Part 1 (1/2)
Travels in the Great Desert of Sahara, in the Years of 1845 and 1846.
by James Richardson.
INTRODUCTION.
THE sentiment of Antiquity--that ”The life of no man is pleasing to the G.o.ds which is not useful to his fellows,”--has been my guiding principle of action during the last twelve years of my life. To live for my own simple and sole gratification, to have no other object in view but my own personal profit and renown, would be to me an intolerable existence. To be useful, or to attempt to be useful, in my day and generation, was the predominant motive which led me into The Desert, and sustained me there, alone and unprotected, during a long and perilous journey.
But, in presenting this work to the British public, I have to state, that it is only _supplementary_ and _fragmentary_. If, therefore, any one were to judge of the results of my Saharan Tour merely by what is here given, he would do me a great injustice. I had expected, by this time, that certain Reports on the Commerce and Geography of The Great Desert, as well as a large Map of the Routes of this part of Africa, would have been given to the public. It is not my fault that their publication is still delayed. I can only regret it, because what I am now publis.h.i.+ng comes _first_, instead of _last_, and consequently deranges my plan, the following pages being, indeed, _supplementary_ to the Reports and Map. I come, therefore, before the public with no small disadvantage.
With regard to these supplementary and fragmentary extracts from my journal, I have also to state, they consist only of about two-thirds of the journal. For the present, I deemed it prudent to suppress the rest.
But this likewise may disturb the harmony and mar the completeness of the work. However, if these portions of the journal are favourably received, other extracts may yet be published.
On entering The Desert, my princ.i.p.al object was to ascertain how and to what extent the Saharan Slave-Trade was carried on; although but a comparatively small portion of the following pages is devoted to this subject. I have already reported fully on this traffic, and it was unnecessary to go over the ground again, which might defeat, by disagreeable repet.i.tions and endless details, the object which I have in view,--that of exciting an abhorrence of the Slave-Trade in the hearts of my fellow countrymen and countrywomen.
In these published extracts from my journal, I have endeavoured to give a truthful and faithful picture of the Saharan Tribes; their ideas, thoughts, words, and actions; and, where convenient, I have allowed them to speak and act for themselves. This is the main object which I have undertaken to accomplish in this Narrative of my Personal Adventures in The Sahara. The public must, and will, I doubt not, judge how far I have succeeded, and award me praise or blame, as may be my desert. If I have failed, I shall not abandon myself to despair, but shall console myself with the thought that I have done the best I was able to do under actual circ.u.mstances, and in my then state of health. It would, indeed, ill become me to shrink from public criticism, after having braved the terrors and hards.h.i.+ps of The Desert. However, the publication of this journal may induce others to penetrate The Desert,--persons better qualified, and more ably and perfectly equipped than myself, and who may so accomplish something more permanently advantageous than what I have been able to compa.s.s. Acting, then, as pioneer to others, my Saharan labours will not be fruitless.
But, if any persons obstinately object to the style and matters of my Narrative of Desert Travel, I shall likewise as obstinately endeavour to hold my ground. To all such I say,--”Go to now, ye objectors and gainsayers, and do better.” My mission was _motu proprio_, and I plunged in The Desert without your permission. But I am but one of the two hundred millions of Europe. You can surely get volunteers. You have the money, the rank, the patronage, and the learned and philanthropic Societies of Europe at your back. Send others; inspire them yourselves, and they may produce something which you like better than what I have given you. If I am not orthodox enough,--if I have not reviled the Deism of The Desert sufficiently to your taste,--send those who will. A little less zeal in Exeter Hall, and a little more in The Desert, would do neither you nor the world any harm. A little less clamour about Church orthodoxy, or any other doxy[1], and a little more anxiety for the welfare of all mankind, would infinitely more become you, as Englishmen and Christians, and be more in harmony with that divine injunction, which sent out the first teachers of Christianity amongst the Greeks and Barbarians, in The City and The Desert, to preach the Gospel to every creature under heaven. If I be too much of an abolitionist, send one who admires slavery, and who will write up the Slave-Trade of The Desert. I have written in my way: you write in your way. If my pages disclose no discoveries in science, this I can only lament. When a man has no science in him, or no education in science, he can give you none. But what are your European Societies of Science for? Are they play-things, or are they serious affairs? Have you neither money nor zeal to equip a scientific expedition to The Desert? If not, I cannot help you. By the way, I was astonished to receive, since my return, a note from one of your eminent geologists, repudiating and protesting against all knowledge of the subject of ”The Geology of The Desert.” And The Desert is a fifth part of the African Continent! Yet this gentleman dogmatizes and theorizes on all geological formations, and can tell the whole history of the geology of our planet, from the first moment when it was bowled by the hand of The Omnipotent in the immensity of s.p.a.ce, of suns and systems! If such presumption and self-willed ignorance discover themselves in great men, what are we to expect of little men?
