Wanderings in North Africa

by traveler James Hamilton

It was here that Yusuf’s house, the largest in the place, was built, leaning against the hill, and I now proceeded there to obtain the guide he had promised me. I was received in a room open to the street, in which a large crowd was assembled. Yusuf immediately began, in a tone very different to that of the preceding evening, to tell me the old story: that the people did not choose that I should enter their town, or see their wells, which my incantations might dry up, and that they insisted upon my immediate departure. In the room, seated round the walls, were several stupid-looking men, who, he told me, were the sheikhs of the place, over whom he had no authority—his influence being confined to that part of the rock which he inhabited, since his deposition some years before. He tried hard to render the decision of the town council (the Mejlis) palatable to me by frequent assurances, that the Siwyah have no sense. “No sense! no sense!” he shouted into my ears, as if I had been deaf. “They must learn sense, or buy it,” was my answer, “for since I am come here, you cannot treat me in this way; it is contrary to the rights of hospitality and the laws of your country. I am an Englishman. There is my passport, the English sultan’s firman, better than ’Abd el Mejid’s or any other in the world, more respected by Abbas Pacha and ’Abd el Mejid himself than their own. I ask to enter no man’s house. I shall not run away with your wives, nor eat your children; but I have a right to go by every public path; to see all I want to see of the old ruins in your country; and if you, the sheikhs, prevent me, you must be prepared to take the consequences; and if any one insults or molests me, he has only himself to blame for what may happen to him.”

I had gone unarmed, but I now sent down to my tent for a pair of revolvers, and after making Yusuf admire their construction, I had them placed in the holsters of my saddle. “You ask me what is my business here? I am a traveller from the west going to Cairo, through the Sultan’s and Pacha’s dominions; you are their subjects. Your own laws, the laws of Islam, give me full right to travel in your country; the treaties with the Sultan guarantee me protection; you are responsible to the Pacha, and he must answer to my country for anything that befals me here.” I now mounted my horse and was riding away, when the Mufti arrived, and I returned, at Yusuf’s earnest request, to explain myself to him. He was an irresolute, shuffling old man, apparently afraid to speak above a whisper, but unable to deny the truth of what I said. Yusuf then returned to the charge with shouts of “No sense! no sense!” in which he was joined by all the sheikhs, who pretended to lament the ignorance and stupidity of their rayahs, while the Mufti seemed very anxious to get me into a religious discussion, which I was not foolish enough to engage in. By this time the room was pretty full, all the great men of the place, excepting two of the sheikhs and the Cadi, who had refused to pollute their eyes with the sight of the Christian, being assembled there. The street also in front was crowded with the curious, who stared as if they never could see enough of me; but they did not interrupt the discussion.

Seeing that the plea of stupidity did not turn me from my point, they now changed their tone; and one of them, whose insolent air had from the first been very offensive, gave me to understand that I could not be allowed to defile their blessed country with my presence, and that the best thing I could do would be to return quietly to my tent, shut myself up there, and get camels as quickly as possible to pursue my journey. “Four hawajahs came here from Alexandria some years ago, we fired upon them, after forbidding our people to have any intercourse with them, and they went away next morning, vowing vengeance indeed, but nothing came of it.” “I am not a hawajah, and I do not mean to run away;” then, turning to the Mufti, I added, “nor will there, I am sure, be any reason for me to do so. I only want to see the old ruins of your country, and then, without having done injury to any one, I shall pursue my journey.” So we bandied about the same arguments for at least three hours, when at last it was agreed that before going to Omen Beydah I should wait till midday next day to give them time to persuade their people not to molest me; and that my time might not be lost, Yusuf was to send me in the morning a man to accompany me to a hot well near the high hill, which lies to the south of the town. I had now no doubt that I had carried my point, and returned to dine in great spirits, persuaded that I had vanquished the opposition, trusting to the well-known timidity and gentleness of the Egyptian Fellah, and the activity Mehemet Ali had always displayed in punishing violence offered to travellers. I found my cook, a black, whom I had brought with me from Dernah, in a terrible fright, for some of the people had told him, when he went into the town to buy some provisions, that they were coming to rob me during the night. I laughed at his fears, quoting to him the saying, ‘Forewarned, forearmed.’

