8th.—Warm this morning, the cold weather gone apparently for a short time. No patients. The long-expected ghafalah from Tripoli has arrived by the way of Derge, avoiding the more dangerous route of Seenawan, by which latter I came here. No mail. All the people now in a hurry to be off to Ghat, as their goods have arrived. I begin to feel extremely irritable and irresolute at the prospect of the new unknown Desert journey. The old bandit called, and asked, "Well, are you going?" I answered, "Yes, very soon, but I must first have a letter of permission from the Pasha of Tripoli, so the Rais says, for the Pasha is greatly afraid you Touaricks will cut my throat." "God! God! God!" exclaimed the bandit; "I'll risk my head that you'll go on safe to Ghat and Aheer. But, as for those villains, the Touaricks of Timbuctoo, those, I'll grant you, are cut-throats." As I was about to take leave of the old brigand, I gave him a piastre, and said, "Now tell me fairly, and as an honest man, what is the reason that the Touaricks kill Christians, and why did they kill the English officer who went to Timbuctoo?" "Stop, stop," the brigand replied, very pleased with the piastre, "I'll tell you. There are three reasons. First (scratching with his spear on the ground), the Christians will not say that Mahomet is the prophet of God. Second (again scratching with his spear on the ground), the Christians are the brothers of Pharaoh, and have plenty of money; we are poor, we kill you for your money. Third (again scratching), you wish to take our country. You have nearly all the world; you have robbed us of Algeria, and Andalous. Why don't you stop in the sea, where you are? We shall not come to you. We don't like the sea." Seeing I could make nothing of the old sinner, so cunning was he, I gave him a piece of sugar for his little son, and he went away. I thought often of the words which I had recently read in the Arabic, "The time will come when those who kill you will think that they render service to God," (John xvi. 2,) when discussing so repeatedly this question of the killing of Christians by the Touaricks with the Rais, with the people of Ghadames, and with the Touaricks themselves. But has this principle alone reference to the wild tribes of The Sahara? Has it not had a pointed application in all the authenticated annals of the world? Take our own era. The Jew thought he did service to God by killing those who confessed Christ. Then the Imperial Roman, he immolated the Christian who worshipped not the image of Cæsar. Then the Roman Christian killed the heretic Donatist, lighting up the flames of persecution in this Africa. Then the Catholic killed the Protestant, and deluged Europe with a sea of blood. Thus in England we enacted our penal laws against Catholics and Protestant Dissenters, some of which, to our shame, still exist on the statute book. What a horrid heritage of murder for conscience' sake has been transmitted to us in this nineteenth century? And is the present fratricidal war in Switzerland unconnected with this principle of blood and persecution! No; and again, no! How, then, can we find fault with the barbarians of the Great Desert? Nay, contrarily, those who follow me through The Desert, will find the Saharan Barbarians infinitely more tolerant than the mild, and the gentle, and the polished, and the educated, and the civilized, and the Christianized professors of religion in our own great Europe!
This afternoon the first portion of the Ghadamsee Soudanic caravan left for Ghat, consisting of about twenty-five camels, and some ten merchants and traders. This is merely a detachment. The larger portion of the population went to see them off, and several families were dressed in their best clothes, as on festas. It is the usual custom on the departure and return of caravans. Two or three mounted on saddled Maharees accompanied the caravan a day's journey. I have many offers of the people, as in The Mountains, to accompany me to Ghat: a strange infatuation for such rigid Moslems as the Ghadamseeah!
To-day I witnessed in my court-yard or patio a tremendous struggle between an ant and a fly: both species of insects are very numerous in Ghadames, and there is a great number of various coloured ants. The ant got hold of the muzzle of the fly, or its neck, and there grasped it with as firm a grasp as it is possible to conceive of one animal grasping another. In vain the fly struggled and flapped its wings; over and over again the combatants rolled as these weak defences beat the air: and yet they must have had great force in them, for they flung over the ant, of a good size, some hundred times. The struggle continued a full half hour. I once or twice took them up on a piece of straw, but the ant never let go its hold on the fly, and paid no attention to me. At last, the fly was exhausted, and ceased to flap its tiny wings. The sanguinary ant strangled the poor silly fly, as some sharper strangles or ruins his poor dupe. After death, the ant seemed busy at sucking its blood. Satiated with this, the ant attempted to convey the fly away, dead as it was, but thinking better of the matter, the carcase was abandoned. I observed that the combat went on in the midst of a thousand flies, but alas! these rendered their fellow, in this his death-struggle, against a common foe, no assistance. Such is the way the tyrants of the earth succeed! They strike down the friends of freedom one by one, and the people, as silly as the flies, leave their champions to struggle alone against the common oppressor of mankind, only thinking of what they shall eat and drink, in which fashion adorn themselves, and how they shall fill up sufficiently the measure of their idle days of folly.
The whole phraseology of the Mediterranean is very loose in the designation of persons and objects. The Italians call every Mussulman un Turco, "a Turk." The French of Algeria call every Mohammedan resident amongst them "un Arab." So the Moors and Arabs here call all people who are not Mussulmans Ensara, الانصرا, "Christians," whether Pagans, Idolaters, or what not. I was writing some information from the mouth of a Moor, and got into a scrape. He told me there were plenty of Ensara in Soudan, and I thought these might be Abyssinian Christians, until I reflected that it was merely the ordinary denomination of those who are not Moslemites.
9th.—Slept very little during the past night; always dreaming of Timbuctoo. The further an object is from you the nearer it is to your thoughts. The morning broke with a violent wind from the south-east, which is exceedingly disagreeable. Rais continues very gracious, and sends me constantly cakes, being a portion of what he receives as presents from the people.
I omit a great deal about Souf politics, not being anxious to worry the reader with French and Tuniseen Saharan diplomacy. But a Souafee's notion of hospitality is rather, I should think, rigid. I said to a Souafee, whose acquaintance I have made, "I shall come to your country, and write all about it."
"If you dare," he replied, "by G—d, the people will immediately cut your throat."
I.—"I will get an amer ('order') from the Bey of Tunis, which will protect me."
"No, no," rejoined the Souafee, "the people will tear the amer to pieces, and set the Bey, the French, and all Christians, at defiance."
No doubt the Souafah, the most interesting Arabs of all this region, are very fierce of their independence, which explains their jealousy of the French, and their determinedly withholding any mark of sovereignty, in the way of tribute, from the Bey of Tunis. It appears, however, two or three of the small districts have really consented to pay a tribute to the French, an act of decided usurpation on the part of France, as the Souf oases "formerly did acknowledge" the sovereignty of Tunis. It is, nevertheless, a pleasing trait in the character of the Souafah, that they have permitted some thirty families of Jews to settle amongst them, a concession not yet made by the Marabouts of Ghadames.
