Convent Agriculture. — A Roman Stronghold. — Splendid Olive Groves. — Water runs short. — The Mirage. — Dine with the Governor. — The Site of Ancient Barca. — Quit the plain of Merdj.
October 10th.—The old road, with its deep-worn ruts, from time to time reappears among the underwood, and its course is marked for a great distance from the city by groups of broken sarcophagi and excavated tombs. In four hours and a half, pursuing a W.S.W. direction, we reached a beautiful hilly country, with fine old caroub trees and numerous ruins. Here is the chief Zavia, or convent of the Senoosy Marābuts, called Sidi Rafa’a; it is still in course of erection, and is a stately building for the country. The neighbouring ruins supply the materials for the building; and, by good luck, I arrived while the extensive foundations of a very large temple, which they were digging up to employ in building the convent chapel, were still traceable. The masonry of the substructures, consisting of passages or undergroundchambers, was formed of very large stones, squared and cemented with remarkably white lime. The lintel of a doorway, of very good chiselling, and a part of a fluted pilaster, were all I could discover of the architecture. Its situation, in respect of its distance from Cyrene, and the extent of its ruins, leave no doubt in my mind that here was the site of Balaerai and its great Temple of Æsculapius. Its position on the summit of a slight elevation is lovely; the remains of many other buildings, some of them not insignificant, cover the ground all around. I should have expected to find a fountain of medicinal waters near a Temple of Æsculapius (no trace of which is to be found here), yet none such is mentioned by old writers, nor could I hear of any place in this direction, or elsewhere at a similar distance from Cyrene, where such waters exist.
On either side, the country here exhibited signs of more laborious agriculture than I had yet seen in any other part; the underwood had been in great part cleared away, and the fields were black with ashes of burned weeds and brushwood, spread over the ground as manure, preparatory to sowing. The secret of this unwonted industry is the possession of the country by a religious order who, here as elsewhere, spare no effort to turn the property which they have acquired (partly by purchase, but more largely by donations)to good account. In this way they may exercise here the same beneficial influence over husbandry which, during the middle ages, the religious orders exerted in Europe; they are also active in giving a sort of Bible-Society education (instruction in reading the Koran) to the children in the neighbourhood of their dwellings. Unfortunately, however, it is only in these points that they emulate the Christian institution to which I have compared them; for with the elements of learning they instil into the youthful minds of their pupils feelings of hatred and contempt for the professors of every creed which differs from their own—a creed very alien from the practice of Christian charity.
Two hours further on is a fountain with ruins around it, and on a hill opposite many tombs. The place is called Belandsh, and its waters fertilise some gardens which are cultivated by Arabs, who live in the numerous excavations of the neighbourhood. When I left Derna the grape season was long over; in Grennah, on my return, not a cluster remained on the few vines grown by the Bedawin: here, I bought white grapes, with which the trellises were loaded, and which were not yet ripe. Herodotus speaks of the three climates of the Cyrenaica, in consequence of which the harvest is carried on during eight months of the year; and it was interesting to meet with this practical confirmation of his remark.
From Belandsh the road runs for many hours through a country thickly strewed with shapeless ruins and sarcophagi, the hill-sides being almost everywhere burrowed by excavations. Just before reaching a spring called Maten Ma’as, two hours from the last, is a ruined castle, to which the people of the neighbourhood have given the name of Kasr Djemal. It seems to have been originally a Roman stronghold, added to or repaired in Saracenic times. Riding in a N.W. direction from this place, along an ancient road, I reached in an hour and ten minutes (horse-pace), a fine old castle on a hill to the left. On a square base of rock, formed by an excavated ditch fourteen feet wide, rises a square tower, which, with the exception of one vaulted chamber, still entire, is filled with fallen rubbish. In addition to the ditch, very extensive outworks, which are still to be traced on all sides, formed its defences: it is now called Sirt Nawara. That it must have been a place of some importance may be conjectured, not only from its position, but also from the many tombs in its neighbourhood, and the carefully-chiselled decorations of many of their façades. I here found that I had missed the road, which takes a turn more to the south, and, consequently, had to ride back to Maten Ma’as, and thence over a range of low hills, which afforded little shade, and were very hot, being screened, by a higher range to the north, fromthe sea-breezes. This road, however, led, after two hours’ travelling, to a succession of the most beautiful scenes I ever beheld, even in this beautiful country. A steep ravine forms the descent from the high ground which we had now reached, surrounded on either side by lofty rocks, in some places perpendicular, while in others they slant sufficiently to allow an accumulation of mould on their slope. Down this the path winds over fallen rocks, among venerable olive trees and gigantic cypresses, which grow up among thedébrisin the bottom of the valleys, while the receding hills are thickly covered with junipers and olives. This valley, if cultivated, might produce annually an almost unlimited quantity of oil: it took me nearly three hours to ride through it. The trees are probably self-planted, and, doubtless, the descendants of those which supplied the old Cyrenian commerce with the oil for which it was so famous: they were covered with an abundance of fruit. No care is bestowed upon them; many are rather immense bushes than trees, and their valuable produce serves only as food for the goats, which eat the fruit greedily as it falls. In the hands of a speculator possessing capital, an enormous profit might no doubt be obtained in the course of three or four years, by the cultivation of these trees; all they require is pruning, and to have the earth collected round their roots, in order to give a splendid harvest.The trees are not the wild olive species, though their fruit is small. Not even in Italy have I seen a country apparently so well adapted to the cultivation of the olive; but the uncertainty of tenure of property, the deplorable weakness of the Government, and the untamed savageness of the Arabs of the neighbourhood, would certainly render the speculation a hazardous one.