After dinner, I was smoking my chibouque and marking in my note-book the little I had observed or heard during the day, when three shots were fired, the balls passing with a loud whistling through my tent just over my head. At first I thought little of the incident, believing that it was a rough joke meant to frighten me; so I merely looked at my watch and noted the circumstance in my note-book. It was perfectly dark, and from the door of my tent nothing was visible, nor should I have thought more of it but for the violent barking of my dog, which showed that it heard people, who were invisible to me. I sent a servant, therefore, to Yusuf’s to acquaint him with what had passed, and soon after he was gone, the firing recommenced. I now began to think the affair more serious than I had supposed; I heard one gun hang fire close to my tent, and, turning, saw its muzzle pressed against the wall of the tent on the shadow of my head; I therefore had all the lights put out, and went cautiously out to get a view of my assailants. The night was so black that this was impossible, but it also favoured my evasion; after counting eleven volleys, which gave me grounds to suspect that there was a numerous body of men in the date-trees to the right, I, with my servant, went up to the sheikh Yusuf’s house, abandoning the tents to their fate. Moving cautiously across the plain, which separated us from the town, and climbing the steep street which led to his house, we could still see the fire of the enemy’s guns, and the more frequent flashes in the pan, to which we probably owed our escape.

The servant whom I had sent there had returned, saying that he could not make himself heard at Yusuf’s, but when we reached the door a vigorous application of the butt-end of my rifle roused him; having admitted me, I told him what had happened, adding, that I should stay with him till morning. He immediately sent some of his people to protect the tents, which they found had not been entered, though there were seven shots in the one in which I had passed the day, and one shot had passed immediately over the place where I was reclining when the attack commenced; had I been sitting up instead of lounging, it could not have missed me. By one of those strange chances which one feels to be providential, I had just after sunset ordered a larger tent to be pitched, in which to dine and sleep; I had been all the morning in a small umbrella one, at which the shots were principally aimed, and to this circumstance must my escape be ascribed.

I spent the night in Yusuf’s house, and the next day he gave me a small one, containing three rooms, opposite his own, in which to stay as long as might be necessary. One of these rooms was built on the roof, with a sort of terrace before it; we were standing upon this, after viewing my intended abode, when our attention was attracted to a large body of, perhaps, four or five hundred men, most of them armed, who were in march with a flag, and several camels against my tents. The rumour had been spread in the town that the Christian was not dead, and the entire male population of the Lifayah had gone against him, with camels to carry off the spoil. They found the tents closed, and no appearance of any one near them, but they thought I and my Frank servant were inside. It was long before they ventured to approach, for the camel men, who had come with me from Augila, had given a wonderful description of the number and power of my arms; at last, some bolder than the rest, went up and tore aside the curtain of the umbrella tent in which I was supposed to be. Meanwhile, Yusuf had sent for some of the sheikhs, and assuring them that anything stolen would have to be replaced ten-fold by the town, he induced them to go to the rescue of my baggage. This they succeeded in effecting, and returned in a few hours to tell me that everything was safe, and to ask for a certificate to that effect. I refused to take their word for it, and at their urgent solicitation, accompanied by them, I rode down to the plain, which was now quite solitary. Everything was in strange confusion, but nothing had been taken away.

