The next day's march, the fifth from Sockna, over a rocky country, led to the walled village of Zeighan, or Zeghren, situated in the midst of a large forest of palms, in latitude 27° 26' N. Eight miles further, on basaltic hillocks, is another village, somewhat larger, and more neatly walled, called Samnoo. The houses are very neatly built, and the rooms are washed with a yellow mud, which has a pretty effect. Three tolerably built white-washed minarets, the first that had been seen since leaving Tripoli, rose to some height above the houses, and have a pleasing appearance. Palm trees encircle the town, and the gardens are considered good. This town, as well as Zeighan, is famed for the number and sanctity of its marabouts. A stage of twenty miles, over a barren plain of gravel, leads to another, but inconsiderable town, called Timen-hint. On the next day but one, they reached Sebha, a mud-walled town, picturesquely situated on rising ground, surrounded with its palm groves, in the midst of a dreary, desert plain; it has a high, square, white-washed minaret to its principal mosque. At this place, Captain Lyon remarked a change of colour in the population, the people being mulattoes. Two marches more led to Ghroodwa, a miserable collection of mud huts, containing about fifty people, who appeared a ragged drunken set, as the immense number of tapped palms testified. From the ruins of some large mud edifices, this place seems once to have been of more importance. The palms, which extend for ten or fifteen miles, east and west, are the property of the sultan, and appeared in worse condition than any they had seen. On leaving this place, the route again entered on a barren, stony plain, and in five hours and a half passed a small wady, called Wad el Nimmel (the valley of ants), from the number of ants, of a beautiful pink colour, that are found there. A few scattered palms, and some ill-built ruined huts occurring at intervals, and betokening the greatest wretchedness, alone relieved the dreariness of the remainder of the journey.
CHAPTER XVIII.
The entry into Mourzouk, the capital of Sultan Mukni, was attended with the usual ceremonial. On drawing near to the palm groves and gardens, which encompass the city, a large body of horse and foot was seen approaching with silken flags. When the horsemen had advanced within five hundred yards of the party, they set off at full speed, and, on coming up, threw themselves from their horses, and ran to kiss the sultan's hand. On drawing nearer to the town, the cavalcade was met by the dancers, drummers, and pipers. Two men, bearing fans of ostrich feathers, stationed themselves on each side of the sultan, beating off the flies. Thus preceded by the led horses and silken flags, they made their entry, the horsemen continuing to skirmish till they reached the gate. The soldiers then raced up every broad street, shouting and firing, whilst the women uttered their shrill cry, and on passing a large open space, a salute was fired from two six-pounders. The scene was altogether highly interesting.
Mourzouk is a walled town, containing about 2,500 inhabitants, who are blacks, and who do not, like the Arabs, change their residence. The walls are of mud, having round buttresses, with loopholes for musketry, rudely built, but sufficiently strong to guard against attack; they are about fifteen feet in height, and at the bottom eight feet in thickness, tapering, as all the walls in this country do, towards the top. The town has seven gates, four of which are built up, in order to prevent the people escaping when they are required to pay their duties. A man is appointed by the sultan to attend each of these gates, day and night, lest any slaves or merchandise should be smuggled into the town. The people, in building the walls and houses, fabricate a good substitute for stones, which are not to be found in those parts, by forming clay into balls, which they dry in the sun, and use with mud as mortar; the walls are thus made very strong, and as rain is unknown, durable also. The houses, with very few exceptions, are of one story, and those of the poorer sort, receive all their light from the doors. They are so low as to require stooping nearly double to enter them; but the large houses have a capacious outer door, which is sufficiently well contrived, considering the bad quality of the wood, that composes them. Thick palm planks, of four or five inches in breadth, for the size and manner of cutting a tree will not afford more, have a square hole punched through them at the top and bottom, by which they are firmly wedged together with thick palm sticks; wet thongs of camels' hide are then tied tightly over them, which, on drying, draw the planks more strongly and securely together. There are not any hinges to the doors, but they turn on a pivot, formed on the last plank near the wall, which is always the largest on that account. The locks and keys are very large and heavy, and of curious construction. The houses are generally built in little narrow streets, but there are many open places, entirely void of buildings, and covered with sand, on which the camels of the traders rest. Many palms grow in the town, and some houses have small square enclosures, in which are cultivated a few red peppers and onions. The street of entrance is a broad space, of at least a hundred yards, leading to the wall that surrounds the castle, and is extremely pretty. Here the horsemen have full scope to display their abilities, when they skirmish before the sultan. The castle itself is an immense mud building, rising to the height of eighty or ninety feet, with little battlements on the walls, and at a distance really looks warlike. Like all the other buildings, it has no pretensions to regularity. The lower walls are fifty or sixty feet in thickness, the upper taper off to about four or five feet. In consequence of the immense mass of wall, the apartments are very small, and few in number. The rooms occupied by the sultan are of the best quality, that is to say, comparatively, for the walls are tolerably smooth and white-washed, and have ornamental daubs of red paint in blotches, by way of effect. His couch is spread on the ground, and his visitors squat down on the sandy floor, at a respectful distance. Captain Lyon and his party were always honoured by having a corner of the carpet offered to them. The best and most airy part of the castle is occupied by the women, who have small rooms round a large court, in which they take exercise, grind corn, cook, and perform other domestic offices. The number of great ladies, called kibere, seldom exceed six. This dignified title is generally given to the mothers of the sultan's children, or to those, who having been once great favorites, are appointed governesses to the rest; there are, altogether about fifty women, all black and very comely, and from what stolen glances we could obtain, they appeared extremely well dressed. They are guarded by five eunuchs, who keep up their authority by occasionally beating them.