The name of this lovely scene is Aggher bi Haroubeh. On a hill to the left, on emerging from the ravine, is seen the Castle of Benigdem, the best preserved of the old forts which are met with everywhere in the Cyrenaica. It is a rectangular oblong building, with two square towers slightly advancing from the line of the wall, in the centres of the longer sides. One of these towers is still in great part perfect, having three stories of windows. The second story is vaulted, and has on each side two windows looking outwards. The walls are built double, of stones carefully squared both within and without, leaving a space filled in with rubble, thus increasing the thickness and strength at little expense. I have remarked that the same method of building is employed in many of the old forts in this neighbourhood, and also further south. On the north side, a low arched gateway, commanded from the tower, seems to have been the only entrance to the fort, which was further defended by a low outwork, built of squared stones,still easily traced. The interior is now so filled with the ruins of fallen walls, that it is impossible to distinguish its arrangement. Hence, I rode on through the hills to another old fortalice of very small dimensions, where I slept. The distance from Maten Ma’as to this place, for which I could learn no name, is eight hours of camel travelling. The tents were pitched among hills of great beauty, covered with wood, overlooking a rich plain, through which runs the lower road from Grennah to Merdj. This we followed the next day; and during ten hours of travelling, the country presented a succession of richly-wooded scenery, frequented by innumerable covies of partridges. This day, five hours after starting, I made a detour to the right through a long winding valley, which leads towards the coast, through the country of the Dirsah Arabs, but did not meet with any ruins of importance. The camel-drivers took advantage of my absence to journey on to a later hour than I usually travelled; the process of pitching the tents and preparing dinner being very much impeded after sunset. They were, however, disappointed in their hopes of reaching water; and we had now travelled two days without finding any. The skins had all been filled; but, during the first day, with the ordinary recklessness of Arabs, they had drunk a large part of our provision, and there would have been none left for the evening,had not my servant taken possession of the last remaining skin, so as to secure it for the evening meal. In consequence of this, there was great suffering from thirst among my followers. The Arabs here are not abstemious, for they drink water in enormous quantities whenever they can get it, and when they cannot thus indulge their thirst, they seem to suffer very much. My own rule in drinking is to take a cup of coffee in the middle of the day, rarely adding a small cup of water, flavoured with raki, to destroy any insects it may contain. I make a practice of not drinking at other times during the journey; and I do this both from finding the advantage of such abstinence, and for the sake of example to the servants, in a country where water is sometimes so precious. The day following there was of course great haste to reach the wells, which the evening before, when I stopped them, the camel-drivers represented as close at hand. I rode on through an open country, anxious to obtain water for the horses, which had not drunk for two days; but it took three hours and a half to reach the Wady el Gharib, at the upper end of which are many wells. When at last I reached them, we had no means of drawing the water; and some Arabs, who were watering their sheep there, absolutely refused, for love or money, according to their own expression, to supply us. They were only five in number; and I had greatdifficulty in persuading my servant (though he had only the previous evening wounded his right hand so as to make it useless), not to take possession of the well by force. This would have been easy enough, but after my complaints against the marābut at Grennah, I was anxious to preserve a good character for peaceable conduct. It took the camels nearly an hour and a half longer to reach the wells; and not doubting that, on seeing the number of the party, the Arabs would yield us a supply, at least enough for the horses, I possessed my soul in patience in the interval. When at last they came up, I acknowledge that, in my heart, I was not well pleased to see my people quietly submit to be refused accommodation by the Arabs, without taking forcible possession of their cord and bucket; but, true to my system, I kept the Sultan’s peace, and contented myself, when the caravan had moved on, with riding down to them, and assuring them that I should have them punished, having in the meantime found out their names. The Governor of Merdj, on my complaint, promised they should be sent for and punished; and to make sure of his having kept his word, I renewed my complaint, through the English Consul, to the Bey of Benghazi. These Arabs belonged to the tribe of Abid, whom I have already mentioned as notorious for their predatory habits and discourtesy to strangers. From the well we rode onfor five hours, in hopes of reaching Merdj that evening; but an hour after sunset, when we had climbed a steep wooded hill, we found that we were still only on the edge of the vast plain thus named. It was already dark; on all sides a hundred fires marked the dwellings of the Bedawin, who encamp here in great numbers for the convenience of the wells, of which there are in all upwards of forty around the castle. I sent a camel for water, but it was midnight before it returned; so that we were in some discomfort, no cooking having been possible, though I found an unhoped for consolation in my nargila, in filling which a servant had stupidly used the last drop of our water. The next morning, starting early, it took the camels four hours to reach the Medina, as the part of the plain on which the newly-erected castle is built, is called. In the maps, two large lakes are marked as existing in this locality, and before us, immediately in front of the castle, lay an immense expanse of clear water, unruffled by a breath of air, and every object on its banks reflected in it, as if in a mirror. It receded as we approached, and at length disappeared altogether; but on turning round, I saw my camels, which followed at a considerable distance, wading up to their knees in the magic fluid. I had often seen the mirage in the Desert, where it is of frequent occurrence, but the deception was much less real. Here, for some time, Ihad no suspicion that the lake, round which I contemplated a long detour in the hot sun with no pleasant feelings, would vanish on coming nearer. These lakes, which make a formidable appearance on the map, really exist sometimes for years together; they owe their origin entirely to the autumnal or winter rains, and dry up after two or three seasons of drought, such as of the preceding years. On approaching the castle, in front of which lie the greater number of the wells, the scene presented to us was the most primitively pastoral I had ever witnessed. Immense herds and flocks, collected in groups, covered a very large space, while boys and women were busily engaged in drawing water, which they poured into skins stretched on hoops, for the cattle to drink from. Many short trunks of columns are placed near each other triangularly, so as to support the edges of the hoops, while the skins form a basin. The sun was very hot, and the earth here is of a red colour; and, though not yet midday, the air, from these causes, seemed to have that warm tone which we admire in some of Both’s evening landscapes.
I rode at once to the castle, after procuring water for my horses from one of the fair Rebeccas at the wells, and was very kindly received by the Kehia or Governor. The ill-lighted, cool council-room to which he conducted me, empty of everything but the divan at one end, was most refreshing after exposureto the fiery heat of the plain. Dinner was almost immediately afterwards served, and I sat down with him, the commandant of the few soldiers stationed here, and half-a-dozen Arabs, whom he summoned by name from the door. When dinner had been dispatched, the only term applicable to Arab eating, I remarked a custom which had on other occasions struck me. Of those who had dipped their hands in the same dishes with us, all went out after washing except my host, the commandant, and one of the Arabs, who was specially invited to stay: after their departure coffee was served. I remember having heard a story from one of the most spiritual of my friends, which is applicable to the case in point. Several years ago he spent some time at one of the smaller German courts, where the number of the rules of etiquette is in the inverse ratio to the numbers of the population. For many days one of his neighbours at dinner—a most agreeable and well-informed man—regularly left the room when therôtiwas served, making a low bow in rising from his place. His departure did not at first attract my friend’s attention, but as the same scene occurred daily, he at length turned to his other neighbour and asked him the meaning of it; expecting to hear that the man had an aversion to roast meat, such as some people haveto cats. The answer was simply, “Herr N. ist nicht bratenfähig;” that is, Herr N. may sup his soup, and enjoy the entrées and relevés, but he is not well born enough to partake of roast beef in this company. Thus any Arab may with propriety enjoy the Bey’s good dinner, but he must not hope to drink his coffee after it. A similar custom seems once to have existed in England. In Shadwell’s “Lancashire Witches,” Sir Timothy says to his uncle, “What a murrain do we keep you for, but to sit at the lower end of the board at meals, rise, make a leg, and take away your plate at second course.”
