Whoever knows Turkey, knows that its many provinces are only held together by the shadow of a name,and that a stroke of the diplomatic pen will suffice to sever any part from the remainder. Syria, Egypt, even fanatic Tripoli, would hail with joy a Christian—that is, a European—master. Wherever they rule the Turks are hated, and their subjects are kept in subjection by a superstitious veneration for the old power, which has long departed—as the genii waited in awe round the throne of Solomon, not perceiving that the master spirit had forsaken its tenement of clay. You have paid twenty millions to liberate your slaves in the colonies; and God knows what vast treasures—how many lives of Englishmen—have been sacrificed to stop this trade on the western coasts of Africa! Be consistent still; and if you will not take possession of the lands of Egypt and Tripoli (by whose frontiers the slaves for the whole empire are imported), let your commands go forth to him who is now but the shadow of the shadow of God upon earth. He dare not disobey them if he would. You will be following, in favour of humanity, an example proposed to you in every page of Turkish history—the strong extorting submission from the weak. Increase, if necessary, the number of your functionaries, create animperium in imperio, to watch the execution of your orders; trample, in the cause of freedom, upon every diplomatic form—forms, alas! are all that remain of diplomacy—and extend to the Mediterranean the treaties which you have applied to the Atlantic.[6]
This evening, six of my camels, which had been turned out to feed on the scanty herbage which dotted the plain, wandered away. They were not to be found at their supper-time; so their owners went off in quest of them. The next morning, they had not yet returned; and it seemed a fortunate chance alone which enabled us to start at last about twelve o’clock. They had gone on their way to Augila, probably not a little pleased to have left all their packages behind them; and were met by a caravan of Arabs, coming in the opposite direction, who, understanding the case—no unfrequent one in places where the herbage is scanty—turned their heads backwards. The soil had now become sandy and stony, unfit for cultivation, but covered with dwarf shrubs of three or four varieties, though all having one general character—woody, gnarled stems, and fleshy leaves. The first rains are in the desert immediately succeeded by spring; hence these plants were all green and in full flower; some of them were very beautiful on close inspection; but thepale yellow and pink colours of their blossoms, notwithstanding their abundance, had little effect in tinging the general landscape.
During the two days, after passing El Ajdabiah, we saw immense herds of gazelles; but they were too shy to give one a chance of getting within shot of them; and there was too little cover to stalk them. The greyhound which I had with me was young, and far too frightened to do more than run after them for a short distance; when she thought she was getting dangerously near, she would stop, and look round. There is a race of greyhounds peculiar to this country, generally of a pale fawn colour, with very short hair, and limbs almost as fine as those of the Italian pet greyhound. They are very swift, and, when well trained, will run down a gazelle. They are, however, not often to be met with for sale, the best being in the hands of the Zowaya Arabs, who inhabit El Ijherri, a small oasis to the north-east of Jalo. In winter and spring, they pitch their tents round El Ajdabiah (it was, indeed, a party of them who had so opportunely met our camels), and, in summer, turn southwards to gather the dates in El Kofrah, a range of uninhabited oases, of which the last is marked in our maps as Kebabo. The plain, south of Benghazi, up to the desert which we were approaching, affords excellent sport; abounding in hares, the red-legged partridge,the kattah, or sand grouse with yellowish plumage, quails, and, occasionally, the bustard. There is, besides these, a ground lark, existing in great numbers, which is as large as a quail, and forms no unwelcome addition to a traveller’s fare, in the absence of larger game. I should be ungrateful, were I to omit adding to this list of good things the juicy mushroom, which seemed, for several days, to spring up under our feet, begging to be gathered for supper.
Fourteen hours from El Ajdabiah, we came to the boundary of vegetation; a very long range of low sand hills, rising one above another in almost imperceptible gradations. The sand is of a pale yellow colour, and in some places forms almost an impalpable powder, but in others it is mixed with gravel of finely-rounded, variegated pebbles, such as would be invaluable for the walks of a garden. The Arab name for these hills is El-Towaleh, and they are well called so, for they seem long without end, the gradual rise of the range never affording a view of a mile in any direction. It took nearly thirteen hours to cross this range—the thirteen longest hours I remember; for, until the last two were reached, there was no interruption to the constant up and down, through featureless sand; nor was it possible to tell whether one had reached the summit or not. At length, large masses of petrified wood, scattered over the surface, afforded something to lookat. In many places, the surface of the sand is blistered with an incrustation of salt, looking as if frozen. Low, flat ledges of white limestone rise above the general line; and semi-transparent crystals of gypsum are scattered over the sand. A few trees appeared in a hollow, and we had at last reachedرسمRĕsam.
The waters of Rĕsam, mentioned by Bruce, are of a milky colour, and salt, though hardly more so than those of most of the wells which I met with afterwards in the desert; I thought them pleasant enough to drink when cold; but they acquire a peculiarly bitter taste when boiled. Bruce, from forgetfulness, has confounded Rĕsam with the promontory marked as Ros Sam[7]in our maps—a name, by the way, unknownto the natives of the country—and the aluminous water, which he places here, is, in fact, that of a well rather further on; which well I reached the next day in six hours, at Marag, or Marak. The water at Rĕsam rises in great abundance to within a few feet from the surface; and the slight hollow in which it lies, partaking entirely of the nature of an oasis, is diversified by palms and large tamarisks. As a desert scene, it is at once highly characteristic. The slight mounds which collect round the tamarisks, and out of which they grow, break the uniformity of the surface, while their pale, feathery foliage affords a pleasant shade, and the few stately palm trees rise gracefully against the clear blue sky.
Two miles S.S.W. of Rĕsam is a Saracenic ruin, of the same date as El Ajdabiah, called Sheikh Es-saby, evidently a stronghold. A square court, surrounded by four arches, which may once have supported a cupola (though I could see no remains of this), is supposed by the Arabs to contain the tomb of the Sheikh; and, when I was there, acarmut, the cradle sort of conveyance in which ladies and children are housed on the camel’s back, was in the saint’s keeping. This custom of leaving furniture, and even provisions, in the keeping of a reputed saint—that is to say, of depositing them on his tomb—to be taken again at the return of the owners with the caravan, is very common;and travellers in several parts of Africa have mentioned it. I have never heard of such deposits being stolen.
We did not stop at Marag; but I tasted the water, which was quite clear and cool, and had a strong smell of sulphuretted hydrogen. I did not drink of it sufficiently to test the assertion of the Arabs, who boast of its purgative qualities; but, from its taste and smell, I should suspect that it contains sulphate of magnesia. The bottle, in which I had brought away a specimen of it for analysis, was broken on the journey. At several points near the well, the stratified rock rises in isolated masses from the sand; their weather-beaten sides, with the slabs which have fallen, and lie scattered round their base, have, at a slight distance, the appearance of ruins. A few stunted trees in the midst rendered the whole a melancholy scene.
The next morning the sun rose in a thick mist, like a November fog in England. Its pale white orb could be gazed at without wincing; below it was a luminous spot, like a second sun, and again below this a long line of bright light rested on the horizon. At eight the mist began to disperse, and then in the opposite side of the heaven a distinct bow of white was visible, faintly fringed at the lower extremities with the prismatic colours. Twenty hours of travelling during two days, over unmitigated sand, brought us to the skirts of the oasis of Augila. It was near sunset when Irode into the palm-tree plantations to seek a place for the camp. The first appearance presented to the eye by the large plantation rising in the midst of the loose sand, was most singular. The rosy light which coloured the ground when the sun’s rays penetrated the tall stems, gave the part which was in shade a white appearance like snow, which, contrasted with the bright green of the bushy young palms, lent to the whole the appearance of a winter scene, while the air was balmy as summer, and the bright evening sky glowed with orange and purple tints, such as Italy or Greece cannot show. The scene one might liken to a Flemish snow-piece seen in Naples on a summer’s day.