The sultan has three sons and two daughters, who live with him in this cage, the doors of which are locked at night, and the keys brought to him, so that he remains free from any fear of attack. The castle is entered by a long winding passage in the wall, quite dark and very steep. At the door is a large shed, looking on a square place capable of containing three or four hundred men, closely huddled together. Under this shed is a great chair of state, once finely gilt and ornamented, with a patchwork quilt thrown over it, and behind it are the remains of two large looking-glasses. In this chair the sultan receives homage every Friday, before he ascends the castle, after returning from the mosque. This place is the Mejlees, and was the scene of all the cruelties practised by Mukni, when he first took possession of the country.
The habitation in which Captain Lyon and his party were lodged, was a very good one, and as all the houses are built upon nearly the same plan, the following description will give an idea of all the rest. A large door, sufficiently high to admit a camel, opened into a broad passage or skeefa, on one side of which was a tolerable stable for five horses, and close to it, a small room for the slaves, whose duty it might be to attend the house. A door opposite to that of the stable opened into the kowdi, a large square room, the roof of which at the height of eighteen feet, was supported by four palm trees as pillars. In the centre of the roof was a large open space, about twelve feet by nine, from this, the house and rooms receive light, not to mention dust and excessive heat in the afternoon. At the end of the room facing the door, a large seat of mud was raised about eighteen inches high, and twelve feet in length. Heaps of this description, though higher, are found at the doors of most houses, and are covered with loungers in the cool of the morning and evening. The large room was fifty feet by thirty-nine. From the sides, doors opened into smaller ones, which might be used as sleeping or store rooms, but were generally preferred for their coolness. Their only light was received from the door. Ascending a few steps, there was a kind of gallery over the side rooms, and in it were two small apartments, but so very hot as to be almost useless. From the large room was a passage leading to a yard, having also small houses attached to it in the same manner, and a well of comparatively good water. The floors were of sand, and the walls of mud roughly plastered, and showing every where the marks of the only trowel used in the country—the fingers of the right hand. There are no windows to any of the houses, but some rooms have a small hole in the ceiling, or high up the wall.
Near the house was the principal mosque, to which the sultan and the Christian party went every Friday, as a matter of course, and every other day they found it necessary to appear there once or twice. It is a low building, having a shed projecting over the door, which, being raised on a platform, is entered by a few steps. A small turret, intended to be square and perpendicular, is erected for the Mouadden to call to prayers. One of the great lounges is on the seat in front of the mosque, and every morning and evening they are full of idle people, who converse on the state of the markets, and on their own private affairs, or in a fearful whisper canvass the sultan's conduct.
In Mourzouk there are sixteen mosques, which are covered in, but some of them are very small. Each has an imaum, but the kadi is their head, of which dignity he seems not a little proud. This man had never, been beyond the boundaries of Fezzan, and could form no idea of any thing superior to mud houses and palms; he always fancied the Europeans to be great romancers, when they told him of their country, and described it as being in the midst of the sea.
They had many opportunities of observing the fighi and their scholars sitting on the sand. The children are taught their letters by having them written on a flat board, of a hard wood, brought from Bornou and Soudan, and repeating them after their master. When quite perfect in their alphabet, they are allowed to trace over the letters already made, they then learn to copy sentences, and to write small words dictated to them. The master often repeats verses from the Koran, in a loud voice, which the boys learn by saying them after him, and when they begin to read a little, he sings aloud, and all the scholars follow him from their books, as fast as they can. Practice at length renders them perfect, and in three or four years their education is considered complete. Thus it is, that many who can read the Koran with great rapidity, cannot peruse a line of any other book. Arithmetic is wholly put of the question. On breaking up for the day, the master and all the scholars recite a prayer. The school-hours are by no means regular, being only when the fighi has nothing else to do. Morning early, or late in the evening, are the general times for study. The punishments are beating with a stick on the hands or feet and whipping, which is not unfrequently practised. Their pens are reeds—their rubber sand. While learning their tasks, and perhaps each boy has a different one, they all read aloud, so that the harmony of even a dozen boys may be easily imagined.
In the time of the native sultans, it was the custom, on a fixed day, annually, for the boys who had completed their education, to assemble on horseback, in as fine clothes as their friends could procure for them, on the sands to the westward of the town. On an eminence stood the fighi, bearing in his hand a little flag rolled on a staff; the boys were stationed at some distance, and on his unfurling the flag and planting it in the ground, all started at full speed. He who first arrived and seized it, was presented by the sultan with a fine suit of clothes, and some money, and rode through the town at the head of the others. These races ceased with the arrival of Mukni, and parents now complain that their sons have no inducement to study.