Part 17 (1/2)
The Moors seem to have a secret dislike for women, as well as a most obstinate desire to tyrannize over them. There is a lurking desire of this sort in the men-s.e.x of all countries. Are we not the Lords of Creation? I actually get afraid of avowing to them that the supreme ruler of England is _a woman_, they are so confoundedly annoyed at the circ.u.mstance. The first questions of their surprise are, ”How? Why?” &c.
My taleb is very fond of supporting the doctrine of a woman having only a _fifth_ of her father's property. I annoy him by telling him it's a bad law, and that the daughter should have an equal share with the son. Lady Morgan is sadly wanted here; she would find ample additional materials for a second edition of ”Woman and her Master.”
FOOTNOTES:
[48] _Bazeen_, ??????, called also _Aseedah_, ???????.
[49] Some have endeavoured to distinguish in English the mausoleum in which a dead saint is laid by the term Mara_bet_, though in Arabic both the dead and living saint, and the cupola house in which the dead saint is laid, are all called Mara_bout_. When a village or town, is built round the mausoleum of a saint, it is also called after the saint, as in the instance now related.
[50] ”We (G.o.d) created you, and afterwards formed you (mankind); and then said unto the angels, _Wors.h.i.+p_ Adam; and they wors.h.i.+pped him, except Eblis (The Devil), who was not one of those who wors.h.i.+pped. G.o.d said unto him, What hindered thee from wors.h.i.+pping Adam, since I had commanded thee? He answered, I am more excellent than he: thou hast created me of fire, and has created him of clay. G.o.d said, Get thee down therefore from Paradise; for it is not fit that thou behave thyself _proudly_ therein: get thee hence; thou shalt be one of the contemptible.”--_Surat_ vii.
_Int.i.tled Al-Araf._
[51] The words in the _Cross_, which Constantine is reported to have seen in the heavens.
[52] When the milk is fresh it is called by the Arabs ??????, when sour, ?????.
CHAPTER XI.
CONTINUED RESIDENCE IN GHADAMES.
Gaiety of the Black Dervish.--Walking Dance of the Slaves.--The Fullans or Fellatahs.--_Shoushoua_, or scarifying the face of Negroes.--Terms used in connexion with Slaves.--The _Razzia_.--A Souafee Politician.--Parallel Customs between The East and The Sahara.--The mercenary Blood-letter.--Indifference to the sufferings of the Arab Troops.--Colour of the people in Paradise.--Excellent Government of the Fullanee Nations.--Moors do not fondle their Children.--Administering Physic to Camels.--Simplicity of Touarick manners.--Knocked down by a Pinch of Snuff.--Departure of the Tibboo alone to Ghat.--Blood in White Sugar, and Anecdote of Colonel Warrington and Yousef Bashaw about collecting old Bones.--Colonel Warrington compared to the late Mr. Hay.--Said, a subject of Anti-Slavery discussion.--Specimen of Desert Arab freedom.
_18th._--WITH the full moon the cold has regularly set in. Good-bye flies and good-bye scorpions. Can now write with my door open, without being covered with flies. Can also sleep without waking up at midnight to kill scorpions running over the mattresses. The mad black dervish is always in motion, and full of gaiety. People are so fond of him that they think he is inspired. When all the Moors are in solemn vacant thought, or brooding over their griefs, or dreaming in broad day of their being marabouts or sultans, the poor witless thing runs in amongst them, shaking hands with the first he meets with, and bursts out a-laughing. He usually succeeds in infusing a little of his cheerfulness into these equally _mad_ people, but more sober in their method of madness. Yesterday the slaves had another feast _for the dead_. The Moors allow their slaves the liberty of blending the two religions, as Rome has allowed the blending of Christianity and paganism. And when questioned about it they say; ”Oh, the slaves know only a little of Allah, and are not much better than donkeys in their understandings.” The slaves a.s.sembled to the number of some fifty in the Souk. Here they performed a species of walking dance, in two right lines, very slow and very stiff and measured, having attached to it some mysterious meaning. They were gaily dressed, attended with a drum and iron castanets, making melodious noises. Each had a matchlock slung at his back. The women carried a chafing-dish of incense, as if about to raise some spirit or ghost. A crowd was around them; but they performed nothing but this slow-marching dance, and then retired to the tombs. The dervish, poor fellow, mingled in the gay throng, shouldering a stick for a gun.
