Within my couple of months' residence here, how rapid has been the impoverishment of the country! Everything gets worse and worse. Now, it is almost impossible to get change for a Tunisian piastre. I've been two days trying to get change, and have not yet succeeded. The money in circulation is principally Tunisian piastres; but since the Turks have come, Turkish money also passes. There are, besides, a quantity of Spanish dollars and five-franc pieces. Apparently, all the money has left the country, or is hidden by the people. A good deal, I have no doubt, has been hidden within a few weeks. The Governor himself laments that he changed a dollar yesterday for two karoubs (two pence) less than its current value in Tripoli. His Excellency is very low-spirited, and very sick. His Excellency prays that the Pasha will allow him to return to Tripoli a few months. Being a good man, the system of extortion which he is obliged to put in practice to meet the demands of the Pasha, makes his heart sick. His Excellency assured me, that if the Souf Arabs had not lately brought some money, with which they purchased slaves for the markets of Algeria, there would have been no money left in the country. The merchants say their affairs must now be transacted in the way of barter, as in Soudan. I am particular in noticing these things, and the cause of the impoverishment of these unhappy people, as showing the curse of the Turkish system on the transactions of commerce.
My taleb wrote in my journal this splendid Arabic proverb:
الرجال سناديق مغلقة ومفاتحها التجريب صدور الرجال سنادق الاسرار
"Men are locked-up boxes—experience opens them; the bosom of man is a box of secrets."
10th.—To-day I ran about town to tire myself, in order to sleep at nights. This morning, one of the two expected ghafalahs of Tripoli, consisting of 117 camels and twenty traders of Ghadames, arrived; the other ghafalah will arrive in a few days. The ghafalah has brought goods only for the interior. The merchants just come report in town, "That Yâkob (myself) has written to the English Consul of Tripoli, informing him how Aaron (Signor Silva) lends money and goods to the merchants of Ghadames, with which goods and money to go into the interior, and traffick in slaves." This is substantially correct; but it was written in confidence to Colonel Warrington, and to no other person in Tripoli. I expressly begged Colonel Warrington not to divulge the fact, or my mention of such a matter, until I was out of the lion's mouth of the slave-dealing interests of this part of North Africa. The Consul, however, deemed it his duty to disregard my request, and to divulge or violate this confidence, and posted up a placard on the door of the Tripoline Consulate, stating, "That certain merchants, under British protection, were accused of slave-dealing with the merchants of Ghadames, and calling upon them to clear themselves from such an imputation." Of course, as there was nobody else likely to make such an accusation but myself, being well known as an anti-slavery man in Tripoli, the public attention was at once directed to me as the accuser. The other merchant alluded to is Mr. Laby (Levi), a Barbary Jew, and the head of a house in Tripoli. Mr. Silva is also a Jew, but from Europe. This report, circulating from mouth to mouth, has created a tremendous sensation in Ghadames; and the people fancy they see in it not only a blow aimed at them and the slave-trade, but the final ruin of their commerce, already sufficiently crippled by the oppression of the Turks. I am, therefore, obliged to Colonel Warrington, not so much for facilitating my progress in the interior, as for increasing my difficulties a hundred-fold. I was astonished that a high functionary, of thirty-three years' experience in these countries, should have committed such an act of egregious indiscretion, exposing the life of a fellow countryman to such increased danger, who was already without any kind of guaranteed protection. If I had been murdered in The Desert tract from Ghadames to Ghat, it would have most justly been attributed to the placard placed on the doors of the Consulate at Tripoli. Justice requires from me, however, that I should state an indiscretion also on my part. I wrote to the Consul that I had communicated the charge against Messrs. Silva and Levi to the Secretary of the British and Foreign Anti-Slavery Society, and did not add, as I ought perhaps to have done, that I had likewise begged of Mr. Scoble not to make the charge public for the present. Colonel Warrington was afraid the charge would be known in London before he had reported upon it, and in this way his Consulate might suffer in the eyes of Government. Now I shall not trouble the reader with the proof of the charge. It must already have been seen, that as the merchants of Ghadames are drained of all their capital by the Turkish Government, they, the merchants of Ghadames, are obliged to fall back upon the merchants of Tripoli, who will give them credit, some of which latter are under British protection. So Sheikh Makouran complained to me he could not now trade without the credit of Silva, so the people told me the house of Ettanee, the other great mercantile firm of this country, had received several thousand dollars' worth of goods on credit from the Messrs. Laby, and so the Rais frequently has told me, the money of the merchants of Ghadames is in the holding of those of Tripoli, who are mostly under European protection. The question is, whether such a state of things can be brought under the provision of Lord Brougham's Act, for preventing British merchants from trading in slaves, or aiding others to trade in slaves, in foreign countries. It is a very delicate subject, because the modes of evading the Act, by private and secret contracts, are innumerable. British juries are also unwilling to convict parties under this Act, and the case of Zulueta failed not so much from the want of evidence as from the unwillingness of the jury to come to an impartial decision on the evidence.
Whilst reflecting upon my very critical position, my poor Said came in from the streets very much cast down, and very sulky.
"What's the matter?" I asked.
"Oh!" blubbered Said, "the people are all talking about your telling the Consul that the Jews lend them goods to trade in slaves. They hate you now."
"Never mind," I returned, "it will pass away soon."
Said had already become a staunch abolitionist, both from principle and circumstances, and often asked me, "When the English would put down the slave-trade in Tripoli?" Said is by no means so stupid as I first took him to be. I immediately determined not to go out for two or three days until the excitement had somewhat abated. In the evening I had many visitors, who all spoke of my accusation against Levi and Silva. I met the accusations by a deprecatory proposal of this kind: "Would the Ghadamsee merchants consent to abandon the traffic in slaves, on the conditions that some English merchants would furnish them with goods on credit at a lower rate than that which they obtained them from Levi and Silva: if so, I would write about it to the Consul? And, likewise, I would ask the Consul to get their Soudan goods charged only five per cent. importation, which was the sum paid for European goods coming into Tripoli; thereby equalizing the per centage of the imports and exports." My merchant friends received this proposal very favourably, and swore there was no profit in slaves, and declared themselves ready to give up the traffic. Some proposed that they should try the gold trade of Timbuctoo, and leave the Soudan trade altogether. The traffic to Soudan is two-thirds in slaves or more. I knew, however, that to expect such a thing from the Turks, was all but hopeless,—their grand maxim of Government being to depress and to destroy, not to help and build up,—and I made to them the proposition chiefly with the object of diverting the odium of the accusation from myself. But yet, who does not see that the proposal is well worthy the attention of any Government that wishes to establish in Africa a legitimate commerce, a system of trade which a good man and a good Government may approve of and support?