The site of the castle, surrounded by many fragments of ancient buildings, is that of Barca, daughter and rival of Cyrene, and even under the Arab domination (long after the parent city was a heap of ruins), a flourishing town. The ground is literally strewn with fragments of small columns, the ruins of the Saracenic city, and the line of its walls is still distinctly traceable. The castle, which was only begun a year ago, on the site of the ancient citadel, is built of ancient materials dug up on the spot. Many capitals of columns, of debased Greek workmanship, and many entire columns, have been found in digging out materials for its construction, but nothing dating even as far back as the time of the Ptolemies. I found thebase of a column, of white marble, lying among the rubbish, which had formerly been a cube, having on four of its sides Greek inscriptions. Judging from the form of the letters which remain, I should suppose them to be of about the first century of our era; but it was not possible to decipher the meaning of the inscription, as each line was more than half effaced on the side which has been turned downwards, and only single letters of each line remained on two other sides. In its present condition it may be of the fourth or fifth century. Cufic inscriptions are not unfrequently discovered here; one, lately found, had been placed above the door of the council-room, but was so thickly whitewashed as to be quite illegible. Two capitals of columns, in white marble, with the Moslem profession of faith beautifully inscribed round each in raised flowered letters, had just been built into the sides of the minbar of a mosque which the Kehia is building, one of the capitals being turned upside down. He begged me to go to see the progress of the work, to assure him, by means of the compass, if the Kibleh was rightly placed, and this gave me an opportunity of seeing the simple, or rather rude, fashion in which the light arches are thrown from pillar to pillar. There was no scaffolding used beyond two planks for the mason to stand on, neither was there any woodencentering, but the stones, cut to the proper shape, were, one after another, handed up to the mason, who secured them in their places with cement; a few loose stones were made to support them: the arch being thus gradually built up from each side, the keystone was at last added, and then the planks were immediately removed, the arch being considered solid enough to require no further care. The arches were pointed, and each composed of eleven or thirteen stones. In another building, intended for an oil-press, I found a large circular arch, twenty feet in width, in process of erection. Here a long board had been run across the breadth of the building; in its centre a nail served as a pivot for a long strip of pointed wood, by which the mason decided the position of each stone as he placed it. There were several small houses in progress, destined to form the nucleus of a town, which the Kehia hopes to see rebuilt. This was the only place in the whole country where I had seen anything like enterprise. The Kehia is a clever man, and, in conjunction with the Bey of Benghazi, whose dependant he is, he had undertaken these works in hopes of making a profitable speculation out of the oil of the uncultivated olive trees in the neighbourhood. It was with a sincere wish for his success, which cannot fail to be followed by increased industry and gradualcivilisation of the district, that I took leave of him, having spent two days in the Medina, during both of which the hot south wind had blown with great force, raising clouds of red dust. It was the first time I had experienced this wind in the Cyrenaica.
Tomb of a Ptolemy. — Unequal Taxation. — What a Wife costs. — Ruins of Tolmeta. — Wall around Tancra. — Good State of the Ruins. — The Rains. — Arab Tents. — Return to Benghazi.
October 16th.—Right glad to escape the furnace-like blasts which swept, stifling, over the plain of Merdj, I started, though late in the afternoon, on the way to Tolmeta. The camel drivers, who had been furnished to me at Grennah by Abou Bekr, in addition to their ignorance of the road, proved themselves the most unmanageable beings I had yet met with; having complained of them to the Kehia, he gave them an admonition, and also provided me with an Arab of the country, a soi-disant relation, to conduct me on my way.
It took three hours in a north-east direction to reach the edge of the plain, when, night coming on, I encamped, and continued the journey the following morning. There are two ravines which lead towards Tolmeta, of which we took the one to the west, calledWady Shebbah; this route is rather the longer of the two, but affords an easy descent, which, to travellers with heavily-laden camels, is a consideration of no little moment. The other descent was called by my conductor Wady Hambes, or Hambesh. It is described by Beechey as very beautiful, and, being more difficult, its scenery is probably grander than that of the route followed by me, which is rather a pass than a ravine, running over long low hills until it gradually reaches the level of the sea. On the shore, nearly opposite itsdébouché, is a group of rocks, and among them a well with brackish water, where we found many goats, with their attendants. From this, riding eastward, we came to another well, and then to a third in the ruins of a fortalice, which contains the only sweet water in the neighbourhood. Having filled our water-bottles, we went on to a large square monument, supposed to be the tomb of one of the Ptolemies who reigned in this country; the monument is visible to a great distance out at sea. Built on a square base of rock, it presents a noble mass, and has kindled the enthusiasm of former visitors; but, to my eye, excepting for its greater dimensions, it seemed in architectural beauty inferior to many I have seen elsewhere in this country. The triangular entrance, on the side opposite to the hills, is remarkable from its resemblance to that of the Great Pyramid. Near this aremany large excavated tombs, one of which is remarkable, from the fact that the rock out of which it is fashioned has been cut away all round, and thus a monolithic monument, in the truest sense, produced. It took seven and a half hours in all from Merdj to this point, where I stayed for upwards of an hour, in the useful, or at least necessary, employment of bargaining for sheep, a flock of which was drinking at a pool in front of the large tower. All bargains are difficult negotiations in this country, the Arabs often refusing to sell at a price less than double the market value of their merchandise: they are well acquainted with the laudable custom of making strangers pay their way. The price of sheep appeared to have gradually risen since I came into the country; the first I bought cost me about five shillings, and those I bought here more than double that sum. For a party of six people I found that, with economy, a sheep would last three days, if eked out with a not inconsiderable supply of rice and biscuits for the Arabs, who eat voraciously.
With my new friend, Abd-el-Kader Waled Ali, I had much curious conversation, as I found him more communicative than the greater part of his countrymen. He is of the wealthier class, and lives in the country beyond Labiar. He complained, and I believe with justice (for every one I have spoken with on thesubject confirmed what he said), of the unequal manner in which the taxes are levied, the miri for each naga varying in different tribes from five to six hundred piastres. The naga, like the pound sterling, is an imaginary unit, consisting of ten camels, or twenty oxen, or a hundred sheep or goats. Each tribe pays tribute for a certain number of nagas, according to a census made some 150 years ago; the Sheikh being responsible for its partition among the members of his tribe, and its collection. It is easy to understand that with such a system the tax falls very heavily on those tribes which from war or other causes have sunk in importance in this lapse of time; whilst, on the other hand, those which have grown wealthy pay an insignificant sum: thus a tribe rated at a hundred nagas, and which has now only twenty, pays for each naga five times the sum it was originally taxed at; while those whose wealth has increased from a hundred to a thousand, pay for each only a fiftieth part of what their less fortunate neighbours are charged. Ignorant in book learning, the Arabs, aided by their rosaries, are no mean proficients in arithmetic; and their applications for redress are as incessant as fruitless. From what I have seen of the country a spirit of discontent is universal—the Arabs regret their old independent pasha; and I think the arrival of any Government, Moslem or even Christian—soonly not the Sultan’s—would be hailed with general satisfaction.
Abd-el-Kader is married, and I took down his account of the price he paid for his wife. To her father he gave thirteen sheep, valued at two dollars and a half each, with a hundred dollars in cash; and to the lady herself, a pair of silver bracelets (souar or debalg), weighing thirty-five dollars, dress-stuffs to the same amount, furniture, carpets, &c., to the value of fifty dollars; these, with some other expenses, made the cost of his wedding amount in all to three hundred dollars. He confirmed to me the truth of an Arab custom, which I had before heard of from others, that of giving to the mother, of the bride a sum varying from a hundred to five hundred piastres, as the price of the milk with which she had suckled her daughter. The sheep and the money are not returned in any shape, as, on her father’s death, his wife’s brother succeeds to them, and on his death the next male heir. “Well,” I said, “you will acknowledge that here you literally buy your wife?”—to which he retorted, “Of course we do; while in Europe it is the wife who buys her husband; we are up to that;” and he chuckled, and seemed to think he had paid me off with interest.