AugilaandJalo.اوجلهandجالوا. — Group of Oases. — The Majabra Arabs. — The Sultan of Waday. — Turkish Drunkards. — Inconveniences of Travel.
November17.—The palm groves extend for more than three miles in a curved hollow to the town of Augila, and nearly as much beyond it, forming almost a half circle of verdure. The fertile part of the oasis is considerably beneath the level of the surrounding country, so that the water being nearer the surface, the roots of the palm trees, which pierce downwards to a great depth, reach it, and thus obtain their nourishment. The town is built on a slight elevation, nearly equidistant from the two furthest points of the oasis. It is surrounded by a thin mud wall, some twelve feet high, but not more than nine or ten inches thick; this wall is in a most delapidated condition, in several places entirely destroyed, and in others worn into innumerable holes. Six gate towers of equally substantial architecture give entrance to the long and tortuous lanes of the capital.
Sheikh Othman-el-Fadil, the hereditary Sheikh of Augila, and the Kehia who happened to be in the town, came to my tent as soon as I arrived. The former I had seen in Benghazi, and he showed me every attention, convenient and inconvenient, in his power, by way, probably, of asserting his right to the family name, which means “the complaisant.” I returned the Governor’s visit, and thus had an opportunity of seeing “the castle,” which is situated near the great mosque—a not less ruinous structure than the external walls. It is composed of several very small courts with recesses, which serve as sleeping or store rooms; the open court, in which are mastabahs—mud divans covered with carpets—is the place of reception. The Governor either could not or would not tell me the number of inhabitants, or even of the houses, saying they were written in the Deftar, the domesday-book of Benghazi; and, in fact, he seemed quite determined that it should not be in my power to quote him as giving any information dangerous to the State.
I looked into the principal mosque in passing; like all the other buildings it is of mud and small stones, with many low columns and arches of the same material; the roof being formed of small conical cupolas like sugar loaves, some of which are four feet in diameter, and eight or ten in height. This is the consecratedstyle of building for the mosques, of which there are fourteen. From the best information I could obtain, it seemed that the number of inhabited houses was under 500. The Kehia, an Arab of Benghazi, only comes here once a year, and then to collect the tribute; his visit ended, the Wagily, as the inhabitants of Augila are called, are left to follow their own devices. The Sheikh has a traditionary, but no legal authority; if crimes occur, his duty is to report them to the Bey of Benghazi, and wait for orders before sending the offenders with the witnesses to the Bey for judgment. Of course, with such a system, the only check upon crime and violence is in the natural disposition of the people, or in the fear of blood feuds; recourse is, indeed, rarely or never had to the distant and doubtful justice thus to be sought in Benghazi.
The inhabitants of these oases indulge greatly in a slightly-intoxicating drink, derived from the palm tree. Sheikh Othman, who himself professes not to indulge in this forbidden luxury, was so obliging as to take me to one of his gardens to see the method by which it is obtained. The tree is stripped of its branches, and the crown cut off, so as to lay bare the heart; a small drain is then cut in the edge, to which the mouth of a jar is applied, and for months the tree yields its daily tribute oflagby. From time to time the crust is cut from the wound to facilitate the flow of thejuice; for this purpose an instrument is used, in shape like a horse fleam, tied at right angles to a handle of wood. After three or four months, the wound is generally closed; the tree does not yield fruit for some years after this exhausting process, and will die if the wound be left too long open. It seemed to me, however, that the tree never recovers its stately appearance, but ever in after life has a debauched, drunken look about its branches, indicative of its former intemperate habits. The drink itself is of a milky white colour; on the first day it is drawn, it is sweet, like the milk of the cocoa-nut; on the second, acid and slightly vinous; and, on the third, it is already vinegar. Though drinkable in large draughts in the second stage, when it has only a slightly acid taste, it is still a poor substitute for the smallest small beer. The Wagily are rich in about 16,000 date trees, and their gardens produce gourds, melons, tomatos, and onions, with a small quantity of kesab and barley.
I next day continued my journey to Jalo, where I hoped to make arrangements for my further progress. On the same day that I left Benghazi, a Turk, dependant on the Kaimahan, set off for Jalo, to take the census of the date trees, on which the taxes are levied; the result of the last one having been unsatisfactory to a large party of the inhabitants. He was accompanied by Yunes, one of the sheikhs, who had givenme every promise of assistance, though not disguising the difficulty I should probably find in pursuing my original plan, which was to go to the Koffra, and thence eastwards towards the Nile. Such a route was quite new to the Majabra, and no one would venture to join me in exploring it; I could not even find any one willing to accompany me to Gebabo,كبابو. The Zowayah had already returned; after whom parties of Tibbus often visit these oases to glean the fruit which remains on the date trees.
Jalo, 28 miles, or eight hours E.S.E. from Augila, is by far the most important in this group of oases; the name, now restricted to the first, was probably in ancient times applied to the whole group. The oases, according to the earliest accounts we have of them, contained no fixed inhabitants; the Libyan nomads paid them a summer visit to gather dates, in the same way that the Zowayah now go to the Koffra. In the time of the Roman domination of Africa, they contained a small settlement, which, probably, had been formed to meet the necessities of the caravans. Jalo is approached by a hollow, bordered on each side by rows of tamarisks, which gradually opens into a plain, bounded by low sand hills. On two of them, facing each other, Lebلبand El’Ergالعرق, two villages of much humbler pretensions than Augila, are built. Each contains a few mud houses, but the dwellings aremostly huts (zeribah), constructed of palm branches, generally of a conical form, eight or nine feet in diameter, and rarely more than seven high at the apex. The mosques are mere square mud structures, without any attempt at ornament; and, instead of walls and gate-towers, a simple palisading of palm branches surrounds each village. Jalo is, however, more populous than Augila, and a far greater degree, not of comfort—this is unknown in such places—but ofbien être, is found here. This arises not only from the great extent of its palm groves, but principally from the occupation of its inhabitants, who are all merchants. They are of different origin from the Wagily, some speaking Arabic, whilst others, both in appearance and language, preserve the Berber type. El’Erg contains 4000 inhabitants, allowing five to a family, which is rather above than below the average; it contains seven mosques, distinguished only by little white flags, and is governed by twelve sheikhs. Leb, which is but half this size, rejoices in only three sheikhs and as many mosques.
I encamped in the plain between the two villages, where I found Hafiz Effendi’s tent already pitched; he had chosen this central position by way of proving his impartiality, for there is, of course, great rivalry between the two places. I took my ground between two large clumps of tamarisks (ef-teleh), the only vegetationwhich the plain presented; their graceful foliage affords a relief to the eye, the small crystals of salt with which it is covered giving it an ashy gray colour; here, then, was an imperfect representation of the three Turkish elements of happiness—a bright eye, a green shade, and a running stream. The tamarisk clumps were the only variety in the monotonous yellow which surrounded me on every side, for the date groves are only visible at a distance in one direction. It would be possible to render the whole of this plain productive, but the Majabra have too little taste for agriculture to take the necessary trouble. About three feet beneath the sand is found a layer of whitish clay, which, when uncovered and watered, yields crops of barley, wheat, and a few vegetables; but the labour required for this is great. The people are addicted to an idle roving life, and as the date-trees produce abundant harvests, almost without care, other cultivation is very much neglected. The dates are of an inferior quality to those of Augila, but they afford the principal article of food, not only to man, but also for all his dependent quadrupeds. Horses, dogs, camel, sheep, are all put on this same regimen, which Sheikh Yunes pretended was a very wholesome one, but the blackened jagged teeth, universal here, seemed to contradict him.
