The Sahara scheme appears to me to be a ‘chateau en Espagne.’ I had a letter from Lord Derby requesting me to aid McKenzie & Co., and to ask for the good offices of the Moorish Government. He might as well have asked me to aid the Naval Expedition to the North Pole. The Moorish Minister did not know the whereabouts of Cape Bojador, and said the tribes south of Agadir would probably be more hostile to the explorers if they heard that the Sultan encouraged them. Remember Davidson’s fate, and that of the two Spaniards who have just been ransomed for $27,000 after seven years’ captivity at Wadnun.
Bargash put a fair query: ‘If this inundation can really be carried into execution, does the British Government intend to obtain the consent of the chiefs or inhabitants of the oases of the desert or neighbouring districts, and to offer them compensation? Or will their claims be got rid of by swamping them?’
I have not, either in reply to Lord Derby or to McKenzie, who has written to me, opposed the scheme; but I have warned them that it will be natural to expect a strong hostile feeling on the part of the tribes who inhabit the oases and borders of the desert, and who have had, from time immemorial, the privilege of escorting caravans and levying contributions on the traffic through the Sahara.
I should doubt that there would be any depth in the Kus. In my ignorance I should say that the sea had withdrawn from that region from the uplifting of the surface, and that even if there be parts much lower than the Atlantic, it would be a sea too dangerous to navigate from the risk of sand-banks. I don’t think you and I will live to hear that the cutting has been made. Money will be raised, and the engineers will fill their pockets—‘y nada mas.’
CHAPTER XXII.
1876-1879.
Sir John’s annual leave was generally taken in the autumn, for, as he writes from Tangier to Sir Joseph Hooker,—
We visit England every year, but prefer going in the shooting instead of the season, as to us, barbarians, we find English society more cordial in their ‘castles’ than when engaged in circling in a whirlpool of men and women in the ‘season.’ Our stay therefore is very short in town, and this will account for my not having given you a hail in your paradise at Kew. We probably go home in July; if so, and you are in town, I shall call either on arrival or return.
In the course of these yearly holidays he was entertained by many royal and distinguished personages, with some of whom he had become acquainted as their host at Tangier; but no record of any special interest is left of these visits in his letters. Thus in the year under notice, he was present at the Brussels Conference on Africa, by invitation of the King of the Belgians, who as Duke of Brabant had visited Tangier in 1862. In the following November he was the guest of the Prince of Wales at Sandringham, whence he writes, ‘The children clustered round me, and I had to tell many stories of the Moors. Captain Nares arrived and dined. We passed the night on the Arctic Ocean, and found it most interesting.’
Sir John always returned to the South before the cold set in in England. This was merely from dislike of a chilly climate, after years of residence under a Southern sky, and not on the score of health, as may be judged from the following letter to his sister:—