After passing the pools, where I had stayed so long, we came in sight of the line of the fortifications, whichare now almost buried in sand, and of one of the city gates, still an imposing mass. The plain where Tolmeta stood did not become visible until we had crossed the low ridge formed by the fallen walls. Great was the disappointment I experienced on my first view of the city, and greater became my disappointment the more I saw of it. Three columns standing over large covered cisterns, and two smaller ones not far distant, the ruined apse of a Christian church (probably of the fourth century), catch the eye; but the general impression of the entire surface is that of a huge piece of new macadamisation, so thickly is the ground strewed with small fragments. The celebrated barracks have been lately despoiled, by truly Vandalic hands, of the curious inscription which rendered the building so interesting, and to obtain which the greater part of the front facing the sea has been overthrown. The destruction of it seems to have been as wanton as the labour of it must have been great, the architecture being of the most solid description. I was told that in attempting their removal one of the slabs was so broken that the author of this devastation left it lying on the ground; and that after an interval of two or three years, when he had learnt in Paris that an inscription, of which a third part is wanting, is worthless, he sent for the remaining fragments, which were already illegible.If those employed were incapable of taking an accurate copy of the inscription, one would suppose that they might at least have made a cast of it, and at less expense, and thus have left the only monument worth visiting in Ptolemais still retaining its external form, and the disposition of its interior still traceable, and unchoked by newly-made ruins. The three Ionic columns, which have been described as dating from the earliest times and of remarkable purity, seemed to me of a late epoch, when not a tradition of true beauty remained; they are clumsy, and badly chiselled, nor did I see in the whole space any fragments of sculpture or architecture in a good style of art. There are ten vaulted buildings, and a very large rectangle rising only a few feet above the soil, whose purpose cannot even be guessed at; scanty remains of a theatre, the outlines of an amphitheatre, formed in a quarry, having no feature of interest, complete the catalogue of the ruins within the town. The fortifications towards the sea, consisting of a series of forts, are well preserved, though nearly buried in sand; but the most conspicuous object is the gateway I have already mentioned, whose two flank towers are still nearly perfect. On the stones of which these are built are many inscriptions, whose irregularity would lead one to the idea that they are of very recent date, or even to fancy them the work of industrious idlers,bent upon thus immortalising their names. Fox’s and many other names, carved with a knife on the old walls at Eton, are far better specimens of caligraphy. More interesting than these are the quarry-marks, many of them in Barbary characters, which are found here, as well as on one of the forts on the sea-wall.
REMAINS OF IONIC BUILDING AT PTOLEMAIS.(Large-size)
REMAINS OF IONIC BUILDING AT PTOLEMAIS.(Large-size)
REMAINS OF IONIC BUILDING AT PTOLEMAIS.
(Large-size)
On the second day of my stay here the clouds gathered thick towards sunset, whereupon soon followed a storm of lightning and rain, such as I have seldom witnessed. The autumnal rains had commenced, and it was evident that my proper course was a speedy return to Benghazi, as when it does rain here it continues, almost without intermission, for many days, and with a frantic violence which no tents can withstand. I had been too much disappointed with the remains of Tolmeta to regret having to shorten my stay here; and when the rain ceased the next morning, or only continued in fitful showers, I had the wet tents and baggage placed on the camels, and took my departure for Tancra, the ancient Tenchira. It was, however, so late before a start could be made, that at sunset we were still at no great distance from the ruins, and finding a good place for encamping near some wells, and fields sown withizra, I stopped there. The route is along the sea-shore, through a wide plain covered with briars and baturnebushes, showing only in very few places slight marks of cultivation. A soft warm wind, like that of a spring morning, made the ride through the clean-washed underwood delightful, and I fancied I could already see signs of fresh vegetation in the briars. It took, in all, nine hours and a half to reach Tancra from Dolmeita. Near the old town are many patches of cultivated ground, producing vegetables and fruit, the property of Arab families, who inhabit many of the excavated tombs in the quarries on either side of the town.
The first view of Tancra rather disappointed me. So much has been written about the perfect state of the walls, that I arrived there with the expectation of finding them more perfect than the walls of either Rome or Constantinople; and what, indeed, have these cities, amidst all their remains of bygone days, to offer of more interest than their venerable walls, which, after withstanding unnumbered hostile attacks, still retain so much of their historical significance? The circuit of the walls of Tenchira is on three sides entire; the disposition of the towers is well marked, and the places of the gates may be conjectured: in many parts the wall is not more than two or three feet high, in some it is reduced to a mere heap of stones, and in none does it exceed fourteen or fifteen feet. At the eastern extremity, a quarry has been taken advantage of, to addstrength to the wall by being made to serve as a ditch; on the ground above there are remains of a strong fortalice. Within these is another quarry, which serves to isolate the fortress—a narrow ledge of rock, along which the wall ran, alone affording access to it; this, with a third parallel to the sea, seems to have completed this curious defensive structure, for such I suppose it may be considered. The walls are, doubtless, interesting to the military antiquarian, exhibiting, as they do very perfectly, the system of fortification used at the time of their reconstruction or repair by order of Justinian; but they disappoint the traveller in search of the artistic or the picturesque, who had hoped to find in Greek or Roman style what Alatri presents in the Cyclopean. The ill-carved inscriptions with which they are covered—mere records of names which have evidently belonged to other buildings, and many of them now turned upside down—possess no kind of interest; and I am inclined to think that the walls of Apollonia, if cleared of their rubbish, would be found more perfect, as well as more picturesque. But if disappointed with the exterior of the town, I was equally surprised by finding the contents of the interior more interesting than anything I had met with in the Cyrenaica; and then I had to regret that I had allowed myself to be so long enchained by the delightful climate of the hills, as to render a long stayin Tancra impossible on account of the rains, which this year set in nearly a month earlier than usual. The town, indeed, contains no monuments of any great elevation, which accounts for the little attention which seems to have been bestowed on Tancra by previous travellers; at the season when they visited it everything must have been hidden by the long grass; but when the ground is bare of vegetation, as at my visit, many lines of streets become as distinctly traceable as those of Pompeii, and even the ground plans of the houses which bordered them. Among the larger buildings, are to be remarked the ruins of a church in the west of the city, and those of a large quadrangle, with a well-preserved reservoir within its precincts, which, from its similarity to the hapless barracks at Dolmeita, must have had a similar purpose. Further eastward, is a striking edifice bearing inscriptions, which may have been a temple or a basilica, but its interior is so completely filled with rubbish, that its plan cannot be distinguished. No trace of a theatre, amphitheatre, or stadium is visible; so that the inhabitants of Tenchira must, in all probability, have had the misfortune to be destitute of any place of public amusement. I have remarked with surprise in other parts of