2nd.—Occupied in taking notes of routes. The whole day overcast but no rain. Rais alternately laughs and admires the Ghadamsee people. He was endeavouring to prove to me what profound respect the bandits of The Desert entertain for these Marabout people, and said, "If a camel of the Ghadamseeah falls down in The Desert and dies, and no person present has a camel to lend them, they leave the goods or the load of the camel on the high road until they fetch one. Should a bandit pass by in the meanwhile and see the goods, and recognize them to belong to an inhabitant of Ghadames, he does not even touch them, but passes by and calls for the blessing of Heaven upon the Holy City of The Desert." This, one would say, is too good to be true, at the same time, I have no doubt the banditti of The Desert have a species of religious respect for these pacific-minded, unresisting merchants. I took an opportunity of asking Rais about the use and value of his charms. His Excellency replied, "They are to protect me when exposed to robbers like the Shânbah, or to other evils. These charms will then render me great assistance." I I have already said Rais is as big a ninny in these superstitious matters as any of his Maraboutish subjects.
3rd.—Am still in great doubt as to the route I shall take for the interior. Every route has its separate advantages, and separate dangers. In this perplexity what can I do but wait the turn of events? . . . . . Another overcast morning, as dull and foggy as Old England's November. A perfect Thames-London fog. I was accustomed to think that in the bright sky of an African desert such a mass of cloud and haziness was impossible. Still, though gloomy and drear, there is more boldness and definiteness of outline than in England. After a person has been living long under the bright skies of the Mediterranean, he may mistake a clear winter's day on Blackheath, as I have done, for a moonlight, owing to the want of those sharp angles by which nature draws her landscapes in Southern Europe. To-day the face of the heavens has cast its shadows upon the countenance of the population, for all is dull in business. Every one is awaiting the result of the skirmishes between the Touaricks and the Shânbah.
4th.—A fine morning, and not very cold. No patients, everybody apparently in health. My old friend Berka, the liberated slave, is now occupied in turning or digging, or hoeing up a whole garden of good size, about two days and a half's labour, for which he will receive one Tunisian piastre! (Seven pence English money.) This is free labour. I am sure the slave labour, the principal here, cannot be cheaper. The implements of agriculture are few and simple in The Desert. Friend Berka had but a small hoe, which is well described by Caillié, who saw it used near Jinnee, and indeed it seems to be used throughout Central Africa. This hoe is about a foot long, and eight inches broad; the handle, which is some sixteen inches in length, slants very much. With this hoe they turn up the earth instead of the plough, and prepare and open and shut the squares of irrigated fields. For reaping they make use of a small sickle without teeth. The caravans usually have a supply of these sickles for cutting up Desert provender for the camels. The use of the hoe requires constant stooping to the ground and is consequently laborious, but the Saharan fields are very limited, and are soon hoed up. The smallness of space is compensated by a redundant fertility, and double and even treble crops in the course of the year. Passing by a group of gossipping slaves to-day, one came running up to me and said, "Buy me, buy me, and I will go with you to Ghat. I shall only cost you 100 mahboubs." This is humiliating enough, but those who offer their services for sale, like hundreds in the metropolis of London, to write up a bad cause and write down a good one, or to—
"Make the worse appear The better reason—"
"With words cloth'd in reason's garb—"
certainly perform a greater act of degradation than these poor debased bondsmen.
A few evenings ago intelligence arrived that a Souf caravan of eight camels and five persons were seen about a day and a half from this city, proceeding in the route of Ghat. This gave rise to suspicions that the news about the Shânbah and Touaricks was a hoax of the Souafah, in order to frighten the people of Ghadames, and allow them (the Souafah) to get first to the market of Ghat, and buy slaves cheaper. So reason the merchants with the usual jealousy of such people. Rais, on receipt of the above, summoned his Divan, and it was debated, "Whether the Souafah should not be brought in here by force?" The question was decided in the affirmative, and late at night, fourteen Arab soldiers, two Arabs of Seenawan, intimately acquainted with the routes, and an official of the Rais, went off to seize the caravan. This bold measure may bring us unpleasant consequences. First of all, the Governor has no right to seize a caravan in a district where the Sultan, his master, has no authority, decidedly neutral ground, especially a caravan of strangers. Then the Souafah, in revenge, may attack the caravans of Ghadames. Again, it is a question whether the caravan will come in without fighting, for the Souafah are tough men to deal with. It will be a poor excuse for the Governor to plead before the Pasha, that the caravan was guilty of this hoax, supposing it so, and giving this as the reason for seizing the peaceable caravan of an independent state. Indeed, who shall decide that they gave false intelligence of the Shânbah? And if they did, should this be the punishment for spreading a false report? Many other disagreeable thoughts occur. It is clear there is a violent infraction of international law committed on our neighbour's (the Touarick's) territory.
