Part 42 (1/2)
Mr. Gagliuffi thought one of the greatest obstacles to the suppression of the slave-trade was the facility which it afforded Moorish and Arab merchants to indulge in sensual amours. Although a merchant would get no profit by his long and dreary journeys over Desert, he would still carry it on for the sake of indulging in the lower pa.s.sions of his nature. A slave dealer will convey a score or two of female slaves from Mourzuk to Tripoli, and change the unhappy objects of his brutal l.u.s.t every night.
This is, he considers, the summum bonum of human existence, and to obtain it, he will continue this nefarious trade, without the smallest gain, or prospect of gain, and die a beggar when his vile pa.s.sions become extinct.
”What is life without a slave?” says The Desert voluptuary. ”Better to die than have no slaves!” But there are exceptions. A young lad is placed by his uncle, who lives in Tripoli, under the care of the Consul. His uncle wrote to the Consul, ”To tell the lad, to send no more slaves to Tripoli, to abandon the traffic altogether,” adding, in his letter, ”In future, G.o.d deliver us from this shameful traffic!” But the Consul previously had written to the uncle that he would not take the boy under his care if he trafficked in slaves. Notwithstanding all this, some few Saharan merchants there are who really detest this traffic, and its attendant immoralities. Such I have found in my later peregrinations through North Africa.
Fezzan, as vulgarly computed, is said to contain one hundred and one towns and villages, or inhabited oases. The districts are, 1st. Mourzuk, the capital; 2nd. East side, including Hofrah, Shargheeah, and Foghah; 3rd. North side, Sebhah, Bounanees, Jofrah, and Shaty; 4th. West side, Wady Sharghee, Wady Ghurby, and Wady Atbah; 5th. South side, Ghatroun.
This division embraces twelve princ.i.p.al towns, where there are resident Kaeds. All the lesser towns have their subordinate Kaeds or Sheikhs. It will be seen that Sockna is not included in this enumeration, and it is not usually considered a part of the government of Fezzan. Of the rest, and all the towns, Zuela is the more interesting for its antiquities.
Formerly the capital, as well as Germa, it was colonized by the Romans.
Zuela contains some ancient inscriptions, and not long ago two store-rooms were discovered, full of indigo, supposed to have been a portion of the ancient commerce of the interior. Zuela is the princ.i.p.al town of the division of Shargheeah, or The East.
To the natural productions of Fezzan, already enumerated, may be added, the Trona[112], or ”Sal Natrone” of Tripoline merchants. It is procured from the bottom of the lakes when the water evaporates during the summer season. Besides its use of being masticated in Barbary, it is exported to Europe in considerable quant.i.ties, for the manufacture of gla.s.s. A little gum-arabic is procured hereabouts, and the quant.i.ty is increasing.
Leo Africa.n.u.s gives the following account of these oases, which, joining those of the Tibboos, connect almost in a straight line Northern with Central Africa:--
”Fezzen e similmente una grande abitazione, nella quale sono di grossi castelli e di gran casali, tutti abitati da un ricco popolo si di possessioni, como di danari; perciocche sono ne' confini di Agadez e del diserto di Libia che confina con lo Egitto; ed e discosto dal Cairo circa a sessanta giornate; ne pel diserto altra abitazione si truova, che Augela che' e nel diserto di Libia. Fezzen e dominata da un signore che e come primario del popolo, il quale tutta la rendita del paese dispensa nel comun beneficio, pagando certo tributo a' vicini Arabi. Similmente in cotal paese e molta penuria di pane e di carne; e si mangia carne di camello, la quale e tuttavia carissima.”--(_Sixth Part, chap._ Liii.)
Formerly Fezzan was exceedingly rich and populous, but now it is become impoverished to the last degree, and many of its largest district populations are reduced to the starvation-point. Its inhabited oases would produce an infinitely greater amount of the materials of existence, if moderately cultivated, whilst many oases, once smiling paradisal spots in Desert, are altogether abandoned.
The few merchants who have any money are those of Sockna, but which town, as before mentioned, does not properly belong to Fezzan, though its relations with these oases are intimate. Before the Turks and Abd-El-Geleel, Fezzan was governed by its own native Sultans, whose family was of the Shereefs of Morocco. But about thirty years ago one Mukhanee, or Mukni[113], as he is commonly called, entered into conspiracy with the Bashaw of Tripoli to seize the government of the native princes, who were thus deposed, and the usurped government continued in the hands of the Bashaw and his creatures, until it was seized in turn by the brave and enterprising Arab chieftain, Abd-El-Geleel. The immediate ancestors of this Sheikh were destroyed by old Yousef Bashaw, amongst whom Saif Na.s.ser, grandfather of the Sheikh, and the head of the Oulad Suleiman, was a celebrated warrior. These chiefs and their tribes occupied the sh.o.r.es of the Syrtis (Sert ?????), and were originally from Morocco. They might claim some connexion with the deposed Shereefian government. When all his ancestors, and especially his grandfather, Saif-Na.s.ser, were butchered by the exterminating policy of Yousef Bashaw, Abd-El-Geleel, then a boy, was saved,--as an instrument of future vengeance in the hands of Providence--by the secret interference of the women of the Bashaw's family. As the boy, however, grew up, he could not fail to excite the suspicions of the Bashaw, for the old h.o.a.ry-headed a.s.sa.s.sin saw in him, not darkly or dimly, the sword which was being drawn by avenging Heaven to cut off his family root and branch, perhaps his own head, and break up for ever his blood-cemented kingdom. These suspicions of a guilty conscience came at length to such a pitch, that the day arrived when the innocent youth was to be strangled, so s.n.a.t.c.hing violently away the instrument of vengeance from the hands of inexorable justice!