the Pentapolis, as well as here, the absence of any well-defined ruins of public baths; though I cannot suppose that any town, even of small size, was inRoman times destitute of so necessary and favourite a luxury. The only hypothesis which presents itself to me as explanatory of this, is the fact, that these towns, as we see them at the present day, belong to the later empire, during whose existence the opposition shown by the bishops and clergy to the delicacy of the bath (balneorum deliciæ) may, in some places, have succeeded in suppressing its use. No place in this country promises a more abundant harvest to the excavator than this: medals must be buried in great quantities, and perhaps other articles of value, among its ruins; and the tombs sunk in the rocks all around are, with those of Benghazi, the only ones in the country that seem to have escaped desecration. All those which were excavated in the quarries have been long since rifled; and even those have not escaped which are now sanded up, as was recently proved, to his great disappointment, by an Arab antiquarian, who, no doubt, having read, adopted Beechey’s suggestion, and employed money, men, and much time, in clearing one of those nearest to the town, on the west side. Beechey, judging from their situation, had conjectured that these tombs were the most ancient; and that, as they had probably been early sanded up, they would offer a good chance of rewarding researches. The event proved that his opinion was incorrect, as the tomb, a large square cavern, was empty of everythingbut sand; above the door of it is a cross in a circle, with the letters I C . X C. There are tombs cut like troughs on the summits of the rocks on which the quarries are sunk, which yield great numbers of vases, but all that were found, whilst I was there, were of very coarse manufacture. I saw in the hands of an Arab a small fragment of a large and very finely-painted urn of the latest style, and although such are not, of course, common, I believe they are occasionally found. I had intended to spend some days here, and to open a large number of tombs, whose position I had conjectured from the hollow sound the ground above gave out when struck; but the rains had now set in, descending every night in torrents, and frequently lasting all day; so that no working was possible, and in the small tents a dry spot could not be preserved. The discomfort produced by the rain, however, was even exceeded by the destruction it brought to books and instruments; I therefore left Tancra, and firmly resolved that my first purchase in Benghazi should be one of the hair tents of the Arabs, which, though not quite impervious to rain, are yet the best protection one can have against it. As used in this country, they are generally about eighteen feet long, by fifteen broad, the roof formed of long stripes of coarse hair-cloth woven by the women. The roof is sometimes made in white for winter use; but more generally it is of a brown,earthy colour, with stripes of black and white. No cutting out or other fashioning is necessary, for the cloth, being sufficiently elastic, accommodates itself to the slope of the roof. Two poles, three feet apart, support the tent, giving in the centre a height of about seven feet, while the corners and edges are stretched by cords, and supported by slender spars, at about half this height from the ground. Three sides are closed by stripes of the same stuff, rudely attached to the roof by wooden pins, the fourth—that turned to leeward—being left open. In summer, the sides are removed, and branches are used to replace them, while, in general, an older roof is substituted for the better one used in winter. With a little management, they might be made comfortable enough, and, with the exception of the great weight of the hair-cloth of which they are formed, they would be very convenient for travelling, as they are easily set up, are exposed to no accidents which could not be remedied on the spot, and are less liable than cotton tents to rot when packed up wet. Against this evil I have found M‘Gregor’s anti-dry-rot preparation of no use. I have one tent of prepared, and one of unprepared canvas, and have yet found no difference in the condition of their materials.
On the third day after my arrival in Tancra, I reluctantly pursued my journey to Benghazi. In anhour and a quarter we reached Bou Jera’a, which has many gardens and wells. An hour and a half further on lies Birsis, with its few insignificant ruins and its many wells; it afforded one of the pleasantest autumnal scenes I had beheld for a long time: whole villages of tents in quick succession, fields everywhere separated by well-made inclosures, and the whole landscape animated by a busy industry, in which all ages and sexes seemed equally to join. This is the only part of the Pentapolis which has the appearance of being inhabited. The damp, warm air of the morning communicated a sensation of enjoyment to the frame; and the unwonted life of the scene recalled more civilised lands to my mind.
The appearance of the country soon, however, changed; and we entered upon a tract most dreary and desolate. The path winds further inland, being separated from the sea by an extensive marsh, along the edge of which it runs at the foot of low rocks; the dark, stunted vegetation interspersed among the stony wastes gave an air of indescribable melancholy to the landscape. A journey of six hours and a half through this dull flat brought us to Sidi Suaiken, a marābut on an eminence; beyond this the country becomes more wooded, and green meadows appear, in one of which I encamped. There is a place of the name of Handouleh, consisting of a few gardens and richpastures, which lies about an hour and a half from the marābut; further on to the right is the large salt lake of Ez-zajana, a favourite resort of the Benghazini in their excursions. Near here are extensive ruins, showing only the ground plan of many buildings, which, from the name, are supposed to mark the site of Adrianopolis. Soon after this the road enters the dried sandy bed of the salt lake, which, filled by the winter gales from the sea, gradually evaporates in the course of the summer. At length, we again reached Benghazi, after an absence of rather more than three months.
What a Consul should be. — Turkish Oppression. — Official Corruption. — Universal Venality. — The Moslem hates the Christian.
Onarriving in Benghazi I found a house prepared for me, by the kindness of one of my friends, who gave up to me the only waterproof rooms which, I believe, exist in the town. The sensation of sleeping within walls, after three months spent under canvas, was not the less agreeable from the circumstance that the rain poured down in torrents, and only ceased for short intervals during my ten days’ stay. The second day after my arrival there fell a deluge of rain, the effect of which was to wash down some thirty houses, while there was not perhaps one in the place which had not suffered more or less. This is owing to the houses being built with mud instead of lime, which might be had at a very small cost. In the Frank quarter some new houses were in process of building, and not being roofed in, were more liable to suffer than finishedbuildings. As I passed them the next day their interior literally presented mere heaps of ruins. Year after year the same devastation is produced by the same cause; the flat roofs, formed, as they are, of mats laid over beams, with a heavy superstructure of sea-weeds and mud, are never waterproof; yet such is the apathy, even of the European residents, that they make no attempt to secure dry quarters for the winter. One would think from their conduct that it had never rained here before, and that the visitation, instead of being as regular as the almanack, had taken all the world by surprise. In one house I found workmen repairing fallen walls; in another, I heard that the whole family had to sleep on the bales in the warehouse, which admitted the water in fewer places than the other rooms. The streets were in many places impassable from the ruins; and many houses were literally melted away, the beams and stones remaining imbedded in huge puddles of mud. It sometimes occurs, when the rains are more than usually heavy, that the houses are in so menacing a state that the whole town takes refuge in tents, where, though the ground be damp, there are certainly no walls which threaten to overwhelm them.
