His Highness the Prince made his entry in grand style into Cafsa,—the Mamlooks on their choice horses, and in their best uniforms—a native band playing their national tunes—a host of unfurled banners—and at the wings several companies of cavalry. In all, including the various tribes that had joined, the camp now amounted to no less than 30,000 men, about 50,000 camels, and 2000 horses and mules! “A just estimate of the size of the expedition,” says our author, “can only be formed by viewing it from some eminence as it is moving along, either in some large plain, or over the seas of sand which now and then it is traversing. Often have I taken my position on a little hillock, and could see nothing for miles before me or behind but the living masses which composed the inhabitants of our canvass city. How similar to this must have been the marching of the Children of Israel in the wilderness, on their way from Egypt to the Promised Land!”
The morning was lovely as they approached Cafsa. Not a speck could be discovered in the sky, and everything around seemed to have an aspect of contentment and cheerfulness. The city is surrounded by gardens, gay with clusters of date, olive, lemon, orange, pomegranate, pistacchio, and other fruit trees. “In walking among these gardens, richly watered by a delicious brook, which has its supply from two fountains, one within the citadel, and the other in the centre of the city, a stranger can imagine himself in some more temperate region, and among a people more advanced in civilisation.” But on entering the city, the charm (as usual) vanishes. Cafsa is the ancient Capsa, (built three hundred years before Carthage), the stronghold of Jugurtha; of the inhabitants of which place Florus says, “They are in the midst of their sands and serpents, which defend them better from those that would attack them than armies and ramparts would.” Marius, however, after some adroit manœuvring, pounced upon and took the city;—and as the inhabitants were strongly attached to the Numidian prince, the Roman general, after giving the place up to be plundered by his soldiers, levelled it with the ground, and put the inhabitants to the sword, or sold them as slaves. The modern city, built on the ruins of the ancient one, is situated upon a rising ground, and has a population of about three or four thousand inhabitants. Within it there is a spring, the waters of which, at their source, are tepid, but are considerably cooled in the large basin into which they discharge themselves. This is in all probability the Tarmid of Edrisi and the Jugis aqua of Sallust. A small kind of fish, about two or three inches in length, is to be found in this slightly tepid basin.
The capture of one of the Hamana tribe at this place, who had been “preaching up a kind of crusade against the Government, and instilling Chartist principles,” (!) not unnaturally suggests to Mr Davis the recollection of certain cases of capital punishment which he had witnessed at Tunis. One of these he thus describes:—
“A crowd near the Carthagenian gate attracted my attention, and on inquiry I found that the five or six hundred persons had assembled to see the sentence of their despot carried into execution. In a few minutes six hambas (policemen) made their appearance on the wall, some forty yards distant from the gate, and about thirty feet in height, leading two culprits, whose hands were pinioned in front. They stepped firmly, and seemed quite callous and indifferent about their doom. The hambas set at once about their work. They fastened ropes round the necks of the criminals, which they secured to the battlements, on the wall. No ecclesiastic was present to administer any religious consolation; but the executioners now and then ejaculated the words, Maktoob, ‘it is so predestinated,’ and Hacka yehab rubby, ‘such is the will of God.’ When desired to take the position pointed out to them, they did so without manifesting the slightest reluctance, or exhibiting the least symptom of fear. Each took his seat between two of the battlements, their feet hanging over. They looked for a moment on the crowd beneath; and when one of the hambas desired them to pronounce their creed, they cried out, ‘O Moslems! pray for us.’ Then, turning their eyes heavenwards, they pronounced in a clear, distinct, and audible voice, the words,’There is no God but God, and Mohammed is his apostle.’ When the last word was uttered, the executioners pushed them simultaneously off the wall, and thus the wretched men were launched into eternity. The conduct of the assembled spectators was very orderly—indeed, grief seemed depicted on every countenance.”
In Mohammedan law, sentences, whether capital or otherwise, are no sooner pronounced than they are carried into execution. There is a delectable variety in the modes of exit from this world, which the law prescribes for capital offenders. Arabs are generally hanged, seldom decapitated; Turks are mostly strangled; Jews are dealt with after the manner of Arabs. Women are drowned; and the higher classes, and princes, enjoy the privilege of being poisoned. In some few cases, criminals are sentenced to be burned. One mode of death—which we Europeans regard as rather an honourable one—is regarded by the Koran-readers and the orthodox portion of the community as heterodox in the extreme. A knowledge of Roger Bacon’s invention, gunpowder, never having been vouchsafed to the Prophet in any of his revelations, the Faithful, of course, are unable to find a single passage in the Koran to justify sentencing a soldier to be shot. But in this, as in many other instances, the common sense or convenience of the Pasha leads him to deviate from the Cadi’s opinion, and to overrule the Sharrah.
On leaving Cafsa, our travellers found themselves fairly in the Sahara. “As the day advanced,” says Mr Davis, “the heat increased, and by noon became almost intolerable. Besides the excessive heat of a burning sun, we had to endure the noxious influence of the southerly wind, which, fortunately for us, did not blow with all its wonted fury. Its effect, however, was apparent, not only on myself, but also on some of my friends. The weakness and lassitude these combined agencies produced, manifested themselves by the perfect stillness and sullenness which prevailed in every group of travellers, as they either walked or rode along. The heat it collected in its sweep across the burning sands, it now freely vented on us,—and that to such a degree that some of its puffs actually resembled in their effects the flames issuing from a furnace.” No wonder that the Psylli of old should have attempted the extermination of so destructive a tenant of the waste! This nation, says Herodotus, who in ancient times inhabited a district bordering on the Regio Syrtica, having once had all their reservoirs of water dried up by the south wind, advanced into the Sahara in order to make war upon it; but the enemy, defying bow and arrow, opposed them by blowing with extreme violence, and raised such clouds and torrents of sand that the poor Psylli were overwhelmed, and all of them perished! What African traveller does not regret that the victory was on the side of the noxious element!
Mr Davis never saw the Simoom in its full and dreadful force, nor did he witness any of those astounding exhibitions of sand-columns, circling in numbers over the surface of the desert, and overwhelming everything that come in their way, that Bruce once gazed upon with awe and wonder. But of snakes and scorpions, and suchlike poisonous inhabiters of the Desert, our author had his fill. On one occasion, when about to encamp, they found the ground literally covered with snakes, whose bite, the Arabs say, is certain death. “Happily for man,” said one of Mr Davis’s companions, “these reptiles have not the benefit of sight;—had they not been deficient in this, the world could not have existed, as these enemies of man would undoubtedly have extirpated him from the face of the earth! So powerful is their sting, that they have been known to have penetrated the large iron stirrup of the Hamama.” The snake thus alluded to—and we need hardly say, our readers may take the description cum grano salis—is the liffa or liffach,—a reptile about a yard in length; and the account which the Arabs give of the death of those who have been bitten by it tallies very closely with the description which Lucan gives of the death of Nasidius in the same locality:—
“A fate of different kind Nasidius found:
A burning prester gave the deadly wound,—
And straight a sudden flame began to spread,