In the following pages, I have encroached upon my Reports, to describe several of the Oases of The Desert, besides giving as much of the routes as was necessary to render the Narrative of my journey intelligible. But this is all I could conscientiously do. For the rest of the geographical information, the public must wait.
I return for a moment to the traffic in slaves. Born with an innate hatred of oppression, whatever form, or shape, or name it may take, and under what modes soever it may be developed, mentally or bodily, in chaining men down under a political despotism, or in forging for them a creed and forcing it on their consciences,--I have, since I could exercise the power of reflection, always looked upon the traffic in human flesh and blood as the most gigantic system of wickedness the world ever saw; and which I most deplore, in this our late, more humane and enlightened age, stands forth and raises its horrid head, impiously defying Heaven! In very truth, it is a system of crime, which dares
”Defy the Omnipotent to arms!”
The reader must, therefore, excuse the language with which I have execrated this traffic in the pages of my Journal. There may be some men who think it no crime to buy and sell their fellow-men; I have seen many such amongst the Moslems. But he who thinks the traffic in slaves to be a crime against the human race, has a right to denounce it accordingly. I must therefore make a few preliminary observations, though painful to my feelings.
It is notorious that the agitations of the Anti-Corn-Law League have given very lately a powerful impulse to the Slave-Trade, and slaves have risen in Cuba to 30 and 50 per cent. above their previous average value, since _slave_ sugar has been admitted upon the same terms, or nearly so, as _free-labour_ sugar, into England. This is entirely the work of The League. Some of these gentlemen think we must have cheap sugar at any risk, at any cost, even if wetted with the blood of the slaves. A ridiculous incident occurs to me. I once saw a child frightened into a dislike for white loaf sugar, by holding up a piece to the candle, and pretending it dropped blood. But there is no delusion or metaphor here, for the sugars of slave-plantations are really obtained by the blood-whippings and scourgings of the victimized slaves!
As to Cobden, his Cobdenites, and Satellites, they would sell their own souls, and the whole human race into bondage, to have a free trade in slaves and sugar. This new generation of impostors--who teach that all virtue and happiness consist in buying in the cheapest, and selling in the dearest markets--are now d.o.g.g.i.ng at the heels of Government, in combination with the West India agents, to get them to re-establish a species of mitigated Slave-Trade, because, forsooth, there should be right and liberty to buy and sell a man, as there is right and liberty to buy and sell a beast.
I am not an enemy to Free Trade. I have duly noticed and praised the free-trade mart of Ghat, and shown how it prospers in comparison with the restricted system of the Turks, prevalent at Mourzuk. But this I do say, the case of Slavery was an exceptional case, as the Ten Hours' Factory Bill was an exceptional case in the regulation and restriction of labour.
I fear, however, there are some of the Leaguers so outrageous in their advocacy of abstract principles, that they would have a free-trade in vice--a free-trade in consigning people to perdition! They are of the calibre of the men who wielded that dread engine of the ”Reign of Terror,” the ”Committee of Public Safety,” and made it death to speak a word against the ”One Indivisible Republic[2].” These Leaguers are bent upon establis.h.i.+ng an equal, although differently-formed, tyranny amongst us, and we cannot too soon and too energetically resist their odious and intolerable pretensions.
But I know not, whether these civil tyrants be so bad as the spiritual tyrants who have just set up for themselves what they call a ”Free Kirk.”
These reverend gentlemen have received the fruits of the blood of the slaves, employed on the laborious fields of the Southern States of America, to build up their new Free Church, pretending they have a Divine right to receive the value of the forced-labour of slaves, and quoting Scripture like the Devil himself. When called upon to refund they refuse, and make the contributions of the Presbyterian slave-dealers of the United States a sort of corner-stone of their Free Kirk. Why these priests of religion out-O'Connell-O'Connell, who point-blank refused, for the support of his sham Repeal, and sent back contemptuously, the dollars spotted and tainted with the blood of the slaves! . . . . . . . . It is the old story, the old trick of our good friends, the Scottish divines, and their old leaven of Scottish fanaticism. We know them of ancient date. We have read a line of Milton, who in his time so admirably resisted their bigotry. It is immortal like all that our divine bard wrote. Here is the line--
”New Presbyter is but old Priest writ large.”
The Free Kirk has cut its connexion with the State, because it says the State wishes to enslave its ministers. Yet it has no objection to receive monies from the slave-holders in America. The Free Kirk will build up its boasted freedom on the wasting blood and bones of the unhappy children of Africa! Why, indeed, should these Scottish divines, headed by the Presbyters Candlish and Cunningham, seek or advocate the freedom of the slaves held by their fellow Presbyters of the United States? Is it not enough that they seek and maintain their own freedom, and at whatsoever cost? Have they not received the pro-slavery mantle of the late venerated Dr. Chalmers, and can they, poor pigmies, possibly shake it off? Would it not be impious to do so? No, they cannot,--dare not do this. For, as it was said by Lord George Bentinck, of a quondam champion of the people, in the last Session of Parliament, ”Liberty is on their tongues, but despotism is in their hearts.”