I had the pleasure of finding the newly-appointed English Vice-Consul, Mr. Werry, a gentleman wellknown to our officers who served in the Syrian expedition. I was glad to offer him personally my thanks for the ready politeness with which he had taken measures to insure my safety while in the interior. Though he had only been two months in Benghazi, he had already secured the good-will and confidence of the British subjects for whose interest he is placed there, as well as the respect of the Turkish authorities. During the ten days I stayed in Benghazi he gave me frequent opportunities of increasing my debt of gratitude to him. I regretted to leave behind me, in so dreary an exile, one whose official experience, whose activity, and familiar knowledge of all the Oriental languages, would enable him to render essential services to his Government in places of more importance. I do not by this mean to insinuate that the presence of a British Consul in Benghazi is of little utility, although the number of Europeans (they are nearly all British subjects) be very small. Unconnected with trade, our Vice-Consul holds an independent position, which those of other nations, fettered by their personal interests, cannot attain, and he is thus frequently able, in cases of gross injustice affecting the natives, to exercise a salutary influence with the governor. His house is the ready refuge of the ill-used slave and the oppressed Arab, and his exertions in their behalf,rarely unavailing for them, give a prestige to the name of Englishman, of which I more than once experienced the value.
This portion of the pachalic of Tripoli, in which I passed nearly six months, is, like so many countries belonging to the Turkish Empire, most bountifully endowed by nature with every source of wealth. Under former rulers it was flourishing and populous, but it has now become a waste; its scanty inhabitants are sunk in hopeless barbarism, and even their poverty is no defence against the grasping avarice of their governor—“Inter continuas rapinas, perpetuò inops.” I do not accuse the present Sultan or ministers in Constantinople, individually, of the tyranny and ignorance which render his rule a curse wherever it is acknowledged; but—after seeing the fields of Roumelia lying waste to the very gates of his residence, the cities of Asia Minor depopulated, its mineral wealth a sealed treasure, even the Arab glories of Syria faded, the palaces of Damascus crumbling, and its marts deserted—the traveller cannot but long to see a government changed whose oppression is less mischievous than its neglects, and which tacitly permits wrongs greater than those which it sanctions.[4]Well has it been said, that where the hoof of a Turkishhorse has touched the ground, there the grass grows not.
During the last twenty-five years, since the fall of the Janissaries (which seemed to strengthen the central government while it weakened the empire), there has been much law-making, and many abuses have been abolished, as far as edicts can abolish deeply-rooted customs; but the old spirit still breathes in the new régime, and injustice and oppression are as frequent under the present Sultan as under his predecessors. It is, indeed, no longer a matter of indifference to the Grand Vizier, “whether the dog devours the swine or the swine the dog.” A wholesome fear of European opinion has succeeded to undisguised contempt; but the Turk of the people is still in his own eyes the first of human beings; his Sultan is still the suzerain before whom all kings bow, and at whose orders the French and English krals send their fleets and troops to chastise the rebellious Egyptian or Muscovite; and in the remoter provinces, which are beyond the immediate eye of the Elehi Beys, as they call the foreign ambassadors, the old system of peculation and robbery exists in full force.
Much has been written in praise of the new organisation of the Turkish Government, and the Tanzimat, as the regulations for the service are called; but the good which this contains is for the most part evadedor neglected. The most real result of the reform has been to introduce a number of new functionaries, or, in other words, to increase the points of contact between the governors and the governed, whereby more frequent opportunities of peculation are given to the former. The sanitary regulations, so ridiculous in the way they are enforced and the way they are neglected, are one instance of this; another is the prohibition of presents from inferiors to superiors, which all employés take an oath to observe; yet it would not be easy to find ten per cent. of the higher officers who are insensible to, or unwilling to accept such an argument. In trifling things they are, of course, careful to wear the mask of austere virtue, as Izzet Pacha, the Governor of Tripoli, lately recalled on the complaints of the French Government, showed, when he was here in summer. A merchant of the place sent him a basket of grapes, when they were still scarce, and he returned them, saying, that, according to his oath, he must either pay for or refuse them. Yet this is the man who, after keeping an Arab sheikh in prison for many months, released him on receiving 150,000 piastres, about £1500; and whose sons, youths of eighteen and twenty years, established in their father’s pachalic a trade in all the produce of the country, which amounted to a virtual monopoly. The European merchants sent a remonstrance on this subject to Constantinople, andthey received an answer, in the advancement of the elder of these enterprising young tradesmen to the dignity of Mirabi, or pacha of one tail.
After the last harvest the cultivators of the soil complained that the tithe in kind due to Government was taken in such a way as to amount to nearly one-half of the entire produce. This had been contrived by Izzet Pacha’s son and some of the local authorities; the tenth only being carried to the public account, and the remainder divided among themselves. Many representations to this effect were made to the French consular agent, who, after obtaining satisfactory evidence of their truth, reported the case to his superior in Tripoli. Not long afterwards, on some dispute with the Pacha, the Consul brought this up as a proof of the malversation of the subordinates, on which the other pretended great indignation, and insisted that he and the Consul should send to Benghazi for information. The books were, of course, in good order; the witnesses, on whose testimony the Consul had relied, were by threats reduced to silence; the charge could not be substantiated (the Bey who was judge being himself the chief delinquent); and the upshot of the inquiry was, that the Vice-Consul had to make apologies for the slander, while he and every Frank in the place knew the truth of the accusation, and could point out the magazines where the grain thus extorted wasdeposited. Many weeks had not passed after this when ships belonging to the Pacha’s son arrived in the port, and openly loaded with this very corn on his account.
When a pacha acts thus, we cannot wonder if his subordinates imitate so good an example; and the director of the customs may be praised for the honesty which consigns about three-fourths of their produce to the treasury. An Arab said to me one day, on this subject, “The Pacha eats, the Bey eats, and the Gumruckdjy (director of customs) eats,” each buying his superior’s silence with a share of his own peculations; the friends who protect his interests at Constantinople coming in for their share of the pacha’s profits. A Turk is, in fact, capable of learning many things; he may becivilisé—a Frank word, now adopted in Turkish; he may cease to be whatLa Jeune Turquiecalls a fanatic; he will indulge in deep potations, or abstain from fasting in Ramadhan; but he will never learn not to eat (Italicèmagnare) when he can. His appetite and digestion, in this sense, are truly ostrich-like. On inquiring into the truth of the Bey’s statement that there are 1200 houses in Benghazi, I learned that there are, in fact, 1400, the two hundred which are suppressed in the official account being “eaten” by the Bey and the Sheikh-el-belid.
