But the Rais boasts of having done something to mitigate the mutual antipathies of the factions. "The Shamtah, between them," he says, "has had its neck broken." And really, if it be the case, there is in this some compensation for the wrongs and miseries which the Turks are inflicting upon an impoverished and over burthened people. In other parts of Northern Sahara similar factions exist, often arising from chance divisions of towns. There is a similar division of the town of Ghabs in Tunis, but not carried to such extreme lengths as these factions of Ghadames. It would seem that society could not exist without party and divisions no more than a British Parliament. Even Scripture intimates there must be strifes and divisions.

Many came to me to hear the news from Tripoli and Algeria. I found them all interested in the fate and fortunes of the latter country. Some vague rumours had reached them of serious and bloody skirmishes. I calmed them, telling them "all people were on an equal footing in Algeria, Christians as Mussulmans, even as Mussulmans were in our British India." Some doubted my information. Late in the evening, when the visitors of the Rais had retired, I had a tête-à-tête with his Excellency. Speaking of the Ghadamseeah, his Excellency said, "They are ignorant and know not the tareek (i. e., system) of the Sultan; they magnify every trifle of news they hear, and are now alive to every change, and in feverish expectation of some new event." This is always the case with the oppressed; they must love change, if but for the worse. His Excellency then continued: "Since the forced contribution of fifty thousand dollars, no money is to be found. The money due for the past four months is still uncollected." Speaking of the bandits, his Excellency said, "The Pasha has written to me that he cannot allow me, or the Commandant of The Mountains, to march out against the Sebâah or Shânbah, without an order from the Sultan, but with such an order we could soon exterminate them." Our Rais does not entirely neglect the intellectual edification of his Desert subjects. This evening, early, he amused them with talking about steamboats, or "boats of fire." I put in a word about railroads, telling them with a railway we could come from Tripoli to Ghadames in two days. "The Christians know all things but God," said a Marabout.

20th.—Weather is now cool, and I can walk about the gardens at mid-day without inconvenience. I enjoy this much, amusing myself with throwing stones at the ripe dates, which fall in luscious clusters into one's mouth. Eating fruit in the gardens or from the trees is also a peculiar delight enjoyed by people of all countries and climates. Several of the people are so ignorant of printing that they call my newspapers letters, and this is natural enough, as there are no other but manuscript books amongst them.— , "Simon the Leper" (Matt. xxvi.). It is usual here to distinguish people in this way: as "Mohammed, the one-eyed," "Ahmed, the lame-with-one-leg," and "Mustapha, the red-beard." So the famous pirate of the Mediterranean was called "Barbarossa." The people are not at all ashamed of being called by their natural deformities, as we are in Europe. is one of the numerous words in Arabic where the sound corresponds with the sense. Ghemghem is, "to murmur," and the English word itself is not a bad example of the kind. The Mussulmans have very grotesque notions of the Christian doctrine of Trinity. A person said: "Do not the Christians say God has a Son?" "Yes," I replied. The rejoinder was, "That is making God like a bullock ()!" My friend the Touatee, a native of Touat, tells me the Touaricks were originally from Timbuctoo, and so say all Touat Touaricks. The ghafalah just arrived from Tripoli has brought eighty camel-loads of barley. Observed the head of the little son of the Touarick bandit. Fancied it was really the infantile cast of such a parent's head. This is the danger of the science, prejudicing you in such matters.

Apparently, what little thieving there is going on here is committed by the Arabs and slaves. There are three or four of these latter most determined date stealers. One of these slaves was brought up yesterday and received two hundred bastinadoes; but it had not much effect upon him. When these offenders become incurable, the Rais packs them off to Tripoli. A very good plan, which keeps the country free of offences of petty larceny. However, many of these slaves steal because they have not enough to eat: thus we come to the old circle again, that poverty is the mother of crime. So is it with the Arabs and slaves of Ghadames. The slaves are mostly devout, if not fanatic Mussulmans. They have a right to be fanatical, for their religion is a great protection to them. Their masters, not like the Christian slave-masters of the Southern States of America, who close the Bible against the slave, are also proud of the fanaticism of their slaves, and teach them verses of the Koran. The slave's conception of the dogmas of his religion is slow and confused. My Negro Said is a good Mussulman, and keeps his fast well, but I never yet caught him at his prayers, nor does he go much to the mosque. Yesterday I came suddenly upon two youngsters, the Rais's slaves, who at mid-day were devouring roasted locusts and drinking water, in the style of sumptuous feasting. I called out, "Holloa! how now? are you feasting or fasting?" They began laughing and then handed me some roast locusts, to bribe me not to blab. My taleb caught a slave in my house eating also roasted locusts, and asked him if he should like to be roasted in hell-fire?