The palm groves which surround Jalo contain upwardsof 100,000 trees, the tax upon each of which is four Turkish piastres. The former census only counted 45,000, but the new one, which is now going on, will raise this number to 65,000, an increase of taxation produced by the complaints of the people themselves, who are now, as may be supposed, furious at their own stupidity. For several evenings after the census began, when the people saw the turn it was likely to take, the women of the two villages assembled after dark and filled the air, in alternate chorus, with yelling curses upon Hafiz Effendi. He allowed them the uninterrupted enjoyment of this female form of respectful remonstrance, and after a few nights, either from hoarseness or disgust at finding their eloquence disregarded, this expression of public opinion was abandoned. I went two or three times to see the method adopted for taking the census; nothing could be simpler or more tedious. The commissioners, surrounded by all the fifteen sheikhs, and the greater part of the proprietors, male and female, of the plantation they were visiting, went from place to place, counting and recounting the trees. Every artifice was put in practice to distract their attention, or to puzzle the commissioners as to ownership; indeed, this latter was no difficult matter, for many trees have three or four owners, or one man’s property is dispersed here and there, through the whole oasis. A good date-tree willyield three hundredweight of fruit on alternate years; the produce being generally smaller in the intervening year. As dates are worth about 20 piastres a hundredweight, the tax is about a tithe of the produce.
The wells of Jalo are all brackish, and the nearest sweet water is at a distance of six hours; hither, at rare intervals, the ladies of the place resort to wash the cotton shirts and woollen plaids, which are the costume of their lords. The scanty fauna is confined to the fox, wolf, or jackal, fovina and gerboa. There are snakes, which are said to be venomous and of large size, but though I offered backshish I could obtain no specimens of them, either here or at Augila. Some exuviæ, which I found in a quarry near my tent, at the latter place, proved the fact of their existence and their size. Of antiquities I could learn nothing; the subterranean temple, with a cubical idol, mentioned by some writer, the oldest inhabitants had never heard of, and the only curiosity which they could point out to me, was a single large hewn stone, about four miles south-west of El’Erg, under which they suppose a treasure to be concealed.
The Majabra are, almost without exception, addicted to excessive drinking, owing, no doubt, to the facility of procuringlagby. At an early age they commence their apprenticeship in trade by journeys to Benghazi, soon followed by longer courses toEgypt and Fezzan. They are the great slave-dealers of these countries, purchasing their human merchandise in Fezzan, from wholesale dealers, many of whom are Majabra settled there. The latter make every year an incursion into Bornou, and return with troops of five or six hundred slaves, which they afterwards sell in retail to the men of Jalo. The most valuable black slaves are called Fellatah; they have nearly straight hair, and their features bear little of the negro type. Their distinctive mark is three slashes on the cheeks and two on the temples. The gains in this trade are very large, and many of the Jalese have amassed in it large sums; which sums, however, they have no means of spending. The women are generally unveiled, wearing a long blue shirt and a milayah on the head, like the fellah women in Egypt; they enjoy a good reputation for purity of morals.
Finding myself obliged to renounce all hopes of going to the Koffra, I contented myself with gathering such information as I could from those who had been there. The nearest oasis is distant six days’ journey, over a flat sandy desert, unbroken by rock or shrub, and having no wells. The remaining ones are respectively at a good day’s journey from each other; the furthest and largest, Gebabo,قبابوا, being considered twelve days distant. These oases are totally uninhabited, except in autumn, when the Zowayahproceed from their summer station, Ijherri, in a body to gather the dates and figs, which grow there in wild luxuriance. They are represented as abounding in sweet water, which is obtained in large quantities by merely scratching a hole in the sand. I was assured that the Koffra contained no monument of antiquity, and were mere fertile spots, like some I should see on my journey to the east, inhabited only by the jackal and wild cow. The Tibbus, as far as I could learn, are a timid and inoffensive people, not possessing fire-arms, and, except for the pilgrimage (they are Moslemin), never visiting Jalo or Siwah. With Fezzan they carry on an insignificant trade, chiefly in dromedaries (of which they have an excellent breed) and sulphur, which they exchange on the frontier for cotton, cloths, and beads.
The caravans arriving from Waday reach Gebabo in about forty-two days from Warah, and having come twelve without water, their camels are so exhausted that they stop here, and send to Jalo to hire camels to continue the journey to Benghazi; there they generally spend six months, buying cottons, coral, paper, and, I think, arms. The Sultan of Waday is himself the proprietor of the greater part of the caravan, and in the long intervals between its visits, the Frank merchants lay in stores of such curiosities or elegancies as his Wadayan majesty is likely to be pleased with.I heard of a plated dinner service, which had been ordered by one of them, in hopes the caravan might arrive this year; at its last departure it conveyed a carriage to him. The Sultan is said to have began to coin dollars from a die sent to him from Europe; up to a very recent time the entire circulation was in Spanish dollars, and writing paper served in lieu of smaller coins. A fowl is bought with a sheet of writing paper, six or eight are paid for a sheep—the most original paper currency. The country is said to be rich in pasturage and arable land, and two mountains yield copper and iron. No European having ever visited Waday, its other mineral and vegetable riches are unknown, though a small quantity of gold dust is collected either within its frontiers or from the countries to the south. The Sultan claims to be a sheikh of the family of the Abassides, and was for many years a refugee in Cairo, where he learned to appreciate the arts of civilisation. If he still reign, it is not improbable that a European would be warmly welcomed at his court, but no one could venture there without having previously obtained his consent. While in Jalo I heard rumours from Fezzan, to the effect, that he had grown blind, and had been deposed by his son, a blood-thirsty tyrant, who soon made himself so hateful to his vizirs and influential men, that they reinstated the father, who is now only a puppet inthe hands of one of the rival factions warring for the sovereignty. Should these news be confirmed, or in the doubts which they suggest, no one could prudently venture into Waday.[8]
The Turkish Government levies at Jalo heavy duties upon the produce of Waday, 25 dollars on the cantar of ivory (98 lbs.)—a sum more than its original value, and one dollar a head upon the slaves, upon whom a further duty of seven dollars and a half is charged at Benghazi. Those shipped for Constantinople, however, go duty free, the supply of so necessary a commodity for the capital being encouraged in every possible way. The Wadayan slaves are amongst the least intelligent negroes in Africa, and have the reputation of being thievishly inclined; they are, therefore, the cheapest, but the profit on their sale is very great, their value at Warah hardly exceeding a dollar and a half.
Jalo was decidedly not an amusing residence, and my impatience to continue my journey, when I found that I could only reach Egypt by way of Siwah, was not diminished by the delays which I half suspected my friend Yunes of occasioning. In this I did himinjustice, for, even if he intentionally sought means to put off my departure, after-occurrences lead me to think that he did this in my interest; of his good-will I had no idea at the time, and I only felt annoyed at being detained, and certain that some intrigue was at the bottom of it. He, every day, expected the arrival of his son, who was on his way from Fezzan with a few slaves for the Egyptian market, and he wished me to accompany him. For this I had little inclination, having no wish to join a slave caravan, and, above all, desiring to be master of my own movements—Hoc amo quod possum quâlibet ire viâ.
