When I arrived in Wadaï, my father, as I have said, had departed for Tunis. He thought it was my fault that I had delayed so long to come and join him; for he had written to the Sultan of Darfur and the Fakih Malik, praying them to allow me to depart. Confiding, therefore, the care of his house, his children, and his crops, to my uncle Zarouk, he had departed. This annoyed me much, and I resolved not to lay down the staff of the traveller, but to hasten after my father. The kindness of Sultan Saboun, however, made me stay. He sent me as presents many fine horses, beautiful slaves, and robes of price, which softened my sorrow. But as Ahmed-el-Fasi had succeeded my father in the post of vizier, and was a personal enemy, I soon found that he was undermining me. The Sultan began to look at me with coldness, and his presents ceased.
On the other hand, my uncle Zarouk seized on the revenue of my land, and gave me only sufficient to prevent my dying of hunger. He forbade me all interference in the management of my father’s property, telling me that I should spend it foolishly. For these reasons I was soon disgusted with Wadaï, and asked permission of the Sultan to leave the country and depart for Fezzan. The yearly caravan was preparing to start. The permission I required was easily accorded by means of the Shereef Ahmed. I soon got ready, bought water-skins, provisions, and other necessary articles, and the day was at length fixed. Then I begged of Sultan Saboun some camels to carry my baggage; but he only sent me one young one, incapable as yet of undergoing the fatigue of travelling and carrying a burden. I complained aloud; but the Shereef Ahmed abused me for my greediness, and said the Sultan owed me nothing. I suppressed my disappointment, and exchanged the young camel and a little additional money for a strong one, and thereupon left Warah. But the caravan had scarcely reached the district of the Beni-Mahamyd, on the edge of the desert, when some messengers from Saboun brought me as a present from him three young slave-girls, a male slave, two excellent camels, and a fat bull, with which to make cadyd, or dried meat. We killed the bull at once, and began to prepare the cadyd, giving thanks to the Sultan. When the meat was dried we filled our skins once more and departed. We had already received the visit of the inspectors, whose business it is to see that we are not taking away any free persons into slavery. Every slave in the caravan, young and old, was questioned individually. The inspectors liberate every one who can show himself to be of free origin, or prove that he was a Muslim before he was taken; also, any slave that may have been fraudulently taken from his owner.
For five days at the outset of our journey we traversed great plains of pasturage, where the Mahamyd wander with their flocks. At the end of this time we reached a well, at which it is customary for the Arabs, even Bidegats from the north-east of Wadaï and other wandering tribes, to encamp and meet the caravan,—holding a kind of fair,—selling or letting out to the Jellabs, or the travellers, provisions, camels, utensils for the journey, skins, ropes, &c. God is my witness that I forget the name of the well. We halted there two days, and the camels were turned loose to feed.
Five days more took us to the well of Daum, so called from the trees of that name that surround it. Now it happened that our guide, or caravan master, named Ahmed, was an old man, who had passed the vicissitudes of this life. He belonged to a tribe of the Tibboos, named in Fezzan the Tibboo-Reshad,—or Tibboos of the Mountains. Ahmed had formerly killed a member of another tribe; and ever since the people had been waiting for the opportunity of vengeance. After the accident, the murderer had fled to Dar-Seleih. Here he remained ten years, not daring to return to his tribe; but at length the love of home became too strong, and he desired to see his country, and the huts thereof, with his ancient dwelling-place. He believed that in ten years his visit would be forgotten; and he departed with our caravan as a guide, leaving a comfortable position in Wadaï, where he had amassed wealth, which, along with his age, produced him great respect, and allowed him to fear nothing but God.
