The Ghazwah, or slave-hunts, in Dar-Fertyt, and amongst the Jenakherah, are carried on in a different manner in Darfur and Wadaï. In the latter country, the Sultan sends one of his governors with a troop, chosen beforehand, to which no strangers attach themselves; but in Darfur things are managed differently. There, even a private individual, if he thinks himself capable of conducting a Ghazwah, demands a salatieh, and, if he obtains it, sets out with as many people as he can collect.
This is the way in which a complete Ghazia, or Ghazwah, is managed. He who can make a present to the Sultan, and who has some friend at court, goes to the Fasher in the first day of summer, some time before the beginning of the rains. The best offering to make to a Sultan is a horse ready bridled and saddled, with a slave to lead him. If the prince accepts the present, and permits the expedition, he gives to the solicitor a salatieh, that is to say, a tall lance, and delivers a permission of excursion, conceived, for example, in the following terms:—
“In the name of the Great Sultan, the refuge and the support of all, the glory of the Arab kings and of the non-Arab kings, master of the neck of all nations, sovereign of the two lands and the two seas, servant of the two holy cities, putting his hope in the God of justice and longanimity, the Sultan Mohammed Fadhl, the victorious, to all those who these presents may see, emins, warriors, shartai, damleg, and chiefs of our armies,
“We, Sultan favoured of God, sustained by his special grace, victorious Sultan, have gratified with our favours and our benevolence such an one, son of such an one, and have given to him a salatieh to conduct an expedition into Dar-Fertyt, and make a Ghazwah, in the direction of such a tribe. All those who may accompany him in his enterprise shall be free from blame on our part—in testimony of which the present firman has emanated from our sublime generosity and our noble bounties. Far, far, may all opposition be, all acts of malevolence, against this mandate. We have recommended to the bearer of this permission to act with justice towards those who may follow this expedition, and to conduct himself with the equity and the moderation which the fear of God inspires, as regards the portion of slaves that is to fall to his share. Salutations.”
Supplied with the firman of this kind, and with the salatieh, which confers the authority of chief of a Ghazwah, the solicitor leaves the dwelling of the Sultan, and, accompanied by one or two servants, places himself on the great square of the Fasher. There he crouches on a carpet which is spread upon the ground, and the salatieh is stuck up before him. Meanwhile a domestic beats a tambourine. People begin to collect from all sides and crowd around him, and learn that he has been named chief of a Ghazwah, and has obtained a firman. Merchants soon come forward with stuffs for garments. The chief buys as much as he pleases, according to the presumed profit of his expedition, and always on credit. The price varies according to circumstances. For example, when a merchant wishes himself to accompany the expedition, and the quantity of goods he has sold is worth only one slave at the Fasher, the chief of the Ghazwah agrees to deliver five or six slaves in the Dar-Fertyt itself; but if, on the contrary, the merchant does not choose to follow the expedition, and prefers waiting till it returns, he agrees to receive only two or three slaves. When the bargain is concluded, the master of the salatieh gives to the merchant a written acknowledgment. In this way he collects, not only garments, but horses, camels, asses, &c. Some chiefs, who inspire confidence, contract in this way for more than five or six hundred slaves.
While these preliminaries are going on, many people come and offer to associate themselves with the leader of the expedition; and he then causes to be transcribed several copies of his firman, and gives one to each, with a horse or camel for the journey.
He also points out to these, his first hunting companions, the road they are to take, and divides them into ten squads, each of which has a chief. The rendezvous is always beyond the southern limits of Darfur.
Each chief of a squad now takes a different route, and passes through the towns and villages beating a tambourine, collecting the inhabitants, communicating the contents of the firman, pointing out the conditions offered by the undertaker of the hunt, and promising, for example, that the owner of the salatieh will only take, at the first jebayeh, or division of spoil, the third of the slaves which each hunter has taken, and at the second division a quarter. Generally a certain number of young Forians, of poor families, join the expedition.
The master of the salatieh also stops in the places which he traverses to collect companions, and having rested awhile in his own village, proceeds to the general rendezvous. Once there, he takes the title of Sultan, and composes a kind of court out of those to whom he has delivered copies of the firman. There have been sultans of Ghazwah who have found themselves at the head of nine or ten thousand people or more. His court is a perfect imitation of the court of the real Sultan. He delivers clothes to his body-guard, and distributes to them his camels, his asses, and his horses. Sometimes a great many people come flocking in without having been recruited; but all are obliged to admit the absolute authority of this temporary sultan.
The rules of distribution of the products of the hunt are fixed and known. All slaves taken without resistance fall to the lot of the sultan, amongst whose perquisites, likewise, are the presents given by the kings of the adjoining provinces. The expedition pushes on as far as it can, and then one evening it is announced that the division of profit is to be made the next day. This division takes place as follows:—The sultan causes a circular enclosure, or zeribeh, with two openings, to be made. The people of the Ghazwah come early in the morning with the slaves they have caught. If the sultan is reasonable, he takes only a third, but he sometimes exacts one-half. The zeribeh is made of prickly branches. The sultan sits in the middle, and his servants station themselves at the issues. Then all the slave-catchers, one by one, bring in their lots, the number of which is immediately written down. If there are only two, the sultan takes the better, and the other is left to his owner, who receives a paper, certifying that he has submitted to the law of partition. He who has only taken one slave is put aside until another in the same predicament comes, when the sultan takes one and leaves the other to be divided. All those kept by the sultan remain in the zeribeh. This ceremony lasts sometimes ten days, or even a month.