I had long exhausted every topic of information upon which the Jalese could enlighten me, and my only amusement now were the rare visits of the Sheikh and Hafiz Effendi. At whatever hour they came, the coffee which was given to them was never the only refreshment they reckoned upon being treated to, and they never failed to ask for something stronger. I was provided with a small stock of rum for such a contingency, being well aware that many of the Turkishemployésare eager votaries of the bottle; but, before my departure from Jalo, my friends had completely exhausted my stock; when they had done so, I may add, their visits became less frequent. Besides drinking in my tent—not in my company, for I never joined them—they thought nothing of asking for abottle with which to indulge in a private kef in their own quarters—glad to make something out of the Frank; they could not plead the excuse of the bottle being a rarity to them, as they were in constant communication with Benghazi, where the forbidden drink is plentiful. With us it is shameful for a man out of his teens to be seen drunk; with them it is only a sin. One day, during my stay at Grennah, the secretary to the Government, said to be a most upright man, came to see me; he drank, before, during, and after dinner, Marsala and brandy to such an extent, that when, at last, wearied with his meaningless loquacity, I insisted upon his going to bed in the tent I had prepared for him, he fell flat in the attempt to rise from the couch, breaking the bottles he had just emptied; and then it was with difficulty that he allowed himself to be put to bed by one of my servants. The next day he alluded, without an appearance of shame, to his evening’s exploit, saying, if any damage was done, it was not he but the wine that did it. The great object in getting drunk, (kef they call it,) is to procure the soundness of sleep which follows, and hence the pleasantest liquor, in their estimation, is that which has the speediest effect.
I was, in fact, thoroughly tired of my stay in Jalo; and what rendered it particularly exasperating was the persuasion which every day took more strongly holdof me—that I was the victim of a speculation, on the part of these people, to detain me, until, tired of waiting, I should be ready to subscribe to any terms they chose to offer me. This idea only made me more determined to refuse what I knew to be an exorbitant demand. Hafiz Effendi possessed no authority, and Yunes, if he had any, did not, as I thought, exert it. After concluding a bargain for camels, at nearly a third more than the usual price, my men returned the next morning and tried to extort another dollar; this I refused, and no one, naturally enough, would incur the ill-will of his people in defence of a stranger, by obliging them to stick to their bargain. Consequently, in a fit of unreasonable disgust—unreasonable, for it is always better to put up with such annoyances in travelling than to subject oneself to fresh and perhaps more serious ones, only to give proof of a resolution which people cannot appreciate—I sent off to Augila to ask Shiekh Othman to provide me with camels to return there, and to look out for others for my further journey. I had now been a month in Jalo, and on comparing my expenditure with the state of my purse, I discovered to my dismay that, thanks to the dearness of everything here, I could not start without sending to my good friend Mr. Xerri, in Benghazi, for a fresh supply of the needful. I must do Yunes the justice to say, that when I announced my determination,he did all he could to dissuade me from it, offering me, after the things were already packed for the return to Augila, money, camels, anything. He felt that I had come there in a sort of way as his guest, and that leaving him as I did was a slur upon his hospitality. I persisted, however, in my determination, and in the end was punished for it as I deserved. I never yet opposed myself to an imposition, that I did not end by submitting to at least as great a one, and having all the annoyance without the glory of martyrdom into the bargain. After each lesson I promise myself to consult, in future, my real convenience, throwing abstract notions of justice to the dogs on the next occasion, but I rarely, when the temptation comes, am able to resist it.
The rival Sheikhs. — Weary Days at Augila. — Chain of Oases. — Marriage Feasts. — Marriage Gifts.
Withbitter maledictions against the fathers of all the Majabra, I saw my luggage loaded to return to Augila, and then started with a single servant for the district called Ijherri,إِجهرّي, eighteen miles to the north-east. It is a large village of square palm-branch huts, lying in the midst of date-trees, and is almost deserted at the present moment, as not a dozen persons remain in it during the winter; its situation among trees renders it more picturesque than either Jalo or Augila, and the trees themselves are remarkable as the first specimens I had seen of untrimmed, perfectly wild date-trees. The Arabs are too lazy to pay the slight attention to the cultivation of the trees which the Wagily pay to theirs; and on many of them the dead boughs of the last twenty years could be seen drooping in a thick fringe round their stems. Ifound that the very few people who still lingered behind the rest of their tribes, were inveteratelagbydrinkers, and had stayed behind to indulge in their favourite vice.
The next day I turned backwards south-west to Augila, where I was warmly welcomed by Sheikh Othman, who could not conceal his pleasure at my applying to him, in preference to taking camels from Yunes. There had been an old feud between them when Othman’s father was Sheikh of Jalo as well as Augila; the Majabra, however, revolted from his authority, applied to the Pacha of Tripoli, and obtained an independent government, but not before Yunes, with some of his friends, had waylaid and murdered their old sheikh. How the quarrel was made up I shall afterwards have occasion to tell. Othman pretended that I was not the first victim of the insolence of the Majabra, as the last Turkish commissioners of the census had been treated still worse, and had only been enabled to return to Benghazi through his means. Othman el Fadil is a perfect specimen of an African Sheikh-el-bilad, the most despicable combination of cringing servility and insolent tyranny that barbarism has produced. These good qualities in him are combined with extreme cunning and no small amount of natural talent. After being despoiled of his hereditary authority, he made shift to repossess himself of it; he evenmanaged to resist the authority of the Turkish Pacha of Tripoli, after the deprivation of the last native Governor; and he now contrives by art rather than violence to maintain himself in his position. He is probably wealthy, for half the cultivated land in the oasis belongs to him, and he has also possessions in Jalo and in Fezzan. As a proof of his shrewdness, I may mention, that since the death of the last Cadi, which took place fifteen years ago, he has persuaded the people to do without this functionary, so that all marriages and other contracts are now made in his presence. He gains immensely in influence by this arrangement, and the people probably do not lose by it; for as the appointment of the Cadi is in the hands of the Cadi of Tripoli, who buys his office in Constantinople, and as he in turn sells all the posts depending upon him, it is not improbable that the purchaser sells the justice he dispenses.
During my long stay here, his attentions were, after his fashion, unceasing; he rarely omitted paying at least one visit a day to my tent, and frequently sent supplies of vegetables, or fresh baked bread, or new drawnlagby, for all which he took care to exact handsome payment, asking for and carrying off everything he saw which struck his fancy, which was a most miscellaneous one. He pretended that he could speak four of the languages of the interior, as well as Turkish,but I never could induce him to let me see the vocabulary of them, which he said he had drawn up; more than once I had, in other matters, occasion to admire the liveliness of his imagination, so that he may very possibly be mistaken in his assertions. Whatever the amount of his learning, it is unquestioned by his subjects, who look up to him as a prodigy of wisdom. He was particularly fond of taking a peep through my sextant, and of astonishing any of his people who might be in the tent, by giving them explanations of the use of the “Astrolabe,” which would have astonished Hadley, and been new to Sawitsch.
Time wore slowly away at Augila, and the fifteen days, before whose expiration I had been assured my messenger would have returned from Benghazi, had passed without bringing any news of him. A dull Christmas was to be expected in such a heathen place; but what I was not prepared for was the extreme cold of the nights, during which the thermometer sometimes sank to zero; and in the long evening, from dark till bedtime, I occasionally had as much difficulty in keeping out the cold, as in finding occupation. The Wagily, unless there be afantasiaon foot, go early to bed, and the Sheikh’s conversation was not sufficiently instructive to make me wish for his company; he was shy of speaking about the customs ofhis people, and they seem to have preserved no tradition of their origin or former history.