21st.—The old blind man is the most regular patient. The novelty of being doctored or quacked by a Christian is wearing away. Wrote to-day to Mr. Gagliuffi, British Vice-Consul of Mourzuk. Said, in visiting his friends, for he has now his circle, brought me a present of Danzagou, in Arabic Kashkash. This is a seed of the size of a large hip, and of a beautiful scarlet colour; it is used sometimes as medicine, mostly for necklace beads, and is native of Soudan, where it abounds. He also brought some Morrashee, in Arabic Jidglan. This is a species of millet, a product of Soudan. The Blacks, Moors, and Arabs all eat it with gusto. There are several varieties of edible seed brought over The Desert from Soudan, chiefly as Saharan luxuries. Had a long conversation with the people of the Ben-Weleed, and found them extremely sociable. One of them had been to Leghorn, and described the houses as seven stories high, and the port free. These were his strongest impressions. It is worth observing here the universal freemasonry of the mercantile spirit. As a merchant, he could understand and recollect a free-port in any part of the world. The honour of this anecdote have the Leaguers.

A man showed me a sore place on his arm, which he called Arak[30]-El-Abeed ( ). This was a large raised pimple, in the centre of which was an opening, and from which aperture there issued from time to time a very fine worm, like the finest silk-thread, and sometimes not much thicker than a spider's web, in small detached lengths. This worm is often of the enormous length of twenty yards, gradually oozing out piecemeal. It is a common disease of Soudan where the merchants catch the infection, and bring it over The Desert. It is said to be acquired principally by drinking the waters of that country.

By the wars before the occupation of the Turks, Tripoli had become exhausted of its wealth, and its trade and agriculture were at the lowest ebb. The country was divided into two armed factions of the ancient family, money was borrowed at the most extravagant, and sometimes 500 per cent. interest, and the jewels of the ancient family were bartered away for arms and provisions, to carry on the war. A large collection of splendid diamonds were sold for something like an old song. Most of these got into the hands of Europeans. I saw some in the hands of an European gentleman, who assured me that he had been fortunate enough to get them for a fourth, and some of them for a seventh, of their value. When the Turks usurped the Government, such was the condition of the country. But they had also to put down a formidable rebellion of the Arabs, which occupied several years of exterminating war. This gave the coup de grâce to the unfortunate Regency of Tripoli, and plunged it into complete ruin. There was, however, one city, far in The Desert, which appeared unaffected by these sanguinary and wasting revolutions—the holy-merchant-marabout city of Ghadames! the pacific character of whose inhabitants seemed to place it without the pale of such dire turmoils. But the Turks (the war with the Arabs ended, and at leisure) began to look about, and thought they saw an Eldorado looming beautifully in the mirage of The Desert, which would speedily replenish their exhausted treasures, and put the Government of Tripoli in easy pecuniary circumstances. A pretext was soon found to excavate in this newly discovered Desert mine. "The people of Ghadames," said the Pashas of Tripoli, "are rebels—they sympathized with the Arabs—they did not come forward to help us to exterminate the Arabs—they must now pay for their disaffection." A forced contribution was therefore immediately levied upon them of 50,000 mahboubs and upwards, and the women and children were stripped of their gold and silver ornaments, and houses ransacked, to make up the amount at once. Ten thousand mahboubs were also demanded annually. This new demand threw the city into consternation, and the men brought out the women and the children into the streets, who fell upon their faces before the officers of the Pasha, and implored them not to deprive their wives and children of bread. It was at last settled they should pay 6,250 mahboubs, as an annual contribution. Under the Caramanly dynasty they paid only some 850 mahboubs per annum, besides being left to the uncontrolled management of their own affairs. Now, whilst the people are complaining of the large amount of taxation imposed upon them, and pleading their impossibility to pay up arrears—in this irritable state of things—an order comes from Ahmed Effendi in The Mountains, to collect an additional contribution of 3,225 mahboubs, under the pretext of its being wanted to maintain troops in Fezzan, and keep open the communications of commerce. This intelligence has so completely astounded the few remaining merchants who have any money, that they nearly lost their senses, yesterday and to-day, being very ill, and unable to attend to their ordinary business. The money for the last four months is not yet collected, and the people say they cannot pay up. Our Rais has three times represented to the Pasha the inability of the people, but the answer always is, "money must be had." I expect to witness some cruel scenes of extortion practised before I leave this place, like what I saw in The Mountains. I observe now the Rais can't keep a respectable collector. No native of Ghadames will collect for him. Sometimes he sends the Arab soldiers, who abuse the defaulters. Once an Arab soldier got hold of a poor man in the street, an acquaintance of mine, to drag him off before the Rais. I told him to stop a moment, and then having ascertained how much it was—about one shilling and eight-pence—paid the money and got the poor fellow clear this time. Sheikh Makouran is a true patriot. Whenever he sees anybody dragged off in this way through the streets, in spite of the Governor, and his being a member of the Divan, he takes upon himself to impede the course of justice (extortion?), abuses with all his might the officer, and if he can't rescue the defaulter, pays the money himself: so strives for public liberty this Hampden of The Desert!

