Four days after Caillié's arrival at Timbuctoo, he heard that a caravan was about to start for Talifet; and as he knew that another would not go for three months, fearing detection, he resolved to join this one. It consisted of a large number of merchants, and 600 camels. Starting on the 4th of May, 1828, he arrived, after terrible sufferings from the heat, and a sand-storm in which he was caught, at El Arawan, a town of no private resources, but important as the emporium for the Toudeyni salt, exported at Sansanding, on the banks of the Niger, and also as the halting-place of caravans from Tafilet, Mogadore, Ghât, Drat, and Tripoli, the merchants here exchanging European wares for ivory, gold, slaves, wax, honey, and Soudan stuffs. On the 19th May, the caravan left El Arawan for Morocco, by way of the Sahara. To the traveller's usual sufferings from heat, thirst, and privations of all kinds, was now added the pain of a wound incurred in a fall from his camel. He was also taunted by the Moors, and even by their slaves, who ridiculed his habits and his awkwardness, and even sometimes threw stones at him when his back was turned towards them.
"Often," says Caillié, "one of the Moors would say to me in a contemptuous tone: 'You see that slave? Well I prefer him to you, so you may guess in what esteem I hold you.' This insult would be accompanied with roars of laughter."
Under these miserable circumstances Caillié passed the wells of Trarzas, in whose vicinity salt is found, also those of Amul Gamil, Amul Taf, El Ekreif, surrounded by date-trees, wood, willows, and rushes, and reached Marabouty and El Harib, districts whose inhabitants are disgustingly dirty in their habits.
El Harib lies between two chains of low hills, dividing it from Morocco, to which it is tributary. Its inhabitants, divided into several nomad tribes, employ themselves chiefly in the breeding of camels. They would be rich and contented, but for the ceaseless exactions of the Berber Arabs.
On the 12th July the caravan left El Harib, and eleven days later entered the province of Talifet, famous for its majestic date-trees. At Ghourland, Caillié was welcomed with some kindness by the Moors, though he was not admitted to their houses, lest the women, who are visible only to the men of their own families, should be seen by the irreverent eyes of a stranger.
Caillié visited the market, which is held three times a week near a little village called Boheim, three miles from Ghourland, and was surprised at the variety of articles exposed for sale in it: vegetables, native fruits, fodder for cattle, poultry, sheep, &c. &c., all in large quantities. Water in leather bottles was carried about for sale to all who cared to drink in the exhausting heat, by men who announced their approach by ringing a small hand-bell. Moorish and Spanish coins alone passed current. The province of Tafilet contains several large villages and small towns. Ghourland, El Ekseba, Sosso, Boheim, and Ressant, which our traveller visited, contained some twelve hundred inhabitants each, all merchants and owners of property.
The soil is very productive: corn, vegetables, dates, European fruits, and tobacco, are cultivated in large quantities. Among the sources of wealth in Tafilet we may name very fine sheep, whose beautifully white wool makes very pretty coverlets, oxen, first-rate horses, donkeys, and mules.
As at El-Drah, a good many Jews live in the villages together with Mohammedans. They lead a miserable life, go about half naked, and are constantly struck and insulted. Whether brokers, shoemakers, blacksmiths, porters, or whatever their ostensible occupation, they all lend money to the Moors.
On the 2nd August the caravan resumed its march, and after passing A-Fileh, Tanneyara, Marca, Dayara, Rahaba, El Eyarac, Tamaroc, Ain-Zeland, El Guim, Guigo, and Soporo, Caillié arrived at Fez, where he made a short stay, and then pressed on to Rabat, the ancient Saléh. Exhausted by his long march, with nothing to eat but a few dates, obliged to depend on the charity of the Mussulmans, who as often as not declined to give him anything, and finding at Fez no representative of France but an old Jew named Ismail, who acted as Consular Agent, and who, being afraid of compromising himself, would not let Caillié embark on a Portuguese brig bound for Gibraltar,—the traveller eagerly availed himself of a fortunate chance for going to Tangiers. There he was kindly received by the Vice-Consul, M. Delaporte, who wrote at once to the commandant of the French station at Cadiz, and sent him off bound for that port, disguised as a sailor, in a corvette.