I have already described the oasis of Augila as extending in a half circle of about six miles in a hollow, around the foot of a range of compacted sand lying over a white limestone. In this space is comprised a large tract of brown morass, covered with a crust of saline earth, beneath which are bitter waters. Such a morass is described by Beechey on the coast of the Syrtis, and I had reason to respect the propriety of the warning given him by his guide, as only a yard from the path which runs across it the thin crust gave way under my horse, who began to flounder, and was only able by a violent effort to extricate himself. In general, the water of the wells in Augila is very good; the salt which it contains being almost imperceptible to a person accustomed to that of Jalo.
I had encamped on a hill used as a burial-ground, to the east of the town, and water was drawn for me from a well close at hand, which was used to water one of the Sheikh’s fields. I was astonished one morning, soon after I arrived, by finding the water of my sponge bath sensibly warm, and, on inquiry, I found that, instead of standing as usual all night ready for use, it had only just been drawn from the well. The thermometer, when immersed in it, showed, two hours after sunrise, a temperature of 74°, while the external airwas 52°. Many of the wells have this degree of warmth; others are quite cold, and these are either brackish or very salt. At some distance from the modern town, following the inside of the curve of plantations and to the left of it, there are in a small field some remains of reticulated brickwork, and the ground in the neighbourhood is full of broken pottery. What remains is too little to authorise a conjecture as to its use.
Augila is on the caravan road from Fezzan to Egypt and Benghazi; the intermediate stations between Augila and Murzuk are Maradah, an oasis three days distant, and Zalla as much further on. At an hour and a half, on the road to Maradah, which follows a north-west direction in leaving Augila, I found, at a considerable elevation above the cultivated land, a number of small groups of rock of volcanic origin, forming an irregular oval like the remains of a crater. The rocks are gray and black lava, as heavy and compact as basalt. Ten hours before reaching Maradah,مَراَده, there is a small oasis, Jabna,جَبْنه, and two hours further Hairaigab,حيَريَقه, both inhabited by Arabs of the tribes of Hamud and Zowayah. In Maradah there is one of those curious wells whose water contains a salt, doubtless of iron, which imparts to it the property of dyeing cotton and woollen clothsblack. I think it is Belzoni who mentions the existence of such a spring in the little oasis, without, however, stating that the stuff to be dyed is first boiled in a decoction of bark. There is another well of the same kind in Fezzan, at a place called Agar, which, like this one at Maradah, is called ’Ain essobagh, or the Dyer’s Well. At Zalla tame ostriches are kept in the houses, and it must be in this way that the finer feathers, imported into Europe, are obtained, for those of birds killed in the chase and brought to market, are almost always soiled and broken. A Fezzan Fikhy, who came to me while in Siwah, supplied me with one other fact concerning Fezzan: the place where sulphur is found is called Wady ’ain Ghadga (غدقه), near a hill called ’Angud (عنقود), ten days east of Murzuk.
Whilst I was in Augila two marriages took place, one of them that of the Sheikh (only his thirteenth) with the daughter of my friend Yunes. She was old and a widow; the only attraction I could discover seemed to be the relation in which their respective fathers had stood to each other, of which I have already spoken. The festivities were commenced, some evenings before the marriage, with the loud shrill cries of women, accompanied by occasional musket shots. On inquiry, I was told that all the female friends of the bridegroom were assembled in his house,each bringing her mill to help in grinding wheat to make bread for the marriage feast. The usual quantity ground is from six to eight hundredweight, but sometimes, if the Sheikh might be believed, as much as eighty hundredweight is consumed on such occasions. This bread is partly sent to the houses of the principal people, like our old-fashioned wedding-cake, and partly eaten at the feast, which consists chiefly of dates and large supplies oflagby.
The evening before the wedding, the young men and boys of the village assembled with all the donkeys which they could procure, and, loading them with fine sand from the hill where I was encamped, brought it to the bridal house, and strewed it in the rooms. In the intervals between the departure and return of the donkeys, the boys who remained danced to the sound of their own voices and the beating of a drum; this drum is made of a circle of wood about the size of a tambourine, on each side of which a gazelle-skin is stretched; it is beaten with a knotted rope. The first marriage was that of a young girl, a relation of Othman’s, but as she belonged to the town, there was nothing remarkable in the bridal procession: it was, as usual, accompanied by the Zaghaghit and firing of guns. The arrival of the Sheikh’s bride with acortège, including all the men in the place, but none of her own relations,was a much more solemn affair. She was carried in state in a closely-veiled carmout, covered with white cotton hangings, round which an old red silk scarf was tied; a man on horseback preceded her, carrying a white flag. When thecortègearrived in sight of the town, several halts were made, during which there were rude dancing, firing of muskets, and evolutions of the three or four horsemen whom the place furnished. While the lady was thus being brought in procession to her new home, the gallant bridegroom was quietly seated in my tent looking on, and it was not until thecortègeentered the town that he betook himself to his house.
Here, when the camel knelt at the door, before the howdah containing its precious burthen was removed from its back, a sheep’s throat was cut over its right knee, in manner of sacrifice. The Sheikh, after many ineffectual hints which I would not understand, at last boldly begged of me a sash woven with gold which he had one day see me wear; this he wished to form part of the corbeil, and in letting him have it I took the opportunity of inspecting the ornaments destined for the bride. They consisted of two pairs of broad silver bands to be worn as bracelets, weighing respectively ten and fourteen ounces, and a pair of very curious silver earrings of Tunis make. They were in shape like the young moon, two inches and a half in diameter,two-thirds of the circumference being covered with filigree bosses, from which five pear-shaped filigree pendents hung, each earring weighing 160 grammes. I felt a great curiosity to see the cartilage capable of supporting such a weight. The marriage feast was diversified by dancing to the sound of the drum, and a curious double clarionet, formed of the leg bones of the eagle or vulture, which discoursed sweet music in the tone of a very broken-winded bagpipe. The dancing, like that of the Egyptian Alnach (in whom youth, good looks, and sex hardly excuse the peculiar style), was here performed by a hideous man, and was utterly disgusting. When the bride had entered the house, the festivities were terminated by a discharge of fire-arms, and the company retired, to meet again the next evening, and to renew the eating and dancing.
It is no uncommon thing to find men in these countries who have married twenty or thirty times, the sum given for a wife rarely exceeding six or eight dollars. When tired of a spouse, or if she do not prove fruitful, a divorce follows as a matter of course, and the lady does not suffer in general estimation; having borne children seems to be no protection against the caprice of the men. This licence is utterly opposed to Turkish habits, for divorce is more disreputable toa man among the Osmanli than with us, but the assertors of the rights of women in Europe would find this régime very congenial to their theories, for a woman can always force her husband to a divorce, even without laying her slipper at the Cadi’s feet.
Vexatious delay. — Lose the track. — Short commons in the Desert. — Genuine Arab hospitality. — En route for Siwah. — Sand valleys. — Scene of desolation. — Signs of volcanic action. — Approach Siwah. — Sepulchral caves. — Arrive at Siwah.