To-day, had a proof of the rancorous enmity of the ancient factions. A merchant of the Ben Welleed, who wished to visit me, said, "I must come round the city, for I don't know the streets of the Ben Wezeet. Thank God! I never went through them in my life." This he said with vehemence, intimating that he never would enter the streets of the Ben Wezeet as long as he lived. A ghafalah has arrived from the oases of Fezzan, bringing corn and dates, productions abundant in those countries.

22nd.—Weather continues cool. Few more patients. Present of dates from one of them. Very little meat now killed in Ghadames, less and less every day. What will become of this once flourishing city it is hard to tell. The prejudices of the people against the residence of an European in this city have apparently disappeared; people are increasingly civil; many would willingly look upon me as their protector, were I made Consul, but unfortunately for them, I am not ambitious of, nor have any inclination for, the honour.

This morning heard a curious opinion about Younas, or Jonas (Jonah), for the Arabs, like the Greeks[31], sometimes change the last letter of the Hebrew into a . Probably they got their traditions through the Greeks or the Greek language. I was talking with a taleb about longevity, when he observed, "There is but one person who is always alive." "Who is that?" I inquired very anxiously. "It is our lord Jonas, who is living in distant and unknown parts of the world," he said. "Is he alone?" I further inquired. "No," he added, "he has with him a hundred thousand people, who live to a great age, but who at last die, whilst he is always living. Then as to Jesus, the son of Mary, he also never died, and went up to heaven alive. The Jews (the curse of God upon them!) only killed his likeness." I have always observed these mysterious events to transpire in some unknown and distant part of the world, and took the liberty of telling this taleb that the "smoke-ships" (steamers) could soon make every place in the world near and known, and then we might find out the residence of Jonah as well as the captivity of the ten tribes. The story of the ten tribes is pretty well known. A Maroquine rabbi told me they are somewhere about the regions of Gog and Magog, in Central Asia, situate in a country where there is a river running perpetually six days out of seven, very rapid and full of stones, so that they cannot pass it and return to the Holy Land. On the seventh it stops, when it might be passed, but on the Sabbath day the law does not permit them to travel. This is the Barbary version. Central Asia is still the land of mysteries for both Jews and Mohammedans. The Russians have done little to dispel these mysteries, if they have not tried to envelop these lands in profounder obscurity, for political purposes; but had we been established in Affghanistan, we might have discovered Jibel Kaf, the retreat of Gog and Magog, the strange stony river, the ten tribes, and all the other objects of Jewish and Mohammedan superstition. But as with the famous gardens of the Hesperides, the abode of perfectly happy mortals, which were shifted farther and farther from actual observation by the progress of ancient discovery, so the mysterious retreat of the ten tribes and the ever-living Jonas will be transferred to other unknown lands when modern discovery shall have exhausted Central Asia.