Seeing the turn things had taken, I now determined to continue my journey at once, promising myself to return to Siwah with an escort from the Viceroy, as soon as I should arrive in Egypt. But if the Sewiyah had given me so warm a reception, they had no wish to lose the advantage of my company; and, therefore, by threats prevented any of the Arabs, of whom great numbers were now in Siwah, from hiring me camels. I then proposed to Yusuf to leave my baggage in his charge, if he would procure me a sufficient number of donkeys to mount my servants, and carry a few skins of water and provisions; but he declared that, without camels, it was impossible to cross the desert, and that if I attempted to get away at the present moment, the people would follow and massacre my servants and myself on the road. I waited, therefore, a day or two to see what would turn up, nothing doubting that rather than keep the Christian in their town, these zealous Moslemin would in a day or two come to terms. In fact, on the third day of my imprisonment, three of the sheikhs came and offered me camels to go away with, but just before this the Mufti had sent privately to warn me, that if I accepted the offer, my caravan would be waylaid a few hours out of the oasis.

I now wrote to Her Majesty’s Consul-General in Cairo, acquainting him with the position I was in, and requesting assistance, and Yusuf dispatched my letter by one of his slaves, who was familiar with the country he had to traverse. I had previously endeavoured to persuade a Bedawy to be my messenger, but after bargaining for an exorbitant remuneration, he lost courage and refused to take it. When, however, on the second day afterwards, he missed the slave, he did not doubt I had sent him to Cairo; and now, regretting the money he might have gained, he revenged himself by telling the people that I had sent to bring soldiers. On this the Mejlis assembled to deliberate; their first proceeding was to come to Yusuf, to ask if it were true that I had written to his Highness. He answered that he could tell them nothing about it, and that they had better apply to me. The three who had rescued the baggage, now, therefore, presented themselves, and at Yusuf’s request I admitted them. In answer to their questions I said that I was no way bound to satisfy their curiosity, but that being a good-natured fellow, and my messenger by this time a long way on his road, I consented to gratify them. I had, indeed, written to tell how I had been attacked, and how I was imprisoned by them in Sheikh Yusuf’s house, and that I had added, I should now stay there till an answer was sent to me.

For the first fortnight that I was shut up in the cabin Yusuf had given me, though unable to stir out, I found the time passed quickly enough, as, besides that Yusuf and the people of his clan came often to see me (so that my house was generally full), there was every day something exciting, which afforded amusement. One evening, for instance, some shots were fired into my house, probably by way of keeping me on the qui vive rather than with any murderous intention; another day, the whole of the Lifayah assembled in arms, at the small village called the Manshieh, determined at night to march upon my house, and so end the matter. They were resolved to get rid of the Christian; and to encourage themselves in their warlike resolutions, many of them bound themselves “by the divorce,” to exterminate him, and the big war-drum was put out into the sun to stretch the skin, and give it a terror-inspiring tone. Next, a deputation of the sheikhs came to me to offer peace and friendship, if I would only go away and tell the Pacha that I had nothing to complain of. I explained to them with infinite suavity, that this was out of the question. How could I say that I had nothing to complain of? beside this, my letter must be already in Cairo, and having said in it that I should wait for an answer, I could not, of course, go away till it came. I also reminded them of their own frequent protestations, that they had no authority over the people, and asked what security they could offer me that I should not be attacked, as once intended, on the journey. Negotiation proving ineffectual, they tried a new dodge. Yusuf was cited before the Mejlis to answer for harbouring a Christian, and men were posted in the narrow dark streets of the town to kill him as he went, but the Mufti again sent him warning of the plot, which Yusuf the more readily gave credence to, as his father had been killed in this way.

Then again a fresh attack with arms was planned for the evening, and this seemed so menacing that Yusuf put garrisons into the largest houses in my neighbourhood, and came himself, with ten men, to aid in defending mine. I was luckily well provided with arms, and disposed everything to make what would probably have been a successful resistance. At the advice of one of the principal men of the place, and to prevent the chance of firing on our own friends in the dark, the garrison was withdrawn from the surrounding houses; their presence there, in case of a melée, would, I confess, have been more alarming to me than the attack from below, and being marched to the foot of the Garah, with much screaming but fortunately no bloodshed, they repulsed the Lifayah, who turned backwards when they found preparations made to receive them. After this night there was a regular patrol established in this part of the town.