January13.—My messenger returned several days ago from Benghazi; and Sheikh Othman had a fortnight before assured me that the camels were ready to start with me at a moment’s warning; and then again, after several days’ delay, had promised them for this morning, but I saw nothing of them. At length, on Saturday morning, Othman, accompanied by several other persons, came to see the baggage tied up and weighed—a long operation, which I hastened as much as I could, being anxious to get away from a place of which I was heartily tired. Where were the camels all this time? They were at the other end of the town, and would be brought up immediately; but as soon as all seemed in order for starting, my friend Othman went off, saying, that we should start with the dawn next morning. I was completelyin his power, and had nothing for it but to take patience, and the more so, since I now found that the camel owners—with whom I had only communicated through my trusty friend, and to whom he, in his anxiety to serve me, had promised an exorbitant hire on my part—were, in fact, himself and one of his friends. I consoled myself with the idea of taking it out of him by suppressing the backshish I had intended to give him; but this was poor consolation for the previous days thus lost.
Sunday, Jan.16.—The sun had been up for more than three hours before the camels came, and then there were only six instead of nine. These I had loaded and dispatched by a little after midday, having been promised that the others should be sent to me in half an hour. Hour after hour went by, and I sat fretting among the remains of my baggage; at length the day wearing on, I determined to follow the camels which had already started, leaving a servant to come on with the rest as soon as they arrived. I had found out from the people of the place, that the men with whom the original bargain was made had been sent away, as the Sheikh, finding he could make so profitable an investment, had determined to supply the greater number of camels himself; he had not, however, yet purchased them all—and hence the delay.
Half an hour before sunset, no camels appearing, Imounted my horse and rode off alone, to seek for my caravan, and—what I was beginning to feel a great want of—my dinner. The road was over gravelly sand, and as long as daylight lasted it was easy enough to follow the tracks of the camels; but as night closed in, and the sky became overcast with fleecy clouds, which obscured the moon and stars, the track gradually grew invisible, and I could only guess at the right path; so keeping my horse’s head as straight as possible, I rode on. There was no appearance of fire in any direction, and after four hours I found myself among palm-trees, which I recognised as those of Jalo. It would have been folly to attempt to return to find the road I had deviated from, in the darkness, and it was too late to ask for hospitality in Jalo; I, therefore, tied my horse to a tree, and lay down supperless and hungry under a palm-bush near him. I was soon asleep; but, tormented with thirst, I dreamed of the gurgling streams of Damascus, and the water-sellers in the streets of Cairo, with their leaf-crowned jars of cool water. Their cry, “God’s fountain for the thirsty,” awoke me, and the first sound I heard was the rumbling of water in a vase. “Oh, man,” I cried, “bring water.” There was no answer, as my voice fell echoless in the still night, and I turned again to sleep, thinking I had dreamed; but in another moment I again heard thesound, and this time I was sure I was awake. I sat up and listened; presently the noise was repeated, and then I heard the pawing of my horse, and felt the branches of the bush I was lying under shaken. I rose, and found that my horse, thirsty as his master, and more sagacious than he, had nosed out a vase oflagbyamong the branches; the booming noise which had awoke me being caused by his ineffectual attempts to get his head into a jar which had an orifice of about an inch. My thirst in the meantime had increased with my dream, and setting aside all sense of the impropriety of theft. I took a draught of the cool palm-juice, which, for the first time, seemed to me a pleasant beverage, and again lay down, after replacing the jar and tying my horse in a position to prevent his repeating his vain addresses to the bottle.
In the gray of the morning, I mounted with the intention of retracing my steps and joining my caravan, but just as I emerged from the palm trees, I saw two men and a camel coming from Augila. At this sight my malignant star suggested to me the idea of saving time, and not returning on my way—a bad omen in the beginning of a journey; so I rode up to the new comers, asking if either would accompany me to the Wadi, the place of rendezvous for caravans starting to Siwah; and one of them saying he knew the way, agreed to guide me. I knew that my servant, when hesaw the camels arrive without me, would at once conclude that I had ridden straight to the Wadi, and without a misgiving I rode on. I had eaten nothing since an early breakfast on the previous day, and when midday came and we were still far from the Wadi, I turned to see what store of good things my saddlebags contained. I found in them only a single sea-biscuit. Of this I gave half to my conductor, and, unable to make any impression on what remained, I reserved it till my arrival in the Wadi. We reached it at half-past two, but there was no appearance of the Cafilah, and I now began to contemplate with some dismay the possibility of the Ottoman having again broken his word, and having another day to wait with my not abundant store of provisions. There was at least water here, and this was all I had to give my horse and dog; my tarboush served to draw it, and for them to drink out of. The Wadi was here and there dotted with tufts of a bright-looking thorny grass, and to enable him to pick up a few mouthfuls, and at the same time prevent him from going far off, I tied my horse’s forelegs together, and sent him to look for his dinner.
Meantime my guide had made me a fire, which he lighted from the smouldering embers left by a caravan, which must have started a few hours before we came up; and I then dismissed him, showing the half biscuit whichremained, as a good reason for his not staying with me, while I assured him that my people could not be long in coming up. Evening was fast approaching, so I ate half the remainder of my biscuit soaked in water, gathered sticks to feed my fire, and choosing the sheltered side of a palm-bush, looked to my arms and arranged my saddle and saddle-cloth, so as to make something which I persuaded myself was a bed. I had not even a cloak, as in a fit of carefulness for my steed I had removed it to save him the weight, never reckoning on such a contingency as the present; the only additional covering I had to the white trowsers and jacket I wore, was one of those light india-rubber overcoats, bearing a barbarously meaningless name, such as the classic public of the Strand delights in. The sky was bright and clear, and the air proportionately cold. I had no provisions, no wine, no brandy, no covering, not even a cigar, but I had a chronometer, a sextant, a compass, a thermometer, a telescope, in fact a whole observatory of instruments to console me for the want of a dinner, and I was thus enabled to certify, that at dawn the thermometer marked 43°; and the sharp air, contrasted with the heat of the sun during the previous day, made this seem still more piercingly cold.
In one point at least I am a true Englishman, for I can brook anything better than the want of my“victuals;” next to this the most painful feeling I know is that of inaction. I had had enough of my two days’ fast, and in the morning I thought to avoid further endurance of either evil by mounting my poor horse and going back, somewhere or other; my ambition in fact was to keep moving. The old gray, knowing my temper pretty well, after an eight months’ acquaintance, had probably foreseen this; he woke me half a dozen times during the night by rubbing his nose against my legs, by way of asking how I felt, and at last getting some cross words for disturbing me, had made himself scarce. As far as the telescope could command he was not to be seen, and I was in no humour for a tramp in search of him through the loose sand. The morning wore heavily, a quarter of my biscuit still remained, but I reserved it with an idea of keeping rather than eating my cake, while from time to time I took a look to see if “anybody was coming.” At last I saw a spot moving in the distance, a single man, but so wrapped in his borneau that I could not distinguish him. He came straight towards me, and then I recognised him as my guide of the previous day, who had brought me a basket of dates, some corn for my horse, and two pieces of stick to kindle a fire. I sat down on the sand with the basket before me, he sitting in true Arab style of hospitality at a little distance to see me eat, and while Ipicked out a few dates without relish (appetite was gone, and I fancied them dirty), he told me why he had returned. It was midnight when he reached his cottage in Jalo; his mother got up, made him a fire, and gave him something to eat while he told her how he had spent his day. He then lay down to sleep, but his mother said to him, “My son, this is no time for sleep; my heart is troubled for the man in the Wadi; rise and go to him, for he is alone, and I fear robbers; carry him these dates, for he is hungry.” Abd-er-rahman started afresh and reached me about ten in the morning, having hardly rested during forty-eight hours. When he had seen me eat, he went to the well and washed, and then employed himself in gathering date-stones in the sand round the fire-places of previous caravans. I was puzzled to see him thus groping in the earth, and visions of truffles, which I had read of in Theophrastus as being found in this desert, rose before me. Were I given to the vice ofgourmandise, as those whose palates are not gifted with discrimination call the sense of taste, I could not have hastened with more alacrity to join in the search; but my disappointment was great, when I found that he was only gathering old date-stones, which he pounded and then gave, mixed with straw and water, to his cousin’s cow.