Met Sheikh Makouran: asked him what was to be done to meet the extraordinary contribution. He said he couldn't tell, people had no money: Rais had so written to Tripoli, but was reprimanded by the Pasha. Advised him to send a deputation to the Pasha, or the British Consul-General. Had another example of the bad system of collecting monies, as often in Mahometan States, by means of common soldiers. These fellows do all the dirty jobs, everything necessary in the way of extortion; the more respectable officials shun these disagreeable transactions, especially if they be natives of the place where the taxes are collected. A great disturbance was in the streets, the people almost fighting with these extortioner ruffians. Going farther on, something absolutely ludicrous happened. The soldiers could not read, no person would read their papers for them, and they could not find out the person on whom they were to make their demands, although the parties were actually present. They then came to me to read their papers. I asked them, "Whether they thought it showed any of the friendship which they professed towards me to embroil me with the people of the country, whose hospitality I was receiving?" They were so convinced of the justice of my appeal, that they went off without replying. A Ghadamsee peasant called to me, "Yâcob, you must be our Consul!"

Afternoon, Essnousee left for Ghat. Being extremely attached to this merchant, I went to see him off. About thirty of the Ben Weleed (for he is of this faction) accompanied him, the most respectable of this division of the the city; I was glad to see a person, in whom hereafter I might have to place implicit confidence, so much esteemed. His friends set to and loaded his camel before starting, as many as could find any thing, each taking an article of harness or equipment. This I observed often afterwards. It is reckoned friendly. By such conduct they show they are willing to render all the assistance in their power to their friend. I continued on the route of Ghat with Essnousee half an hour or more, bade him farewell and returned. His brothers and a slave left him with me. The merchant then proceeded on his desert journey of some fifteen or twenty days absolutely alone, for he had only a Touarick camel-driver. This demonstrates the security of the route. I said to the people afterwards, "Is he not afraid to go alone?" "No," was the answer, "they will only meet Touaricks, and these are our friends. You have only to pay a small trifle of toll in different parts of the route and you are quite safe. Sometimes you don't pay this." Essnousee will reach Ghat in twelve, whilst a quick caravan requires from eighteen to twenty days. With first-rate camels the journey could be performed in eight or ten days. Strange infatuation! I felt an almost irrepressible desire to accompany Essnousee as I was, and to plunge anew into all the hardships and dangers of The Desert. But such is man, a creature of daring or absurd impulses! and the more he moves, and roams, and rambles, the more (in modern phrase) locomotive he is—the less he likes repose, and seeks unceasingly such perilous stimulants. Observed, on returning, amongst the loose stones scattered upon the surface of The Desert, a great quantity of rubbish, like brick-bats thrown out from a brick-kiln, giving the face of the ground a burnt and volcanic appearance. Picked some up and could hardly believe but what they were burnt bricks. The Ben Weleed, who accompanied Essnousee, instead of the short and direct road through the streets of the Ben Wezeet, took a circuitous route round the inner walls of the city to arrive at the gate of departure, showing me how great was still the force of these factions. Essnousee himself told me he never went through the streets of the Ben Wezeet, nor did he expect he ever should in this world.

24th.—Yesterday and to-day employed in writing for the Shantah (Turkish, for mail). Rais in a good humour this evening. Two camels came in from The Sahara, one day's journey, laden with wood for the Rais. His Excellency offered some to me. The fact is, I purchased a camel-load a few days ago, and his Excellency's servants had nearly begged it all away. People generally burn dried and dead branches of the palm, which, in this season, is abundant. It is not good fire-wood; there is plenty of flame and smoke, but little heat. Said, on my return from the Rais, assures me he has heard from his visitors, the Touarick slaves, that now the Touaricks do not beat their slaves, but esteem all men souwa, souwa, ("equal"); it was not so in former times. Free and enlightened America may have yet to learn lessons of freedom and humanity from the savages of The Sahara!