Received many little presents from people lately. Sheikh Makouran brought me himself a small basket of very fine dates. My taleb afterwards brought me some _gharghoush_, or small cakes, made of flour, honey, sugar, and milk. They are extremely pleasant eating and a little _acid_, which adds greatly to their flavour. There are but few things acid in this country; of sour things there is an abundance.
Heard a great deal about the Foullans, Foulahs, and Fellatahs, the predominant race in Soudan. _Foullan_ (?????? ???????
???????) is the Soudanic term, _Fellatah_ the Bornouese, and _Foulah_ what is used to denominate them among the Mandingoes. According to information here, they were once the most miserable race of _Arab_ wanderers in The Desert. But at last they settled down as neighbours to the Negroes, some 700 years since. They continued to increase in numbers and importance, abandoning tents and building villages and towns, and intermixing with the Negroes, till about forty-five (and others thirty-five) years ago, when they expanded their ideas to conquest and renown. About this time they made the conquest of Kanou, Succatou, and the other large cities of Housa. Never a people rose to greater fame and power. They were a.s.sisted, like the Saracens before them, by religious fanaticism, and so far corresponded with them, in extending the boundaries of Islamism.
They went on conquering and to conquer till within the present year, when their power received some check by the daring exploits of the Tibboo prince of Zinder, a va.s.sal of Bornou. This prince has taken from them a few towns. The complexion of the ordinary Fullanee is a deep olive, with pleasing features, not much Negro, and long hair.
[Ill.u.s.tration]
Negroes in Nigritia are known by the _Shoushoua_ (???????), or scarifying. Generally in Negro countries, which profess the Mohammedan religion, the _Shoushoua_ is abandoned as _haram_ or prohibited. It is mostly the sign of paganism. The operation is performed by a sharp cutting instrument, and is never _effaced_ from the face during life. The annexed drawing presents the _Shoushoua_ of the Negroes of Tombo, near Jinnee, who are pagans. Whenever the slaves see these marks they know the country of the other slaves who bear them. Formerly it could be ascertained whether a slave was born on the coast, or brought from the interior, by the presence or absence of the _Shoushoua_. Now it cannot, because the practice is discontinued in countries subject to Moslem rule, whence slaves are sometimes brought. In Ghadames a freed slave is called _matouk_ (???????) or _horr_ (?????). The terms _waseef_ (??????) and sometimes _mamlouk_ (???????) are employed for a single slave, and _abeed_ (??????) for many. The Arabic terms ????? ???????? ”the chief of slaves,” are used to denote the person who is responsible for the conduct of slaves, or the ”Sheikh of the slaves.” The word RAZZIA, which the French are said to have invented, and which has acquired such a _triste_ celebrity by their butcheries of the Arabs in Algeria, is derived from the same word as designates a Slave-hunt (_ghazah_)[53] amongst our Saharan people. The verb is ??????? _ghaza_, ”petivit,” which in the second conjugation means, ”expeditione bellica petivit hostem,” and the noun in use is ???????? _ghazah_, ”expeditione bellica.” The Bornouese word to denote a slave-hunt, as carried on by the Touaricks, is DIN, applied to private kidnapping expeditions, and means, I think, simply ”theft,” showing that not by war, as captives, but by ”theft,” ”stealing,” the ”man-stealing” of the Apostle Paul, are slaves generally procured in Central Africa. It is only just that _razzia_ and _ghazah_, the same words, should be so closely allied in application to their different actions. The French, to do the thing properly, and in their usual style, should erect a monument upon the ”Place” of the city of Algiers, to the new invention RAZZIA, with its derivations from _ghazah_, ”a slave-hunt.” A prize essay might also be proposed to the Oriental Chair of Paris, and its various students, now looking for distinction as interpreters in the land of RAZZIAS or ”butcheries,”
for the best derivation and historical progress of the term RAZZIA, as used by Christian and civilized nations, in relation to infidel and Mohammedan barbarians. At the bottom of the monument erected by the French to the DEMON RAZZIA, may be appended the following veracious words, copied from the late proclamation of the Duc d'Aumale, on his a.s.sumption of the high post of Governor-General of Algeria (_Moniteur Algerien_, October 20, 1847):--”You have learned by experience, O Mussulmans! how just and clement is the Government of France.” The Duke unpardonably forgets to cite one of the last proofs of this just and clement Government, the roasting of a tribe of Arabs, men, women and children in the caverns of the Atlas! . . . . Will not the Lying Bulletin (native of France) be proclaimed till doomsday?