In about four hours, the caravan and my horse, whichhad gone to join it, arrived, and I learned, as I had anticipated, that this fresh delay was due to my Sheikh, from whom, however, I thought that I was now pretty safe. But he had still a trick of villany in store for me, for when the camels came to load (and they carried less weight on account of the water I should require during the first days), his people refused to carry water unless I paid half a dollar a skin extra. I had no resource, as I was still too near Jalo to force them to move on against their will, but to submit, which I did with secret vows to have them punished in Siwah for the imposition. I little guessed what would be my reception there.
It was twelve when I started from the Wadi after filling a dozen skins at its well, whose water is “sweet as those of heaven,” as Abd-er-rahman poetically called rain, though the sand from which it springs is mixed with crystals of common salt, admirably white and pure. For an hour and a half the ground is dotted thickly with hillocks of the Tumaran, of which each camel received a bundle in passing, as during some days little or no wood is to be found on the road. This is a low-growing woody plant with spare short fleshy leaves, whose thick twisted roots creep over the sand near its surface, forming low mounds. It is thornless, is easily torn up in large pieces, and though alive and in leaf, burns with a clear bright flame.Much of the petrified wood found in parts of the desert is formed of Tumeran, which even in its living state seems to be undergoing the process of petrifaction, as long veins of red brown earth run through its roots. Six hours after starting, travelling through fine loose sand in a N.E. direction, we reached a lofty sand-hill, the ground at whose base is sprinkled for a considerable distance with dark gravel and fragments of black half-vitrified stone. Many parts of this desert, seen in a bright sun, seemed perfectly flat, but as day closed in, and the shadows lengthened, the gentle undulations of the sand became visible. For ten hours we continued our course over a nearly flat country, gradually trending to the north, when we came to a long line of low hills, among which we were soon engaged. It is here that the two roads to Siwah separate; that which I took is the longer, but is easier for the camels; the other is the one more usually followed by the slave-dealers, and the same followed by Hornemann; it is preferred as being further removed from the haunts of the Aoulad Ali Arabs.
In gentle swells, these hills ultimately reach a considerable height. Journeying over such ground is singularly fatiguing, for the sand offers no variety to the eye, which is pained by the intense glare which it reflects, and the horse sinks in it to the fetlocks at every step. Nothing marked the road, which is veryrarely used, and a slight wind suffices to obliterate every trace of former travellers. No caravan had passed this way to Mecca for three years, in consequence of disturbances among the Tuarick, to whom this country principally belongs. Thus we continued during fifteen hours and a quarter, constantly ascending between two lines of low hills, which rose on either side like waves driven from opposite directions. By this I mean that they rise on one side in long gentle swells and fall very suddenly on the other, forming an angle of about 70°, while eight or ten feet of their crests are on this, one would say the lee side, perfectly perpendicular. But the action of the wind, to which this appearance is doubtless due, is such, that in this place the lee side of each sand-wave faces that of the other, forming a valley between them, bounded on each side by steep sand. My greyhounds enjoyed themselves famously in running along the crests of these hills, and then rolling and tumbling down their steep sides; but after a couple of days of such gambols, the sand began to distress their feet, and they were glad to mount a camel during the greater part of the remaining journey.
It was on the afternoon of the third day, that, sending on the servant who had waited on me at luncheon, I stayed behind to smoke a chibouque, and having a supply of tobacco beside me I thoughtlessly protractedthis amusement beyond a due time. When I at last started I rode straight for the passage, between some distant hills, where I had last seen the caravan, but soon I found that I had lost the track. At the height I had then reached, the wind blew so strongly, that, in exposed places, the footsteps were speedily effaced, and for an hour I wandered sufficiently to convince me how easy it would be to lose oneself in the sand. Evening was not far distant, and I was on the point of returning to my noon-day resting-place, but determined first to try one cast more. With this intent I rode directly at right angles to my course, and happily came upon the tracks of the camels. I soon reached the base of a peak round which they had gone, and, turning it, I beheld the most extraordinary scene of desolation.
I found myself standing on the ledge of an oval basin, some five or six miles long, whose sides were formed of stratified rocks, of a bluish gray colour, in their horizontal layers; across ran low dykes of the same laminar construction, the upper layers being generally of a blackish stone, but all bearing the appearance of vitrifaction. The dykes ran in lines parallel to the minor axis of the ellipse, and one might almost have supposed it the ruins of a construction on a gigantic scale, like that called Solomon’s Pool, near Bethlehem. Excepting at points where the rocks cropout, the bottom of the basin was filled with sand; piles of stones, memorials of former caravans, erected on the dykes; many skeletons, both of men and camels, bleached white as the purest ivory, pointed out the path which I must follow. Night closed in while I was still in this lonely valley; and it was with some pleasure that I heard the signal guns, which were fired from time to time, to direct me to the halting place. At sunset, as I had not been seen for six hours, the caravan was halted, although it had only made ten hours and a half journey that day. The Arabs call this place the Gerdobiah, or Little Gerdebah,قردبه, to distinguish it from the great range of this name, which commences two hours and a half further on. A ridge of round-backed sandhills forms the separation between the Gerdobiah and the immense range of low dark hills and table-lands which here presents itself. A low line of sandstone rocks, with nearly perpendicular sides, bound the line of road, sometimes closing upon it, sometimes leaving a wide plain on either side. In the basins thus formed rocks rise frequently, in the form of low truncated cones, generally in two steps, one rising from the other, so like diminutive craters, that in referring to this day’s journey my servant always calls them, “les Vesuves.” The black appearance of the ground is caused by numberless fragments of flat, dark, flint-like, coarse, broken glass, with whichthe sand and rocks are covered; among them are many pieces of petrified palm-wood; and, in some places, I found four or five feet of the trunk of the tree still standing erect as it grew: while, in more than one instance, large fragments of the tree, like thedébrisof a broken column, lay scattered round. In one spot, I found the trunk of such a tree (judging from its form at the base) in the position and place where it grew, and lying alongside of it, fragments of its stem, in all more than twenty feet long; the fractures of each of these corresponded to those on either side of it. It would seem from this that the trees were petrified as they grew, and that their general prostration is due to some convulsion which followed the withdrawal of the petrifying waters in which they had been immersed. I believe these trees to be, many of them, date palms, such as grow in the oases at the present day; they are similar in appearance; and so were some petrified date-stones, which I found, to their stones. It took in all twenty-six hours to traverse this line, which, judging from the cold, must be at a very considerable elevation. The south wind blew so bleakly that even at midday a cloak was a welcome addition to the borneau. In the mornings and evenings the thermometer was rarely above 43°, and at midday, notwithstanding the bright sun, I twice found it only 45°.