Purchased a Thob[32], a species of large lizard. It is common in The Sahara. The Touaricks eat them, and say they are medicine for a pain or weakness in the back. This may have been surmised from the ideal resemblance between the strength of their backs, which is scaly and bony, and strongly bound together, and the strength it is likely to communicate unto persons having a weak or crippled spine. They are pretty good eating, and taste something like the kid of the goat; the tail is esteemed the greatest delicacy. I tasted of this which I bought, and liked it. There is no lizard of this species in Soudan. A Touarick told me that, having found one in The Desert, he carried it to Soudan, where a Negro prince fell in love with it, and gave him for it the present of a young female slave. The Arabs tame the Thob, and he grows very fond. Some of them are very large. This I purchased is only twenty inches in length, and about ten round the thickest part of the body. The head is large and tortoise-shaped, with a small mouth. It is covered with scales, or "scaly mail," and its tail is about four inches long, composed of a series of broad thick and sharp bones. It has four feet, or rather hands, for, as the Arabs say, "It has hands like Ben-Adam (mankind)." All the body, back and flanks, are covered by shining scales, of the colour of a darked-spotted grey, with spots white and light under the belly. It runs very awkwardly on account of its bulky tail, and to look at is a miniature aligator or crocodile. It is almost harmless, fighting a little now and then; its appearance, however, is rather forbidding. It hides in the dry sandy holes of The Sahara. A drop of water, say the Arabs, would hurt it. The traditions of the Mohammedans mention that Mahomet did not himself eat the Thob, at the same time he did not prohibit it to his followers. The Saharan merchants, in traversing The Desert, frequently make a good meal of the Thob. Whilst talking of the Thob, the people said the flesh of parrots was poison for Ben-Adam.

25th.—Another of my patients dead, of a raging fever caught, it is said, "by sleeping on the top of the house in the open air." The moon struck him, they say. According to the Psalms, "The sun shall not smite thee by day, nor the moon by night."

They let him remain seven days without sending for me, when it was too late to administer my fever powders. I fetched an old gentleman who could bleed to have him bled, but they refused, saying it was now late. The old blood-letter vexed at their refusal, said, "Well, if I mustn't bleed him, let me pray for him;" and, immediately offered up a short prayer, in which they all joined willingly. On telling a Ghadamsee I ate some Thob, he said, "Ah, that's forbidden; the Thob was formerly a human being, before it had its present shape. Don't you see its hands are still human?" The notion of the transmigration of souls lingers in these parts, but it is a doctrine not generally received. I observed this man afterwards fattening his sheep with date-stones, broken into small pieces. Almost every family, however small, have their sheep to fatten. Pounded date-stones are also given to camels for fattening. Writing for amusement with my taleb, I recollected a verse in the Koran, which I wrote:—



This filled him with surprise and horror, and he immediately scratched it out, as too pure and holy a thing to be in the possession of an Infidel. The translation is:—"We (God) have sent thee (Mahomet) only for mercy to mankind;" or, "Thy mission to man, O Mahomet! is only mercy." Such credit all impostors and pretenders to revelation claim for themselves, and such an object they declare to be the end of their mission, although at the same time, and in the same breath, they don't forget to doom all those who reject their authority to perdition. This, it would seem, is a necessary evil in propagating new religions and new sects. But enough of this—may the world grow more kindly—let us hope it will. This morning arrived a single Arab from Fezzan. It would appear extreme hardihood when we reflect, that for nine days, there is not a house, and scarcely a resting-place. The Arab was mounted on a camel. This arrival, as Essnousee's departure, shows the security of the routes in some directions. The Arab told me he made his journey in nine days, and stopped occasionally on the road to sleep and refresh himself. In the night he tied his camel's leg to his own leg, so that if it attempted to stray, it would awake him.

Nothing new with Rais. Speaking of the Arabs, he says, "You know Arabs to be very devils. There are two ways to consider Arabs, but whichever way they are robbers and assassins. When they are famished, they plunder in order to eat; when their bellies are full, they plunder because they kick and are insolent. Now, we (Turks) keep them upon low diet in The Mountains; they have little, and always a little food. This is the Sultan's tareek (government) to manage them. Their spirits are kept down and broken, and they are submissive." He then told me he had held a Divan to obtain the extra contribution of 3,200 mahboubs, for the Pasha; but the people protested they could not pay such an amount. I wrote a letter to Colonel Warrington, stating this circumstance, and asked him if he could assist the people in any way. I thought it a bare possibility that the hand of foreign diplomacy might be stretched out to save this city, which had flourished in the pursuits of its own peaceful commerce for more than a thousand years. . . . To mitigate the apparent harshness of his demand, the Rais observed, that before the Sultan occupied Ghadames, the country between this and Tripoli was full of banditti. "The Arabs of The Mountains," he added, "were all banditti, those amongst whom you resided eight days. The Touaricks were not so bad, they generally protected Ghadamsee merchants. Now since the Sultan, there are only the Shânbah and the Sebâah, therefore the Ghadamseeah must pay." So, Audi alteram partem.