When he started with us he had with him more than a hundred and thirty persons, all relatives. The rest of the caravan was composed of fifteen Wadaïans and five Arabs, myself, a man of Tripoli, named the Reis Abdallah; a Fezzani, Mohammed Khayr Yasir; another Fezzani, the Seid Ahmed, from the village of Zouylah; and one named Khalyl, of Tripoli. In proceeding towards the well of Daum we lost our way in the desert, and fearing, if we moved on, that we should only lose time, we halted, made our camels kneel, and buried our water-skins, as deep as possible, beneath the baggage, to preserve them from the heat of the sun. Our caravan started, Ahmed took with him a certain number of his cousins, and searched through the desert to the right and to the left, seeking for the well which we ought by this time to have reached. They remained a long time absent, and the day was far advanced when they returned. Their faces were grey with dust; but they brought joyful tidings, namely, that the well was near at hand. So we urged on our camels, and at last beheld the daum-trees in the distance. Every one began to cry out, “There they are! there they are! Those are the trees under which we are to rest this day!” We had scarcely uttered these words, when we beheld in front of us a troop of the Tibboos, called Turkman-Tibboos, and felt alarm. They rarely come to meet caravans, for they station towards Libya, divided into peoples of varying numbers, each with a Sultan, or king. The tribe that had met us had its principal station at a place called Marmar. They had known, for two or three months, by means of a traveller from Wadaï, that the master of our caravan was to be Ahmed, against whom they had a blood-feud; and it was for this reason that they waylaid us on our journey.
They stood right in our path, and sent forward a man on a camel, who galloped rapidly towards us, as swift as a horse. It is marvellous to see how skilfully these Tibboo tribes manage their dromedaries, or riding-camels. They train and exercise them like horses, to numerous delicate manœuvres, and have no other rein but the zimâm, or light cord, which by one end is tied to a hole pierced in the moving edge of the animal’s nostril. Nearly all these marauding Tibboos are clothed in sheep-skins with the wool on. He who advanced towards us had the litham over his face; that is to say, part of the stuff of his turban was wrapped three or four times round his head and visage, so that the eyes only were to be seen. When he was near to us he cried out, in his own language,—“Ho! people of the caravan, the Sultan is coming with his soldiers to the well. He forbids you to approach it. Know that you shall only do so when you have given up your guide to be killed, in expiation of the murder of one of our brothers. What are your intentions? Tell me, that I may inform the Sultan.”
One of the Tibboos of our caravan translated what the messenger said, and we all decided at once that we would not deliver up Ahmed to his enemies, and that if the Tibboos asked only for a rope’s end they should not have it. “Retrace thy steps,” said we to the envoy, “and tell thy master that we have nothing to do with him—that we have no one to give up. Go!”
The messenger galloped swiftly away to report our answer, and the Sultan prepared to attack us. Then the Tibboos, who formed part of our caravan, separated from us, and, with the exception of Ahmed and his family, went off to some distance. Our party, counting Ahmed, only contained twenty-five individuals,[57] not counting the slaves, who were in great numbers. As we approached the well, the Tibboos advanced in a mass, all mounted two-and-two on about sixty or seventy camels. They rushed towards us, furiously casting their javelins. We, that is to say the five Arabs, waited for their approach, and fired a volley at them. Surprised, they turned back and fled like beaten wolves. We remained masters of the well, and encamped there. We drank, and allowed our camels to pasture on the wild herbage of the neighbourhood.
We thought that these savage Tibboos, whom we had so easily put to flight, had returned to their dwelling-places, and we rested at our well for two whole days; but, on the third, we suddenly heard loud cries and frightful imprecations. We sent to see what was the matter, and saw four camels resting near a body of armed people. Near them was our guide Ahmed, who stood amidst his people and the Wadaïans of our caravan. With the armed strangers was an old man, who seemed to be their chief. He had a piece of carpet tissue rolled round his head, four or six fingers in breadth, and about a cubit long. This old man was crouching down, like a dog or a hyæna, on his heels. The chief of the Wadaïans said to him,—
“Wherefore dost thou return? Thou hadst departed. What dost thou want? What dost thou expect?”