Towards the last part of the Gerdebah I observedlarge masses of beautifully-marked agate, of a coarse crystalline grain, with colours more vivid than the Sicilian. Descending into a plain of sand, the next landmark is a lofty cone, called Gar Hhot,خوت, some sixty or seventy feet high, which rising abruptly from the level, is seen at a great distance. It was formerly a stronghold of the Aoulad Ali, who from it descended to pillage the Majabra caravans. The tombs of seven or eight Majabra, who were killed in one of their raids some forty years ago, are at the base of the hill; but this was the robbers’ last exploit, for the Majabra are said to have come in overwhelming numbers, and to have overpowered them. I will not answer for the truth of the story which was told me by my guide, whose grandfather was among the slain; for in my experience of timid people, I must do the Majabra of the present generation the justice to say, that I never met with any who had so strong a regard for their personal safety. Along this line they never light fires during the night, for fear of attracting the Arabs, and for the same reason they frequently diverge from the direct line of journey; their cargoes of human merchandise being, it is said, very attractive to the Arabs. However this may be, I have no complaint to make of the dangers of the road: every night two large fires were kindled in my encampment, yet I was never molested, nor during the whole journey saw thetrace of man, excepting in the case of one small slave caravan, which I came up with the day after passing Gar Hhot, at the first well we reached, called Maten Et-Tarfawy,طرفاوي. It is seventy-four hours from the well of the Wady.
This place was visited by Hornemann, and is the only spot in which my route (which is the one followed by the great pilgrim caravans) coincides with the more southerly one. The slave caravan, which I came up with here, continued to follow Hornemann’s route. Near the place I found some palm trunks upright, imbedded in reddish, coarsely crystallised flint. The sand is in great part composed ofdébrisof small marine shells, and the limestone rocks from here to Siwah are filled with fossils. A considerable descent from the high ground we had been traversing, crossing several hills and valleys, which grow gradually more sandy as we advanced, leads to a valley clothed with gum bushes. From it rises a platform of soft, white limestone rock; and it is in this that the wells of brackish water called Et-Tarfawy are pierced. The white platform is picturesquely crowned with a garland of the bright-green ’ajrum bushes, which grow somewhat like a broom. Here we watered our camels, and then went an hour and a half further to a hattych (a copse) called Bou el Lawah,لاوه. The wind, which had blown for several days constantly from the south,shifted for a few hours to the north, and was gratefully warm; heavy rains speedily followed, during which it again veered to the south.
From here to Siwah I was six days on the road, but one day I was only able to travel five hours; in fact, I never again got a fair day’s work out of my camels, for Sheikh Othman, after making me pay so dearly for them, sent them with so small a supply of food, that they successively dropped off, one after another, exhausted from sheer hunger. I cannot, therefore, state the distance exactly, but as nearly as I can calculate, from Et-Tarfawy to Siwah is forty-eight hours. The road runs through a succession of small oases, of which the first is Faredrah,فغيدره, twelve hours from Et-Tarfawy. Among sandhills one descends very suddenly into a long basin, which is occupied by a dark brown morass, like that which I met with at Augila; it is bounded on three sides by time-worn rocks, which rise perpendicularly round it, a fringe of palm trees growing about their base. The Arabs pointed out a place in the rocks, on the other side of the morass, in which they said the ruins of a castle were to be seen. Now this, like the other spots of the same nature which I passed through, is uninhabited. The largest and prettiest of these is Caicab, twelve hours further on. Here the rocks of variegated limestone assume a bolder appearance, rising from forty to a hundred feetin fantastic masses, looking in the distance sometimes like noble cities, sometimes like extensive ruins. There is one valley where columns, with their capitals of gigantic proportions, rise from mounds of sand—half buried palaces and temples seemed in the moonlight to make the former the abode of giants. From the uniform abruptness of the sides of the rocks, though weather-worn and varied in colour by the different strata, it would seem that these morasses had been formed by a suddenly falling in of the crust; for the flat tops of all the surrounding rocks have the same level with the desert and with each other, and the wall of rock is only found on the side turned to the morass. In a Wady some twelve hours further on I found wells of a clear water, in very small quantity, but which, after the first draught had been taken from it, filled again by rapid infiltration from the sand, but this second supply had a strong sulphurous smell and taste, which were not perceptible in the first. The morass, the universal feature of these oases, was here a wide lake of a deep blue, inclosed in a ring of brown crust, overgrown with rushes, and a tall, rank grass, of which the camels eagerly plucked the flowering tops. The name of this place is El Ghazalieh, the Gazelle Ground, and though now deserted, it must in ancient times have been inhabited. Sepulchral chambers, entirely devoid of ornament, but well and regularly cut, arehollowed out in the faces of the rocks. Each opening, of about four feet square, corresponds to a cubical aperture of seven feet, in two sides of which—in that facing the door, and in that generally to the left—are cut receptacles for the dead. I counted twenty-three; but there may be many more, which, being sanded up, escaped my observation. Most of them are as empty as if they had never been occupied; but in some of these deserted abodes of death the wild bee has stored her sweets. We made a long halt in this place, for the camels had to be watered, and I had to dress as well as to breakfast, for the guide having lost his way, we had gone supperless to bed, being unprovided with either wood or water. This had twice occurred to me, and each time I had promised myself never again to be without at least one skin of water; but though my orders were no doubt attended to during the first few days, it always happened that, when the precaution would have proved useful, it had been neglected. In my luggage I had wherewithal to supply every deficiency but this; and the want of this, however little I care for the pure fluid, is fatal to all hopes of supping.
This was the last day before reaching Siwah; and, again, I was sadly delayed through the miserable condition of the camels supplied by my rascally sheikh of Augila. One after another they dropped, unableto proceed, and I was obliged to leave them, and the boxes they carried, in the sand. Unable to get further, we slept on a hill, at whose foot I beheld next morning a garden-like expanse—a real island of the blest. A stream, the first running water I had seen since quitting the Rhone, flowed down its centre; the ground on either side was green with young crops, among which rose clumps of date-trees and flowering mimosas. Some cabins dotted the extensive plain, and men and children were busily employed in irrigating the fields; the very water, perfectly sweet, after the thirst-exciting draughts to which we had been for some time condemned, seemed delicious; and, perhaps, by contrast with the barren sand we had so tediously journeyed through, this valley, towards Moragah,مراقه, seemed one of the loveliest spots I had ever visited. I welcomed the exhilarating impression which it made upon me, as a foretaste of the enjoyment reserved for me in Siwah, from which we were now only six hours distant, and I began to believe my Majabra guide might not be wrong in his daily assurances that it was a Belad Mabruk, an abode of blessedness.
After leaving Moragah, the loose sand again reappears for about an hour, leading to the lofty rocks of Kamisah, at whose base are the ruins called ’Amu-dein, which consist of two lofty masses of brickwork, the façade of a temple, or perhaps of a church, for the style of building betrays a late date. One of the two salt lakes of the oasis lies at the foot of Kamisah, and I stopped for an hour at a well of sweet water which springs at its edge, to rest the last of Othman’s camels, which here threatened to drop. The hill of the mummies, Garah-el-Musabberin, and the village of Gharmy, where the principal ruins are, were visible from here, as well as the position, though not the town, of Siwah. I sent on the camels, retaining only one servant with me; soon following them, I found that one of the camels had again lagged behind the others. I therefore stopped, and spreading a carpet in the shade of a tree, I sat down, having first sent a servant into the town to Sheikh Yusuf, whom my slave-dealer acquaintance had named to me as the chief man of the place, to obtain donkeys to transport the luggage of the camel. Here I sat alone for two hours, until the sun had set, and began at length to reflect on the uncertainty of Arab accounts of distances; the town might still be two or three hours off, and with a strong determination to dine to-night, having been on short commons for the last four days, I left the camel where it was, and rode towards the town. Night closed in before I had come upon any well-marked path, and I was beginning to feel someperplexity as to the road, when I luckily came upon the servant I had dispatched to Yusuf’s, and one of the men who accompanied him turned to guide me to my tent, while he went back to bring up the remainder of the luggage.