But, on that very day, the Bashaw received intelligence of a threatened invasion from Mehemet Ali, and old Yousef knew this aspiring young warrior to be the only man who could unite the scattered and disaffected tribes of the Syrtis, and repel the invasion. Abd-El-Geleel was therefore forthwith dispatched to muster the Arabs, and make all things ready to meet the invading enemy.
However, the alarms of invasion soon died away, and the young Sheikh was sent up to the province of Fezzan to quell some insurrection of the Arabs.
But finding himself surrounded continually with suspicious agents and cut-throat spies, who might in a moment compa.s.s his a.s.sa.s.sination, whilst the Arabs _en route_ were ripe for revolt, the wary Sheikh at once raised the standard of rebellion, and took possession, successively, of the town of Benioleed, the mountainous district of Gharian, the Syrtis, and the province of Fezzan, all which he held nine years with the style and power of a Sultan. Then the day of his fate also began to hasten on. The old Bashaw's family, polluted with the most cruel and odious crimes, fell by its own intestine divisions, ending in a civil war, which war was closed by the usurpation of the Turks. Abd-El-Geleel was now called upon to submit to the Sultan of Constantinople, a new and a more formidable master. The Sheikh refused submission, and declared and carried on war with the Turks. At length, however, his intrepid brother, Saif Na.s.ser, was killed in battle, and the Sultan-Sheikh became dispirited, lost his courage and presence of mind. Abd-El-Geleel madly surrendered himself, at the instigation of his own Sheikhs, who betrayed him to the Turks, and Belazee, the present Bashaw of Fezzan, who commanded the troops against him, on hearing of his voluntary surrender, sent word that the Arab prince was not to be brought alive into the camp. He was then instantly decapitated! This cruel a.s.sa.s.sination took place in 1842. The whole of the usurped districts held by the prince, now returned to the power of the Turks.
Asker Ali, the blood-thirsty tyrant then governing Tripoli, on hearing of this intelligence was drunk with joy. His insolence to the British Consul-General knew no bounds. The tyrant even boasted openly, that G.o.d would give into his hands his two other enemies, the British Consul-General, and the Vice-Consul of Mourzuk! The tyrant was fond of dipping in astrology and reading fate, and he was once surprised by his ministers, reading the certain destruction of these last two of his remaining enemies in a small portion of sand. The consequence of all this open violence naturally was his instant recal, Sir Stratford Canning threatening the Porte that, if it delayed his recal more than one hour, a British squadron would depose the tyrant, and replace him by another Bashaw. The ancient Bey of Bengazi, an exile in Malta, and one of the Caramanly family, or of the old Moorish dynasty of Bashaws, would have replaced Asker Ali. This tyrant, like all tyrants, on receiving his recal, was unmanned, and became weaker than a child, for the performance of acts of the darkest cruelty and the most arrant cowardice, are quite compatible. The tyrant Asker Ali shed tears! on leaving the country, where he had exercised the most atrocious cruelties. However, he was fated to execute one act of justice, in the style of the Turk, against the betrayers of Abd-El-Geleel; for the tyrant strangled all the subordinate Arab chieftains who had conspired against their master, and delivered him into the hands of the Turks,--the just vengeance of heaven against traitors. Asker Ali returned to Constantinople, and as is the custom now-a-days, the Porte, imitating the recent policy of the French Government, which Government, whenever it disavows its agents, decorates them as a matter of course,--so that to be, or get decorated, is to do something contrary to international law and justice,--following such a good and honest maxim, such a discovery in the science of diplomacy, I repeat, the Porte, in its sympathy, immediately conferred on the tyrant a new Pashalic. Thence, after a short time, Asker Ali continuing his horrible trade of official murder, consulting his book of fate and atoms of sand, and hanging up the good subjects of the Porte ”without judge or jury,” got again recalled; and I have not heard more of this miscreant Pasha. Asker Ali is a bright jewel of native Ottoman ferocity.
The Chief Abd-El-Geleel figures in the Slave-Trade Reports of Tripoli, 1843, as an abolitionist. But, according to M. Subtil, he was only bamboozling Col. Warrington[114]. This Subtil also pretends the chieftain was more inclined to French than English interests. Such a statement is probably a calumny of the sulphur-exploring adventurer in Tripoli, and was made to get himself popularity in France, or to help his schemes of Tripoli speculations. At any rate, it rests solely upon his very dubious authority. The Arab prince lost all by attempting too much. He reversed the maxim of ”attempt much, and you will get a little.” An arrangement was offered to the Sheikh, by which, on paying a contribution of 25,000 dollars per annum, and acknowledging the sovereignty of the Grand Signior, the usurped districts should be confirmed to him, and hereditarily to his family. But, like the ten thousand military chieftains, soldiers of fortune, who have gone before him, whose faith saw their star always in the ascendant, he sighed for Tripoli, and its Bashaw's Castle, and lost all.
