrote letters to Mr. Alsager, Colonel Warrington, and others. People grumbling about their letters being too high charged. Formerly letters went free to Tripoli. The Turkish post-office and policy never fail to make things worse. Treating some Moors with coffee and loaf-sugar, one asked me if there were blood in sugar, for so he had heard from some Europeans in Tripoli. I told him in loaf sugar. "What, the blood of pigs?" one cried. "How do I know?" I rejoined; "if the refiner has no bullock's blood, why not use that of pigs?" This frightened them all out of their senses. They will not eat loaf-sugar again in a hurry. A most ludicrous anecdote of the old Bashaw of Tripoli here occurs to me. Old Yousef one day sent for Colonel Warrington, with a message that the Consul's presence was very particularly required. The Consul, putting on his best Consular uniform, and taking with him his Vice-Consul, his Chancellor, and his Dragoman, immediately waited upon His Highness. The Consul found His Highness sitting in full Divan, surrounded with all his high functionaries. Approaching the Bashaw, the Consul was begged to take a seat. His Highness then opened business, and, drawing a very long and solemn face, requested to know, "If the Christians were carrying away all the bones from the country?" assuring the Consul that such he heard was the case from his people, adding, that even the graveyards were ransacked for bones. The Consul, nothing blinking, or disquieted, congratulated His Highness upon bringing such an important subject before his notice, and observed, "It is very improper for the Christians to be ransacking the tombs for old bones to ship off for Europe." "Improper!" exclaimed the Bashaw, "why the man who does so ought to be beheaded!" "Yes, yes," replied the Consul, coaxingly, "he ought, your Highness; I quite agree with you." The Bashaw then got a little more calm, and begged of the Consul, as a favour, to tell him what the Christians did with all these old bones. The Consul, now assuming a magnificent air, deigned to reply, "Now, your Highness, you must be cool. You drink coffee?" "Yes." "You put sugar in it?" "Yes" (impatiently). "You use white sugar?" "Yes, yes," said the Bashaw, half amazed, half trembling, wondering what would come next. "Then," cried the Consul triumphantly, "I beg most submissively to inform your Highness, hoping that your Highness will not be angry, but thank me for the information, that the old bones are used to make white sugar with." Hereupon was an awful explosion of Allahs!—beginning with His Highness the Bashaw, and going round the whole assembled Divan, in such serious and perplexed conclave now met. Then followed harams!—in the midst of which Colonel Warrington graciously and elegantly backed himself out of the Divan, smiling and bowing, bowing and smiling, to the utter horror of all present. Next day His Highness made a proclamation forbidding any of his subjects from exporting old bones on pain of death. On his part, the Consul issued a notice calling upon all British subjects not to be such barbarians as to violate the tombs of pious Mussulmans, at the same time threatening them with the full weight of the Consular displeasure. I am assured that Yousef Bashaw never ate white sugar afterwards.
The liberties which Colonel Warrington was wont to take with old Yousef Bashaw, of the Caramanly dynasty, could not now be, in these days of Ottoman politeness, at all tolerated. For a long series of years, and especially during the French war, the Colonel was the virtual Bashaw of Tripoli. I shall only give another of a thousand incidents in which the British Consul showed himself the master, and the Bashaw the slave, instead of the Sovereign of his own country. One day the Bashaw had done something to offend the Consul. Colonel Warrington, hearing of it whilst riding out, immediately rides off to the Castle, and rushes, whip in hand, into the presence of the Bashaw, producing consternation through the whole Court. An Italian, having at the time an audience with His Highness, demanded, "Che cosa vuole Signore Consule?" seeing the Consul frustrated in his rage for want of an interpreter. "Tell him (the Bashaw) he's a rascal!" roared the Consul, almost shaking his whip over the head of His Highness. But the Italian was just as far off, not knowing English, and fortunately could not interpret this elegant compliment. The very next day, the Consul and the Bashaw dined together at the British Garden, the Colonel slapping the old gentleman over his shoulder, and drinking wine with him, like two jolly chums. In this way, Colonel Warrington managed to be, what he was called in Malta, "Bashaw of Tripoli." Now that Colonel Warrington, during the time these pages have been going through the press, has left us for another and a better world, we may for a moment compare his Consular system with that which was pursued by the late Mr. Hay, Consul-General of Morocco. The difference is striking, if not remarkable. Colonel Warrington boasted of being able to do anything and everything in Tripoli; Mr. Hay boasted of being able to do nothing in Morocco. The former had the Bashaw under his thumb, or hooked by the nose; the latter stood at an awful distance from the Shereefian Presence. Colonel Warrington underrated the difficulties and dangers of travelling in Tripoli and Central Africa, making the route from Tripoli to Bornou as safe as the road from London to Paris; Mr. Hay, exaggerating every obstacle, represented it as unsafe to walk in the environs of Tangier, under its very walls, and even boasted of himself being shot at in the interior of Morocco, on a Government mission, and whilst attended by an escort of the Emperor's troops. With Colonel Warrington, a mission of science or philanthropy had a real chance of success; with Mr. Hay, no mission could possibly succeed—failure was certain. And so I might continue the opposite parallels. But in justice to these late functionaries and their friends, I must observe, that both were zealous servants of Government and their country. They exerted themselves diligently and conscientiously to protect and advance the interests of their countrymen, who had relations with Tripoli or Morocco, according to their peculiar temperaments and circumstances. No doubt they gave Government at home an immense deal of unnecessary trouble, and sometimes even annoyance; but so long as each public functionary abroad thinks the affairs of his own particular post of more importance than those of anybody else, this inconvenience will always happen, in a lesser or greater degree.
Said furnishes me with a continual anti-slavery text against the slave-trade. Everybody asks me if Said is a slave. I reply, "Slavery is a great sin amongst the English. We cannot have slaves, or make slaves of our fellow-creatures." Then follow discussions, in which I damnify the traffick in human beings as much as possible.
Today witnessed a good specimen of Arab Desert freedom. I was conversing quietly with the Governor, seated beside him on his ottoman, a privilege granted only to me, the Nather (native governor) and the Kady, when rushed into the apartment a Souafee Arab, exclaiming to the Rais, "How are you?" and seizing hold of his hands, knocked his fly-flap down on the floor. His Excellency was shocked at this rudeness, and I myself was a little startled. The conversation which followed, if such it may be called, is characteristic of the bold Arab, and the haughty Turk.
The Souafee.—"The Shânbah are coming to Ghadames."
The Governor.—"I don't know; God knows."
The Souafee.—"My brothers write to me and tell me so."
The Governor.—"I don't know."
The Souafee.—"Give me money, and I'll go and look after them."