26th.—To-day, resident thirty days in Ghadames which time I have certainly not lost. Written a good deal of MS., such as it is, and several letters; besides, applied myself to reading and writing Arabic. Likewise distributed medicines to a considerable number of invalids. Wish to pass the next month as profitably as the month gone. My expenses of living, including a guard to sleep in the house at night, and Said, are only at the rate of eighteen-pence per day; this, however, excludes tea, coffee, and sugar. Besides, Sheikh Makouran refuses to take anything for house-rent, saying, "It would be against the will of God to receive money from you, who are our sure friend, and our guest of hospitality." Few patients, in comparison with the past. As the winter approaches, the cases of ophthalmia are less. In the precipitation of leaving Tripoli, brought little ink with me, and most of that I gave away; so am obliged to go about the town to beg a little. The custom is, when one person wants ink, he begs it of another. Went to Ben Weleed, who procured me a supply.

My intercourse has been mostly with Ben Wezeet, but to day I visited Ben Weleed at the Bab-Es-Sagheer, ("the little gate,") or the Bab-Es-Saneeah, ("the gate of the garden,") where there were about forty of the most respectable of this faction assembled in a sort of gossiping divan amongst themselves. They told me they met here every morning, and chatted over the news of the previous day. Usually they meet just after sunrise, and certainly in this way they pass a cool and fragrant hour, full of the odoriferous breathings of the gardens as the day is awakening. I asked one, who were the richer, the Weleed or the Wezeet? He replied, with an honourable frankness, "The Wezeet." Observed many of the men had their eyelids blackened, like the women, with Kohel[33], and also their finger-nails and toe-nails dyed dark-red with henna[34]. I confessed I was surprised at this monstrous effeminacy. One of these lady-gentlemen was the son of the powerful Ettanee family; he was brought up to the Church, and of great promise, bidding fair to be future Kady or Archbishop. He put a curious question to me, "How much is the expense of a journey from Malta to Constantinople?" When I satisfied him, he said, "I shall go and buy some slaves at Ghat, and then convey them to Constantinople. Don't you think I shall make money by it?" I told him he would not find anybody at Malta to convey slaves to Constantinople; and if he took them there, they would be set at liberty, for a slave once touching British territory became free. To this he replied only, "I know—I knew before." I was extremely glad he did know it. It is strange to see a young man of this description so avariciously turn himself into a slave-dealer, but Mohammedan priests frequently trade.

Marabouts in The Mountains are mostly camel-drivers; and the greater part of priests, marabouts, and kadys perform sacred duties gratis. An order of priesthood exists, though it is not kept up very distinctly from laymen, but it is an honour to them, "to work in the service of God for nothing," and is worthy of the imitation of Christians. My new clerical friend gave me a dissertation upon things having two names, a classical one and a vulgar one. The Kohel is also called Athmed, , which is its classical name. Senna is called hasheeshah, , literally "herbs," its vulgar name, and , "senna of Mecca," (literally, of the inviolable,) which is its classical name. A little senna is found casually in the gardens of Ghadames; but the country of Senna, in The Sahara, is Aheer, where it is cultivated by the Touaricks. He pointed out to me the Tout, (,) the small white mulberry, which is planted in little squares of the city. Speaking of the Touaricks, he said: "These people are getting dissatisfied with us. Formerly we paid them better; but being robbed of our money by the Turks, we can't give them much. They smell also a disagreeable odour now. Formerly they came in and went out our city as a garden." "What odour is that?" I asked. "It's that Rais," he whispered in my ear. The fact is, the Touaricks felt themselves more at home before the Turks came here, which everybody can imagine.



