Wanderings in North Africa

by traveler James Hamilton

Henayah is a strong fortress of very early architecture, and by far the most curious construction I had met with in these countries. The squared mass of rock, on which the keep is built, is not higher than the surrounding ground; but it is isolated by a dry moat, fourteen feet wide, and nine deep, cut in the living rock. On the square mass, eighty feet on every side, left in the centre, rose the walls of the keep, of which only a few feet in height now remain. It is approached by means of a wall, hardly fifteen inches broad, which is built across the moat on one side. This wall was, perhaps, once the support of a moveable bridge. The interior of the rock’s base is entirely excavated, forming a centre chamber, now open to the sky, and entered by a flight of steps; round this chamber are cut a number of vaults, communicating with it, and having small openings, to admit light and air, pierced in the sides. This is, however, only the smallest part of the old stronghold, its size being greatly increased by extensive caves, to the number of twenty-eight, cut in the rock, beyond the moat, into which they all open. In no part of these laborious excavations could I discover any inscription, or any evidence of their origin; but, judging from the beautiful execution of the whole—from the form of the lamp niches which are cut in several of the vaults, as well as from the general style, resembling what is found in some of the Greek isles—I have no hesitation in ascribing it to a date coeval with the best monuments in Cyrene.

The water of its wells, being the last sweet water to be met with before reaching Augila, pointed it out as a natural resting-place for the caravans which brought gold, gems, slaves, and ivory, from the interior to Cyrene. I cannot, therefore, doubt, that it must have served as a fortress, and, not improbably, also as a magazine for the caravans trading with the interior and with Carthage. El Ajdabiah replaced it in the Saracenic epoch; and so little have things changed in the long lapse of years, that the wells of the latter place, though its castles and mosques have fallen, are still the favourite halt of the caravans passing between Benghazi and Augila.

The commerce is now insignificant; Augila and Jalo have only dates to send in exchange for corn and the few manufactured articles which the rude life of these people requires. At uncertain and long intervals, however, when the great caravan from Waday arrives, life is given to the commerce of Benghazi. Then the old picture of Cyrenean commerce is for a short time renewed. The desert, for weeks, is alive with long files of camels, which arrive, laden with ivory and gum; and with them, alas! as in old times, hundreds of unhappy creatures—the spoil of war—condemned to slavery, who come halting in, at the end of this first hundred days’ stage of their misery. How many, happier than their fellows, have dropped exhausted on the dreary road! Twenty-one degrees they traverse on foot, exposed to the rays of a tropical sun, when, for twelve days at a time, no water is found; without clothing, and having a handful of meal for their daily food. Fatigue and thirst in vain lessen the numbers of the melancholy caravan; the number of “heads” brought to the market diminish, but the profit of the traffic is still enormous, being more lucrative than that of ivory, which, from Waday, yields at least 500 per cent. I have heard natives describe the appearance of one of these caravans on its arrival, and the sufferings of the slaves, with a simplicity of language, and a reckless thoughtlessness, most heart-rending. And to think that a single word from England could arrest these horrors! In treaties and conventions we have spurned all the old established laws of international right, in our desire to put down the slave trade in the colonies of independent sovereigns; but it would seem as though we dared not put a veto upon a branch of it ten times more cruel than was the slave trade on the Atlantic before we declared it piracy. It may be answered, that we may indeed force Turkey to abolish the slave trade in words, but that we cannot ensure the performance of her promises; that we can send no men-of-war into the deserts to enforce our humane decrees; that slavery is bound up with Islam; and that society in the East is, in fact, founded upon the godless institution. Many will also say (and this I do not deny), that when at length the slaves are brought into the Turkish dominions, they become comparatively happy, are well clothed, well fed, and well cared for; and that, if torn from their country, they are removed from its idolatries and ignorance; and that the first care of a Moslem (in this respect infinitely superior to the more polished savages of the slave-holding States in America) is, to teach his slave a religion which assures him that all men, of all colours, are alike the children of one God, and equal in His eyes. All this is true; but it in no degree lessens the horror of the traffic in human flesh, or the privations to which its victims are exposed.

Whoever knows Turkey, knows that its many provinces are only held together by the shadow of a name, and that a stroke of the diplomatic pen will suffice to sever any part from the remainder. Syria, Egypt, even fanatic Tripoli, would hail with joy a Christian—that is, a European—master. Wherever they rule the Turks are hated, and their subjects are kept in subjection by a superstitious veneration for the old power, which has long departed—as the genii waited in awe round the throne of Solomon, not perceiving that the master spirit had forsaken its tenement of clay. You have paid twenty millions to liberate your slaves in the colonies; and God knows what vast treasures—how many lives of Englishmen—have been sacrificed to stop this trade on the western coasts of Africa! Be consistent still; and if you will not take possession of the lands of Egypt and Tripoli (by whose frontiers the slaves for the whole empire are imported), let your commands go forth to him who is now but the shadow of the shadow of God upon earth. He dare not disobey them if he would. You will be following, in favour of humanity, an example proposed to you in every page of Turkish history—the strong extorting submission from the weak. Increase, if necessary, the number of your functionaries, create an imperium in imperio, to watch the execution of your orders; trample, in the cause of freedom, upon every diplomatic form—forms, alas! are all that remain of diplomacy—and extend to the Mediterranean the treaties which you have applied to the Atlantic.[6]

This evening, six of my camels, which had been turned out to feed on the scanty herbage which dotted the plain, wandered away. They were not to be found at their supper-time; so their owners went off in quest of them. The next morning, they had not yet returned; and it seemed a fortunate chance alone which enabled us to start at last about twelve o’clock. They had gone on their way to Augila, probably not a little pleased to have left all their packages behind them; and were met by a caravan of Arabs, coming in the opposite direction, who, understanding the case—no unfrequent one in places where the herbage is scanty—turned their heads backwards. The soil had now become sandy and stony, unfit for cultivation, but covered with dwarf shrubs of three or four varieties, though all having one general character—woody, gnarled stems, and fleshy leaves. The first rains are in the desert immediately succeeded by spring; hence these plants were all green and in full flower; some of them were very beautiful on close inspection; but the pale yellow and pink colours of their blossoms, notwithstanding their abundance, had little effect in tinging the general landscape.