Talking with a gossip about the character of Moors, and he saying they were "friends of flous (money,)" i. e. mercenary, and adding that the Touattee was the best fellow amongst them. Said, who was present, said to me, "Yes, it is so, and because he is a black man." Said often repeats to me, "In Soudan it will cost you nothing to live; being a stranger, everybody will feed you in our country." Another free black took upon himself to ridicule the constitution of the white man. "Ah," he cried, "what is a white man! a poor weak creature; he can't bear Soudan heat; he gets the fever, and dies. No, it is the black man that is strong, strong always. He never droops or sinks! Look at the strength of my limbs." Such are the traits of character of coloured men in this Saharan world. I add another anecdote. Speaking to Berka one day, I said, "I shall have that Tibboo himself sold as a slave; what right has he to bring people here as slaves and sell them?" Berka mistook my meaning, thinking that, because the Tibboo was black, I wished to have him sold and punished, and not for being a slave-dealer, and the old gentleman got into a great passion, sharply reprimanding me in this style: "Yes, Christian! drop that language; when you get to Soudan you will find everybody black. Drop that language; don't fancy, because the Tibboo is black, you can sell him. Drop that language, for all are black there."
7th.—This morning, after a pursuit of three days, our soldiers brought in the Souf Arabs, which has made a great clamour in the town, as it always happens in disputed cases, the people arranging themselves on different sides as partisans, some for the Rais and others for the Souafah. Called upon the Governor and told him I hoped he would not take the gomerick ("duties") for the goods of the caravan, as the people were brought here against their will. His Excellency said he would not, but merely reprimand them for spreading false news. It appears there is some slight evidence of a hoax, but nothing to justify such a violent measure. The Governor wants to make it out that they might have been Shânbah, when it was well known before their capture they were Souafah.
Every part of the date-palm is turned to account. The fibrous net-work, which surrounds the ends of the branches where they attach themselves to the trunk, is woven into very strong and tough ropes, with which the legs of camels are tied, and horses picketed. The very stones are split and pounded, to fatten all animals here. The branches make baskets of every kind; the dried leaves are burned, and the trunk builds the houses, supplying all the beams and rafters. One day, on looking up to some palm wood-work, the old men present said, "How old do you think that wood is, Yâkob?" "I can't tell," I replied. They observed, "That wood is upwards of three hundred years old. Indeed, we can't tell how long it has been there. Our grandfathers found it there, and it looked just the same then as now." It was large beams of the trunk of the tree, with platted thin pieces of the boughs across them, forming a fantastic zig-zag joice of wood ceiling. The fruit of the date-palm supports man, in many oases, nine months out of twelve. In Fezzan, all the domestic animals, including dogs, and horses, and fowls, eat dates. Such are some of the various and important uses to which this noble tree is turned. The Saharan tribes, likewise, are wont to live for several months of the year upon two other products, viz., milk and gum. Milk I have mentioned as supporting the Touaricks exclusively six or more months in the year. Gum, also, in the Western Sahara, furnishes tribes with an exclusive sustenance for many months. Even the prickly-pear, or fruit of the cactus, will support a Barbary village for three months. It is, therefore, not surprising the Irish peasant may live on potatoes and milk the greater part of the year. The bead on the date-stone is the part (vital) whence commences germination, and sprouts the new shoots of the palm. New shoots spring up all over the oases, but particularly in those places where water is abundant, and within and about the ducts of irrigation. These shoots are collected for the new plantations, and the female plants carefully separated from the males, and these latter destroyed. Only a few male plants are kept for impregnation.