This afternoon, whilst talking with the people about their antiquities, one of them said, "There are some figures remaining." I immediately asked him to show them to me. The youngster volunteered; and, to my great joy, I was taken off to a garden, where I saw the bas-relief drawn above. I then thought about getting it in a quiet way to my house; so I went up to the owner of the garden in which it lay, and said to him in a very careless, indifferent manner, "What's the good of the stone to you—you may give it me; perhaps it will be of some use." The man replied at once, "Aye, Christian, take it." The youngster, who was a stout fellow, brought it off forthwith upon his head. I followed him in secret triumph, thinking myself very fortunate; for if any noise had been made, I should have had to pay several dollars for it, whatever might have been its real value, and, perhaps, not have got it at all. Indeed, some of the people were very jealous; and when I returned, they called out flous! flous! ("money! money!") They thought I had got a rich prize, and I hope I have. I told them, if anybody had any flous, it would be the owner of the garden, who gave me the slab. The sketch represents, apparently, a soldier holding or feeding a horse, but of what age and country I shall not pretend to say, leaving that to antiquarians. It is broken off half, and otherwise pecked and mutilated by the people. It is a pious act of religion to deface stones representing figures of any sort, to decapitate heads of statues, and destroy every shape and symbol of the human likeness, not excepting likenesses of animals. An old Ghadamsee doctor, very fond of me, was, however, extremely glad when he saw me in possession of the slab. He kept saying, "Ah, Yâkob, that's your grandfathers (ancestors). See! isn't it wonderful? Ah, that's your grandfathers of the time of Sidi Nimrod. Take it home with you. Ah, that's your grandfathers!"

This evening, heard that the heads of the people of Ghadames had adopted my suggestion of sending a deputation to Tripoli, to state their inability to meet the new and extraordinary demand of 3,200 mahboubs, the Governor consenting to their determination.

27th.—Weather still cool and pleasant, but the flies are in great numbers, and very disagreeable. Am obliged always to have my room darkened when I write, to keep them from tormenting me. They increase as the dates ripen, and soon after the dates are gathered in, they disappear, and not one is to be found during the winter. Haj Mansour gave me to-day a meneshsha () or fly-flap, made of the long flowing beard of the Wadan. It is a most effective whipper-away of the flies. It instantly disperses them, the fine strong hair of the Wadan's beard hitting them like pins and needles. This species of fly-flap is greatly valued in Soudan, where it sells at a high price. The hairs which are of a dull grey or red brown, are usually dyed with henna when made up into fly-flaps. I expressed myself extremely obliged to the Haj. Wadan (Ar. ), Oudad (Berber ), and English Mouflon, is the name of a species of animals between the goat and the bullock[35]. It is common in the Southern Atlas of Morocco, and is hunted in the neighbouring sands of Ghadames during winter by the Souf Arabs, and brought in and sold for butcher's meat. Wadan is said to be medicine by the people, and tastes like high flavoured coarse venison. Three or four only have been sent to England[36]. Dr. Russell, in his Barbary States, makes it to resemble a calf, but it rather resembles a large goat or a horned sheep. Besides the Wadan and the Thob, Saharan people eat many animals which hungry Europeans might eat, amongst the rest rats and mice, when in good condition. But the mouse is the large mouse of The Sahara. The Rais had a live Wadan which died just before my arrival. He regretted much as he would have given it to me. His Excellency promises to get me one.

Nimrod is always in the mouths of the Ghadamseeah as the founder of their city. They are especially fond of calling him a Christian. He is often called my grandfather, although I have not yet been able to trace my descent in a direct line from so august a progenitor. The European reader recollects where he is mentioned in the Jewish early records,—