During the two days, after passing El Ajdabiah, we saw immense herds of gazelles; but they were too shy to give one a chance of getting within shot of them; and there was too little cover to stalk them. The greyhound which I had with me was young, and far too frightened to do more than run after them for a short distance; when she thought she was getting dangerously near, she would stop, and look round. There is a race of greyhounds peculiar to this country, generally of a pale fawn colour, with very short hair, and limbs almost as fine as those of the Italian pet greyhound. They are very swift, and, when well trained, will run down a gazelle. They are, however, not often to be met with for sale, the best being in the hands of the Zowaya Arabs, who inhabit El Ijherri, a small oasis to the north-east of Jalo. In winter and spring, they pitch their tents round El Ajdabiah (it was, indeed, a party of them who had so opportunely met our camels), and, in summer, turn southwards to gather the dates in El Kofrah, a range of uninhabited oases, of which the last is marked in our maps as Kebabo. The plain, south of Benghazi, up to the desert which we were approaching, affords excellent sport; abounding in hares, the red-legged partridge, the kattah, or sand grouse with yellowish plumage, quails, and, occasionally, the bustard. There is, besides these, a ground lark, existing in great numbers, which is as large as a quail, and forms no unwelcome addition to a traveller’s fare, in the absence of larger game. I should be ungrateful, were I to omit adding to this list of good things the juicy mushroom, which seemed, for several days, to spring up under our feet, begging to be gathered for supper.

Fourteen hours from El Ajdabiah, we came to the boundary of vegetation; a very long range of low sand hills, rising one above another in almost imperceptible gradations. The sand is of a pale yellow colour, and in some places forms almost an impalpable powder, but in others it is mixed with gravel of finely-rounded, variegated pebbles, such as would be invaluable for the walks of a garden. The Arab name for these hills is El-Towaleh, and they are well called so, for they seem long without end, the gradual rise of the range never affording a view of a mile in any direction. It took nearly thirteen hours to cross this range—the thirteen longest hours I remember; for, until the last two were reached, there was no interruption to the constant up and down, through featureless sand; nor was it possible to tell whether one had reached the summit or not. At length, large masses of petrified wood, scattered over the surface, afforded something to look at. In many places, the surface of the sand is blistered with an incrustation of salt, looking as if frozen. Low, flat ledges of white limestone rise above the general line; and semi-transparent crystals of gypsum are scattered over the sand. A few trees appeared in a hollow, and we had at last reached رسم Rĕsam.

The waters of Rĕsam, mentioned by Bruce, are of a milky colour, and salt, though hardly more so than those of most of the wells which I met with afterwards in the desert; I thought them pleasant enough to drink when cold; but they acquire a peculiarly bitter taste when boiled. Bruce, from forgetfulness, has confounded Rĕsam with the promontory marked as Ros Sam[7] in our maps—a name, by the way, unknown to the natives of the country—and the aluminous water, which he places here, is, in fact, that of a well rather further on; which well I reached the next day in six hours, at Marag, or Marak. The water at Rĕsam rises in great abundance to within a few feet from the surface; and the slight hollow in which it lies, partaking entirely of the nature of an oasis, is diversified by palms and large tamarisks. As a desert scene, it is at once highly characteristic. The slight mounds which collect round the tamarisks, and out of which they grow, break the uniformity of the surface, while their pale, feathery foliage affords a pleasant shade, and the few stately palm trees rise gracefully against the clear blue sky.

Two miles S.S.W. of Rĕsam is a Saracenic ruin, of the same date as El Ajdabiah, called Sheikh Es-saby, evidently a stronghold. A square court, surrounded by four arches, which may once have supported a cupola (though I could see no remains of this), is supposed by the Arabs to contain the tomb of the Sheikh; and, when I was there, a carmut, the cradle sort of conveyance in which ladies and children are housed on the camel’s back, was in the saint’s keeping. This custom of leaving furniture, and even provisions, in the keeping of a reputed saint—that is to say, of depositing them on his tomb—to be taken again at the return of the owners with the caravan, is very common; and travellers in several parts of Africa have mentioned it. I have never heard of such deposits being stolen.

We did not stop at Marag; but I tasted the water, which was quite clear and cool, and had a strong smell of sulphuretted hydrogen. I did not drink of it sufficiently to test the assertion of the Arabs, who boast of its purgative qualities; but, from its taste and smell, I should suspect that it contains sulphate of magnesia. The bottle, in which I had brought away a specimen of it for analysis, was broken on the journey. At several points near the well, the stratified rock rises in isolated masses from the sand; their weather-beaten sides, with the slabs which have fallen, and lie scattered round their base, have, at a slight distance, the appearance of ruins. A few stunted trees in the midst rendered the whole a melancholy scene.