Part 8 (1/2)

”So, does he say?”

(_The Youths._--”But the Sheikh _is_ the Sheikh.”)

”I am,” says the Sheikh, ”from Timbuctoo; all the people are Mohammedans, and fast. Do you fast?”

_I._--”I eat and drink what is good at all times, even wild-boar.”

_The Sheikh and Youths._--”Oh, wonderful!”

_They._--”You write Arabic?”

I wrote that G.o.d was _one_.

_They._--”And write Mahomet was the Prophet of G.o.d?”

I wrote Mahomet was the Prophet of the Arabs and the Touaricks?

_The Sheikh._--”Ah, ah, I see, I see, you're very cunning.”

_The Youths._--”Who is your Prophet?”

_I._--”Aysa (Jesus).”

_The Youths._--”Have you any books of your Prophet?”

_I._--”Yes, here is one:” (Giving them the New Testament.)

_They._--”Oh, see, let us read it, let us take it home.”

_I._--”No; if you were men, yes. But if I allow you to read it, or read it to you, your Bey and the people will be offended with me, and send me out of the city. When you go to Tripoli, you can see and read the Christian books.”

I was surprised that a well-informed man like the Sheikh Makouran should ask me whether the Emperor of Morocco was also Emperor of Fez, and whether Morocco was a large country. ”Ghat,” says the Rais, ”like all the Touarick countries, is a republic. All the people govern.” Walked out this evening for the first time to-day. The people are vehement in their complaints against the oppressions of the Turks: ”All the wealth of the country is dried up, and the merchants are all running away. We are ruined unless the English save us.”

It has been very hot and sultry to-day. Not a breath of air. The sky overcast--a profound, deathlike tranquillity sleeping over the environs!

The Rais sent supper as usual. After visiting him, he had a fit of writing, and wrote for the courier all night. Thank G.o.d, there are no gnats in Ghadames. I have not seen nor felt any. It is probably owing to the absence of no water, stagnating here, all being absorbed in the dry earth of the gardens.

_7th._--Read eight chapters of the Arabic Testament. Some of the phrases very strangely rendered into Arabic. The Moors cannot understand them. My Testament wants some verses: it is the ordinary Arabic Bible circulated by The Bible Society. There is no good translation of The Scriptures into Arabic, from what I have been able to learn. Continue to think all day long and dream of Timbuctoo. Had a conversation with the Touaricks about a journey there. The difficulty is, the strongest Touarick escort practicable cannot always pa.s.s through the Touarick districts, there being such a great variety of tribes. It is the quarrels of the Touaricks themselves, and not our not being able to trust them individually, which renders the route so dangerous.

Slave-dealing is so completely engendered in the minds of the Ghadamsee merchants, that they cannot conceive how it can be wrong. A young man wrote me down the objects (very few) of exportation from Soudan, and in the following order, viz., ”Cottons, elephants' teeth, _bekhour_ (perfume), wax, slaves, bullocks' skins, red skins, feathers, (of the ostrich).” Human beings are just summed up with the rest as an article of commerce, as a matter of course, in the most mercantile style.

It will be next to impossible to propagate anti-slavery notions in Central Africa, supported as slavery is by commerce and religion. We can only say, ”With G.o.d nothing is impossible.”

All the people bring their griefs and malcontentments to me. It's not so pleasant to be bored by them, let alone the policy of my listening to all they have to say. But the ill humour of these poor fleeced people must have a vent, or _sfogo_, as the Italians term it, and what can I do? An intelligent merchant came to me. ”Yakob, _bisslamah_, (how do you fare?) The Rais is always collecting money, don't you see? That's the business of the Turks. This city is 4000 years of age. It flourished before Pharaoh, in the time of Nimrod. Now the Turks come to destroy it; their business is to destroy; such is the will of G.o.d.” I might elaborate the idea. The genius of the Turks is to destroy. The hand of the Turk blasts as mildew everything it touches; it has destroyed the fairest portions of the earth. Happily, however, it so destroys itself, for it is not desirable for truth and civilization that the sway of the Osmanlis should be restored to its pristine strength.

Among the most friendly people to me in Ghadames are the Arab soldiers.

Now, whilst I write, not less than twenty of these poor fellows are lying around my door, and in the _skeefah_ (entrance-pa.s.sage or room) of my house. They tell me always, my house is their house, and their mountains my mountains. They all speak in the highest terms of Mr. Frederick Warrington, son of Colonel Warrington, whom they call _Fredreek_. They consider him as one of themselves, and so he is as to habits, manners, and language, and frequently dress. When they quarrel in Tripoli, the ultima ratio, or dernier ressort, is not to go to the Pasha, but _Nimshee lel Fredreek_, ”Let us go to Frederick!” This is ”the settler.” It has often been said amongst the Consular corps of Tripoli, that, in case Great Britain thought it expedient to a.s.sume the Protectorate of Tripoli, Frederick Warrington would be their man, the instrument of revolution.

There is not a single Arab in the Regency but what would flock to his standard. He has been all his lifetime in Tripoli.

M. Carette, in his brochure of the _Commerce of Central Africa_, says, ”Timbaktou, Kanou, et Noufi sont les trois marches princ.i.p.aux du pays des Noirs. Les voyageurs du Nord ne parlent pas du Niger; c'est une limite qu'ils ne franchissent pas; ils paraissent n'avoir aucunes relations avec les populations Mandingues de la rive droite:” (p. 26). This is inexact.

The merchants do speak of the Niger frequently to me, calling it the _Wady Neel_, thinking, and which is a very ancient opinion, that it is a continuation of the Nile of Egypt. They also visit the opposite sh.o.r.es or banks of the Mandingoes. Some of them go to Noufi, as M. Carette admits; on my leaving for Ghat, a merchant going to Noufi was my fellow traveller, and promised to accompany me there. Here Mr. Becroft has recently, from the south-east, ascending the Niger, shaken hands with the merchants of the north. An old slave, a native of _Sansandee_ (or _Sinsindee_ ????????) says of the Niger, ”The river is like the sea of Tripoli and all sweet” (water.)