An amusing instance of the ruses to which a scrupulous man, who has the fear of his oath before his eyes, will resort, was related to me by one who was in the town at the time it occurred. An Armenian addressed himself to a Pacha in Anadoly, for the decision of a lawsuit in his favour; and, after stating his case, produced a bag well filled with the usual arguments, which he offered to his Excellency. On this the great man, who had listened to his statement with the blandest smiles, drew himself up, frowning in anger, and only answered, “Infidel, be off!” The poor Armenian, astonished at the reception of his well-meant offering, begged and prayed, and seemed to weigh the bag in his hands, that the Pacha might see how heavy it was—all Spanish dollars; but the only answer he obtained was a fresh order to be off, with the surly addition, “He is an infidel who gives, and an infidel who takes”—disobedience to the Sultan’s laws being rebellion, and rebellion, according to Turkish doctrine, infidelity. Disappointed and crest-fallen, the poor Armenian withdrew from the presence, and was not a little surprised to find himself the object of the congratulations of the attendants and cavasses in the anteroom. “It is useless,” he said, “to ask me for backshish; for the Pacha has rejected my suit, and that, too, with hard words.” “What answer is this?” said they; “did you not hear his words—‘the infidelgives and the infidel takes?’ Go to the steward; is not he also an Armenian?”
One of the greatest blots on the Turkish constitution has not been touched by the Tanzimat: it is that provision of the Moslem law which excludes the reception of evidence given by persons of other religions against a Moslem. Twenty witnesses may depose to the murder of a Christian or Jew by a Turk; but, as was too clearly shown in the case of Sir Lawrence Jones, if there be not among them at least two Moslemin, their testimony is unavailing; while to obtain Moslem witnesses to prove an outrage on a Christian is impossible.[5]An Arab was wantonly beating a Maltese boy, a few days ago, in the bazaar, when a respectable Moslem came to his assistance; a third then came up, and apostrophised the boy’s defender, saying, “Are you a Moslem? and do you take the part of a Christian against a believer?” He spoke what all the spectators felt. Until this odious distinction be abolished, there can be no security either for the life or property of Christian rayahs or foreigners, excepting in the energy and privileges of the consuls; and the representatives of the great powers seem at present disposed to yield the greater part of their own rights and theimmunities of their fellow-subjects. These were wisely considered essential to the welfare or consideration of foreigners among a people who, though little less than barbarians, look with the most profound contempt upon a Frank; and those who renounce their enjoyment are, I fear, too precipitate in their favourable judgment of the real state of the Turkish Empire.
I cannot close my notes of the Cyrenaica without adding that I spent there (occasional annoyances excepted) some most pleasant months; I came to the country an invalid, and was exceedingly unwell when I started for Grennah; but its pure air and lovely scenery restored me to perfect health. For those who seek summer quarters in the Mediterranean, I again repeat to them my former advice, to choose the pleasant solitudes of Cyrene in preference to the Syrian hills, where so much sickness and mortality prevail. I have been many times in the Lebanon, and the rich beauty of Damascus has greater charms for me than that of any city I have seen; but, still, I have never been there without witnessing or feeling the effects of the pestilential air, which, every autumn, produces fatal fevers and dysenteries. Even in quitting its shores the evil spirit seems to pursue its victims; and I have seen more than one friend seized with the deadly Syrian fever weeks after he had reached a healthier climate.
Benghazi to Augila. — Corn Stores. — Cachettes. — Ruins near El-Farsy. — Remarkable Fortress. — Horrors of the Slave Trade. — England should forbid it. — Herds of Gazelles. — Bruce. — Rĕsam. — Oasis of Augila.
November 4th.—After manypour parlerswith a caravan of Majabra (inhabitants of Jalo), who had come to Benghazi to sell their dates, and after making one or two false starts, I at length got under weigh for Augila. I was desirous of taking with me some hawks, as the country I was to pass through for the first days of the journey was represented to be full of game; and the trained hawks of this place are said to be the best in Africa; but I was unable to purchase any. Some of my friends assured me that I should find no difficulty in obtaining the birds from the Arabs; but I eventually found that my informants were mistaken. Both in Benghazi and in its neighbourhood, I often met horsemen with a hawk, either perched on the right hand or seated on the crupper of the horse; but I never found any one willing to part with this favourite companion. Yet there are seasons of theyear when they are to be had at a small price; in spring, many young hawks are brought to the market, and the proprietors of trained birds will then willingly dispose of theirs, at a price for which they can buy a dozen young ones, whose education they find both amusing and profitable.
Stopping to rearrange the luggage half a dozen times while the town was still in sight, our progress the first day was very slow, and we pitched the tents for the night at a distance of about eight miles from Benghazi, having traversed a country unmarked by any feature but the shapeless ruins of what may once have been an extensive villa, or a very small village. The next day, we reached, in three hours, extensive ruins, called by the Arabs Idirsa, which cover much ground, but nowhere offer extensivedébris, nor even a plan of any large building. The sea, though still in sight, lay considerably to the right. Avoiding the promontory of Bozium, and the site of the old Jewish colony (which presents nothing remarkable), I followed the road which runs through the middle of the wide plain lying between the hills which I crossed in going to Cyrene, and the sea, which here trends gradually to the west. Two hours further on, we came to a place, Ourm Sofah, marked by very deep wells hewn in the rock, beside which was a pool formed by the recent rains. At this moment, the country isdotted far and near with such sheets of water, formed wherever a clay bottom, or a depression in the rocks, presents a surface favourable for the collection of the rain. Herds of cattle render these pools muddy and uninviting to the eye; but when they have just been formed, there is probably no risk in drinking their water. For greater precaution, however, as well as to accustom my servants to the trouble, I had the water boiled before we drank it; this process, of course, gave it an unpalatable flatness, but it is thought necessary, in order to avoid the risk of fevers, so often caused by drinking stagnant water. During this day’s journey and the two succeeding ones, we saw in every direction groups of Arab tents, inhabited by people from Benghazi, who had come to sow the extensive plain we were passing through. The soil is a rich loam, yielding, without any sort of tilling, abundant harvests of wheat and barley. It seems probable that, if a moderate amount of labour were expended in the husbandry of this country, its ample crops would vie with those of Egypt or Sicily. As it is, nature is left to herself; when the winter is rainy, the crops are very large, but if the rains are scanty, the harvest fails. In autumn, after the first rains, the seed is scattered broadcast on the ground, and over this a light plough of wood, shod with iron, is drawn, turning up, or rather scratching, the ground, to a depth of about two inches. By thisprocess the seed is covered. The husbandman returns to Benghazi, and no other care is bestowed upon the crop until the sower returns in spring to reap it. The land is open to the first comer, the Government receiving a tenth of the produce as rent; but this rent is very arbitrarily fixed, and thereby ample room is given to the ingenuity of the Turkishemployés. The result is that the taxation is often most exorbitant, as I have mentioned in a former page. This year the early rains gave an impulse to speculation. About one-third of the Benghazini were now squatting on the plain; every animal—horse, ass, ox, cow, or camel—that could be made to drag the light ploughshare having been laid under contribution. The prices of these animals had, consequently, increased greatly in the market. If the winter proved as rainy as it threatened, sundry little fortunes would no doubt be made. Many of the Europeans and wealthier Arabs, who do not themselves go to the country, employ a man to sow seed for them, they providing the seed and cattle; the man receives half the profit, besides 160 piastres—about thirty shillings—for sowing and reaping.