The son of Abd-el-Geleel, on the a.s.sa.s.sination of his father, took the advice of Col. Warrington, and emigrated to Bornou, whose Sultan being of Arab extraction, received the emigrant hospitably as a brother, and a.s.signed the unfortunate prince and his scattered followers, a district on the confines of Bornou, between the Tibboos and his own empire. Since then, the exiled prince has received a great accession of strength by a numerous reinforcement of the Oulad Suleiman, and is now strong enough himself to defend his newly acquired territory, should the Sultan of Bornou at any time be won over by the intrigues of the Turks, to cancel his concession of lands and attempt to expel the refugees. This movement of the Oulad Suleiman is connected with the further military exploits of Hasan Belazee.
About a twelvemonth ago, the inhabitants of the village of Omm-Erraneb (”mother of hares”), took it into their heads to revolt, and upon some frivolous pretext seized their neighbours' camels, as an intimation to the Bashaw of their seditious intentions. It is certain, however, from what followed in the course of events, that their revolt was concerted with the Oulad Suleiman. The villagers of Omm-Erraneb had not the shadow of excuse for their revolt, for they paid no contributions to the Bashaw, and merely acknowledged the Porte. This town is walled and consists of about two hundred houses, and at the time of the war had a population of some eight hundred souls, entirely Arab, but of the people only three hundred were armed. The Bashaw of Fezzan went out himself against the rebels, although extremely unwell, captured their city, and destroyed about one hundred and twenty of them. The Arab townsmen fought from house to house with the most determined bravery, obstinately retiring through their town from one gate to the other. The Bashaw would have slaughtered more of them, but he had no men to intercept their egress at the opposite gate of the town. His Highness lost only eight Turks and eight Arabs in the capture of this place. On the next day, to the astonishment of all, about six hundred of the Oulad Suleiman came up from the Syrtis, all fully armed, having left their families some two days' distance. The first thing they did was to capture a convoy of sick and wounded, in charge of the Greek Doctor, all of whom they immediately butchered in cold blood, with the one exception of the Doctor.
The account which the Doctor gives of his capture and escape is sufficiently characteristic.
_The a.s.sailant._--”May your father and mother be cursed, and your wife prost.i.tuted, you dog of a Turk!” (raising the sword to strike him).
_The Supplicant._--”Oh! have mercy upon me, I'm a doctor,” (falling on his knees).
_An Arab_, aside.--”Strike! strike! he lies.”
_The a.s.sailant._--”May all your children beg their bread, and the curse of G.o.d be upon them!” (seizing him by the turban to cut off his head).
_The Supplicant._--”Oh! have mercy upon me, I'm the brother of the English Consul at Mourzuk, your friend.”
_The Arab_, aside.--”Hold! hold! let him go.”
But the Doctor did not get off until he had emptied his pockets of his dollars. In this way only he rendered his supplications effectual.
In warfare, both Turks and Greeks have been in the habit of taking what money they possess with them, to redeem them from slavery if captured, or for any other available purpose in the case of defeat[115]. The Oulad Suleiman then attacked the Bashaw with extreme ferocity, and His Highness was in great danger. He was so unwell at the time that he could not sit upon his horse. But, when the troops began to waver, the officers took the Bashaw and set him upon his horse to show him to the soldiers. The sight of the veteran commander rallied their sinking courage. His Highness had just strength enough to hold up his sword and point to the enemy, on seeing which his troops rushed on impetuously, and obtained a complete victory over the Arabs. The Arabs were, however, only dispersed a moment, and were allowed to reunite their scattered bands and pursue tranquilly their way to Bornou, to the prince of their tribe. All the fugitives of the Omm-Erraneb accompanied them. On their march up, they ruthlessly sacked all the villages of Fezzan and the Tibboos, and arrived at the quarters of their compatriots laden with booty. The Bashaw returned weary and exhausted, having no sufficient force to follow up the pursuit of the Oulad Suleiman, whose march was that of conquerors rather than fugitives. Indeed, the Bashaw was glad enough of their retreat to Bornou. Whilst this fighting was going on, the greatest confusion reigned at Mourzuk, and many of the wealthy inhabitants deposited their money and valuables in the house of the English Consul, for to add to their miseries, some malicious persons had reported the capture of the Bashaw, with all his army. It is probable the Turks are exceedingly well satisfied with the emigration of these restless and indomitable Oulad Suleiman. There cannot be a doubt of their being devoted to the English, but they are of difficult treatment for us. At the present time, they are dispersed in marauding parties on the route of Bornou, and were even an English tourist to fall into their hands, he might be maltreated before he was recognized as a British subject, and as such received the protection of their prince. This was the main difficulty which prevented my going up to Bornou.