What can be more humiliating to a generous and tolerant mind, than to see a body of Christian ministers struggling to obtain by a Parliamentary enactment, the cession of plots of land for building of churches for the wors.h.i.+p of G.o.d in liberty and truth, from the tyrannical holders of the soil; and, at the same time, this very body of priests does not scruple to receive the money of American slave-holders, to build and endow these self-same churches? Such incredible inconsistency makes one sick at heart, and inclined to question the existence of Christian feelings in the professors and teachers of Christianity!
It is deeply to be deplored that our Anti-Slavery Society confines itself so much to protests, and what it calls ”the moral principle.” No people of the world has done more for the liberties of Africa than the Society of Friends in England, and no people more admirably exemplify in their conduct the humane and pacific morals of Christianity. But when the Founder of our religion resisted his enemies by the remonstrance, ”Why strikest thou me?” something more was meant than a protest. We have had lately a _triste_ example of the end of protests in a neighbouring country. The annual protest of the French Chamber of Deputies against the extinction of the nationality of Poland, not only ended in barren results, and excited public ridicule, but actually terminated in the triumph of the nefarious scheme against which it was made. Never was a country so humiliated as France in this case!--Its Chief, the Sovereign of its choice, consenting at the time, to the d.a.m.ning act of the extinction of Polish nationality, for the sake of accomplis.h.i.+ng a low and scandalous family intrigue in Spain! This was something more than ridiculous, and is one of the many infamies of our age, perpetrated on so large a scale. Now, I do not a.s.sert, that the protests of the Anti-Slavery Society will end in the re-enactment of the Slave-Trade by the British Parliament. But the last and present Sessions of Imperial Parliament, show symptoms of our country abandoning Africa, after the labours of half a century, to all the horrors of the Slave-Trade. Mr. P.
Borthwick and Mr. Hume, more especially the latter, pleaded, in conjunction with others, during last Session, for the withdrawal of the British cruisers from off the Western Coast of Africa, and free trade in emigration, if not in slaves. In this good work, of course, they have the sympathies of the Anti-Slavery Free Trading League. Some of our journals opine, in their late articles, that a change has come over the spirit of our abolition dream, and suggest that the clerk, in charge of the Anti-Slavery Papers at the Foreign Office, is an old antiquated, superannuated being. In a word, these journals and Mr. Hume's pro-slavery clique, see no reason why Great Britain should not exhibit to this and succeeding ages, the most dreadful bad faith in the case of British abolition. They would have us say to the world:--”All our Anti-Slavery efforts, our Parliamentary enactments against Slavery, our huge blue books of published Anti-Slavery papers, our protocols and treaties with Foreign Powers, all, each, and singular, are one grand organized system of selfishness and hypocrisy.” I know very well that, in general, foreigners give us no credit whatever for our anti-slavery feelings and public acts for the suppression of the Slave-Trade. This they have reiterated in my ears. And, how can they give us credit for sincerity in abolition, when our public men and public writers call for something like the re-enactment of the British Slave-Trade?--and, whilst our quondam champions of Free Churches receive the blood-stained money of slave-labour to build up their new ecclesiastical establishments? Mankind reason from actions, and not from verbal or written declarations. Our Act of Abolition, and the famous twenty millions, are not such wonderful things after all, when we owed a hundred millions to the descendants of our slaves. We were also nearly half a century in abolis.h.i.+ng the traffic, after it had been denounced as robbery and murder by our highest and greatest statesmen, Pitt and Fox[3]. This slowness of our work has given the cue to the suspicions of our national enemies; and, certainly, to use a gross vulgarism, has ”taken out the s.h.i.+ne,” or very much dimmed the l.u.s.tre of this great act of justice to the African race.
Here I cannot restrain myself from giving a word of caution to the working-cla.s.ses of our country, to those more especially who head the new ”National Society,” and form other and similar leagues. You say the politicians of the Anti-Corn Law League are your men; you adore your Humes, and Duncombes, and Wakleys. You, English democrats, or reformers, as you may call yourselves, admire the self-government and cheap government of the Transatlantic Model Republic. You do well. But now read some of their latest handiworks, without note or comment on my part. The violent impulse given to the Slave-Trade in Cuba and the Brazils--the advocacy of a free trade in Slaves by the Leaguers in and out the British Parliament--the invasion and subjugation of Mexico, on the joint principles of l.u.s.t of conquest and the extension of Slavery. Deny these facts if you can. Learn, then, to think, there may be democracy and republicanism without liberty or freedom.
I pray G.o.d, that the protests and public appeals and remonstrances to Government of the Anti-Slavery Society may not end in barren results. But if the Leaguers and Democrats have their own way, its voice, though just and righteous, will be at length reduced to a faint cry, a last shriek of despair--overwhelmed by the loud laughs and jeers of the fiends, which possess the dealers in human flesh and blood, and surround unhappy and doomed Africa with a cordon of rapine and murder, of blood and flames!