Eight hours from Ourm Sofah are the ruins of a large castle of the same character and epoch as those of Benigdun, called Tell-i-mout. The walls are, in the lower part, formed by four courses of large masonry;and above, to an equal, or rather greater height (probably a later construction), they are built of small stones. There remain two sides of an oblong rectangle, with a square tower at the north-east corner, whose entrance is by a well-turned arch from the interior. The large stones of the lower courses are literally covered with Tawarick characters—most probably merely indicating the passage by them of the Arab tribes, which use one or other of these signs as their distinctive marks; but the number, size, and regularity of these characters in this place are truly astonishing. During the remainder of this day’s journey the character of the country remained unchanged, and nothing marked our course except a solitary marābut, Sidi Keilani, on the right, three hours and a half from Tell-i-mout; from hence proceeding as far again, we reached the first Bedawin tents we had seen since we left Benghazi, pitched in a place called Keif-i-djil. Here there are large stores of grain, formed on the same principle as thecachettesorsilosof the Algerian tribes, which resemble the grain stores at Leghorn. A conical hole, dug in the ground, is lined with straw, and after being filled with grain, is thatched over with straw and mud. The people assured me that neither ants nor vermin ever attack these stores, and at Leghorn I have heard it asserted that in the similar receptacles there, built of stone andplastered, the grain can be preserved good for fifty years. Two hours further on are ponds and a well, in a place called Sa’aity. Here the ground is covered with large fragments of stone, and seemed a favourite resort of scorpions, which the Arabs, who were with me, amused themselves in hunting. They brought me one of a greenish yellow colour, fully five inches long. The gerboas also abound in this place; they are about the size of a rat, and one sees them towards evening in great numbers, jumping along like the kangaroo, their long, elegant tail, tipped with white, trailing on the ground; the plain is riddled with their holes, which makes quick riding very unsafe.
At Sa’aity I remained half a day, while the camel-drivers bought food for their beasts from some grain stores on a slight hill above the well. These Majabra were in many respects the worst people I had yet had to deal with; the only good quality I discovered in them was the rapidity with which they loaded in the morning. The time gained in this way, however, was lost in another; their object in such quick loading being merely to get off, and to leave as much of their load as they could behind them. The consequence of this was, that as much as two camels could conveniently carry, fell to the share of the last-loaded camels, over and above their fair allowance. On such occasions I had to make the whole caravan return, whichcost quick riding and loud words; and then at length each received his fair proportion of the articles that had been left. Day after day the same scene was renewed, until I at last resorted to the expedient of having my carpet spread for breakfast on the road they were to take—a scheme which, united with constant watchfulness, I found tolerably successful. They have another accomplishment, hardly less agreeable to the traveller who is at their mercy. They must have learned, that if eloquence be silver, silence is gold; and therefore they show themselves most unwilling to afford the smallest particle of information, silencing questions with a prolonged nasal grunt, which seems to play the same part in their conversation as the “So-o-o!” of the Germans. On the journey they sing their unmelodious chaunts nearly all day long, one relieving the other; their song being at rare intervals interrupted by an occasional admonition to a camel to make a little more way. They never swear at their beasts, however, as European, and especially Italian, postilions are in the habit of doing; the ear is not, therefore, shocked with the obscene blasphemies which are so offensive on a journey in the Roman or Neapolitan States. Here the driver apostrophises his camel with one invariable expression of abuse, which seems quite as efficacious as a volley of oaths—“Oh, you Jew!” and the camel mends its pace. It is true thatthis is usually accompanied with an admonition from a full-grown stick, which may perhaps have some effect in quickening its step; but I am persuaded, nevertheless, that the insult to its feelings has more to do in rousing it to exertion, than the application of the bâton to its hide. The food of the Majabra isbasina, like that of the Barca Arabs, a mess prepared with flour, water, and salt, kneaded into a tough paste, then boiled, and eaten with a little oil or butter; it is a tough, and must be a most indigestible composition. They eat enormous quantities of it, re-kneading it with the fingers of the right hand into large balls, and dipping in oil, so as to enable them to bolt it; to see them devour it is one among the most wonderful things in this country.
There are wells, for which I could obtain no name, ten hours from Sa’aity. After this, the country becomes somewhat less level than it has hitherto been, swelling in slight hills, the soil more stony and sandy, less capable of producing grain, and covered with low, thorny, and fleshy-leaved shrubs. Five and a half hours further on, are wells, called El Farsy. These, like the preceding ones, are pierced in the rock, and to obtain the water from them, it is necessary for some one to be lowered into the well, as the water does not lie immediately under the upper orifice. There is a large chamber hollowed in the rock, in one corner ofwhich the well is sunk; I did not descend into it, and it was not till I was far past it, that one of the men told me there were inscriptions on its sides. This is as likely to be false as true, as I have twenty times gone, on the strength of Arab information, to look for inscriptions in places where nothing of the sort was to be seen; but this would have been no reason for neglecting to examine this well-chamber, had I known of it in time. It was now too late in the evening to return that day, and the next I was not inclined for an expedition whose result was so uncertain, while I had before me the more promising ruins of El-Ajdabiah.
These old Saracenic ruins are four hours and a half from El Farsy; they present groups of buildings situated on two low hills, about a quarter of a mile apart. The centre of the intervening space is a flat bare rock, in which several wells are pierced. The first group which the traveller, coming from Benghazi, meets, contains the remains of a castle of excellent architecture, which cannot be later than the third century of the Hejirah. It is a rectangular structure, terminating in three vaulted chambers, the extremity of the centre one of which has an octagonal niche, on which the plaster still remains. This end is flanked by round, dome-covered towers, whose sides are perforated with loopholes for arrows; but neither within nor without,neither above nor below, could I discover ornament or inscription. Failing here, I now turned to the opposite group of ruins, thedébrisof a very large mosque, in which I had no doubt that I should find something to reward me for having chosen this route rather than the shorter one, which, from Sa’aity, takes more to the eastward. The mosque is in even a more ruinous condition than the castle, but is of equally good construction; in one corner are still standing about fifteen feet of the light-sided minaret; towards the other, three light and lofty arches, and beyond them the Kibleh niche, or minbar. Round its arch may be traced remains of a zigzag ornament, and on the capital of one of the two pillars which support it, I persuaded myself that I could trace the first three letters of the profession of faith. Believing implicitly the accounts I had somewhere read of the ornamental inscriptions of Ajdabiah, I had bargained with my camel-men to stay here two or three days if I required it, in order to examine them; but no exertion of eyesight or imagination could enable me to discover more than these three letters, if they were really such; for, after all, they might have been mere accidental scratches in the stone. Whatever may have been the case when the buildings were less ruinous, I can safely affirm that there is in no part of them now a trace of an inscription in any character, excepting those Arab marks to which I havealready several times alluded. I was greatly disappointed; and as soon as the water-skins were filled (an operation which was protracted during four hours), I saw the caravan depart. I took myself a S.S.W. direction, though with little hope of any satisfactory result; and rode to Henayah, a distance of about seven miles.
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, intowhich 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 downthe 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.