This morning the merchants asked me why the English did not drive out the French from Algeria. They had often badgered me with this subject. I thought it better to speak plainly at once, and for all.
I began by asking, why should the English drive out the French? and continued, ”France and England are now at peace. They don't wish to make war at all, and England does not consider Algeria of such importance as to go to war about it. England did not derive much benefit from Algeria when Mussulmans ruled there; besides the Algerines were always sea-robbers. The English were obliged to go and chastise them several times before the French captured their country. And do not think, that if war did take place between England and France, and the English should drive the French out of Algeria, the country would therefore be given up to the Sultan and the Mussulmans. The English might wish to rule there themselves.
Upon no account wish for war in Algeria, for the miseries of the war would chiefly fall upon you, Mussulmans.” This completely settled them, and exasperated them, as well it might; they said no more. The Mussulmans always have in their memories the conduct of the English when they drove out the French from Egypt, and discussing this kind of politics, it is quite natural.
Afterwards I heard a Souafee holding forth to another group. His theme was, the Shanbah, Warklah, Touaricks, Tugurt, Souf, and Ghadames, and it was evident to him that besides the people now enumerated there were no others in the world. A respectable Moor observed at the time, ”That Souafee is a rascal. He's as great a robber as a Shanbah bandit. Mussulmans are not like Christians. The Christians have but one word, and are brothers. The Mussulmans have a thousand and ten thousand words, they don't speak the truth, and they are enemies to one another.” The ingenuous Moor knew little of the history of Europe and America. I did not disabuse him of his good opinion of us. He was a Ben Wezeet, and complained that now the _Nather_ (??????), or native overseer of the city, and the Kady or judge, and some of the richest merchants belonged to the Ben Weleed, and added mournfully, with a sigh, ”It was not so in my father's time. But the world has changed, and this is the new world.”
In reading the Arabic Testament, I have noticed several parallel customs or habits between The East and North Africa. Take this:
”But Jesus stooped down, and with his finger wrote upon the ground.”
(John viii. 6.)
People of Ghadames are writing daily with their fingers on the ground.
They are also wont, with fancy ornamental sticks, which they usually carry, to ill.u.s.trate their ideas on the sand or dust of the streets, by drawing figures. In speaking with them on geography, they sketch shapes of countries. They cast up all their ordinary accounts by writing figures on the sand. They have also certain games which they play by the use of sand. Sand is their paper, their ledger, their boards of account, their pavement, and their auxiliary in a thousand things. It is said in the Gospels, that The Saviour escaped to the mountains[54], either from the pressure of the people, or from the persecutions of his enemies. Persons are accustomed to escape to the mountains in Barbary, more particularly in Morocco and Algeria; but also in this country. Our Saviour, besides, gives the same advice to his disciples: ”Let them which are in Judea _flee to the mountains_.” (Luke xxi. 21.) It has always been difficult to apprehend fugitives in the mountains, especially in ancient times, when a good police did not exist. The conqueror has always had great difficulty, and exposed his conquests to imminent risk, by pursuing the conquered in mountainous districts. Such are the instincts and habits of men in all ages. The Desert has, besides, afforded an asylum to the fugitive and unfortunate, as well as the persecuted. Our Saviour was wont to retire to desert places. In this country, the discomfited defenders of their country's liberties have invariably escaped to The Sahara. How many times has Abd-el-Kader escaped to the mountains of Rif, or the solitudes of The Sahara? But it is unnecessary to pursue this obvious idea farther, otherwise it also will escape to The Mountains or The Desert.
The ”five _barley_ loaves,” (John vi. 9,) reminds me of the _barley_ bread of these countries, more frequent than any other sort of bread.
Wheaten bread is rarely eaten by the lower cla.s.ses.