"He was a mighty hunter before the Lord." Gen. x. 9. In the Arabic translation the word employed for "mighty" is the same as that of the Hebrew, i. e. the representing the , omitting any word to correspond with ; but the Moors understand generally by the term , "a tyrant" and "a conqueror." So Hammoudah Bashaw, the great Bey of Tunis, is called by a faithful Tunisian historian of that country, a . But, perhaps, in those remote times, the hunter and the tyrant, as in the Roman Commodus, were joined in one and the same person. Certainly this is the natural sense of the combination of the terms . To this might easily be added man-hunter and slave-maker, a worthy attribute of Nimrod. The gentlemen of the turf, of the Bentinck school, ought, however to protest against this supposition. Properly Nimrod is the Hercules of the Moors of North Africa. According to them he emerged from the East, overran and founded several cities in The Sahara, conquered all before him, put his feet upon the neck of all nations, and then passed the Straits of the Roman and Grecian Hercules, and built the far-famed Andalous (Spain), as also Paris and London, and no doubt planted the germ of the future courses of Epsom and Ascot, of which he is in our day made the mighty patron and the ruling god[37].

After Nimrod the people are very fond of talking about Enoch, who is called in the Koran Edrees (). My taleb says that he did not undergo the penalty of nature, but was translated, as, indeed, it is recorded of him in our sacred books. My taleb adds, "Enoch was a tailor, and one day the devil came to him and offered to sell him some eggs, declaring that in the eggs the whole world was included. Enoch rejoined, 'Also in the eye of my needle is the whole world comprehended.' Immediately the eggs began to expand, and although really empty, swelled out as wide as the arms when outstretched. Enoch seeing this was all imposition, to punish the impostor, sewed up one of the devil's eyes, who went off in a great rage. The needle of Enoch was nevertheless all powerful, and the devil has gone about with one eye ever since." My taleb asked me whether I ever heard of Noah. I opened the Arabic Bible and read some passages about the Flood. "Yes," he said, "Seedna (our lord) Noah was a carpenter () because he built the ship (). I am also a carpenter. I will show you my collection of tools. But I don't work now at this trade, except for my amusement." The people know many of the common trades which they exercise occasionally as amateurs.

Nothing puzzles the Touaricks and Negroes so much as my gloves. Am obliged to put them on and off frequently a dozen times a day, for their especial gratification. My Leghorn hat, on the contrary, here, as in The Mountains, is an object of admiration, on account of the fineness of the platting. It astonishes them how it could be done. The large straw hats, with huge broad brims, worn in The Desert, are all of the coarsest texture.

This morning made inquiries of the Touaricks respecting serpents in The Desert. Could obtain but little information, the notions of the Saharan tribes in general being very confused about serpents. All serpents go under the name of lefâah (). But other names are in use here, as , &c., which apparently are the generic names. The boah mentioned by Dr. Russell I have not heard of. One of the Touaricks, however, described to me a serpent as being nearly as thick round as a man's body, but not more than three feet in its greatest length. This serpent has also large horns. It is not at all dangerous. There is a much longer serpent or snake, but not more than four inches round in thickness, which is dangerous. If we are to believe Mr. Jackson, the southern part of Morocco abounds with monstrous serpents, but in all my route through The Sahara, I met with none, nor heard of any. It is a very old trick of the poets and retailers of the marvellous to people The Desert with dragons, and serpents, and monsters of every kind. We know that on the banks of the Majerdah an enormous serpent stopped the progress of the army of Regulus. Batouta, also, who flourished in the fourteenth century, pretends that "The Desert is full of serpents." Even Caillié, who saw neither lions nor elephants, or very few animals of any sort, says, when at the wells of Amoul-Gragim, "My rest was disturbed by the appearance of a serpent, five feet and a-half long and as thick as the thigh of a boy twelve years old. My travelling companions also experienced similar visits." If this report be correct, it evidently refers to the harmless lefâah mentioned by the Touarick. At the ruins of Lebida, on the coast of Tripoli, an unusual number of large snakes were seen this year (1845), mounting upon and twining round the broken shafts of pillars still standing, as if at the command of some invisible jinn; but they were all perfectly harmless. The jugglers were catching them, to exhibit their forky tongues and snaky folds, as venomous and deadly, to the marvel-loving crowd. The lion of The Desert is a myth. The king of beasts never leaves his rich domain, the thick forest and pouring cascade, where water and animals of prey abound, for the naked, arid, sandy, and rocky wastes of The Sahara. The ancients and moderns, however, have persisted in representing Africa, not only as a country full of monsters, but "always producing some new monster,—"

Semper aliquid novi Africam afferre[38],

all which is either entirely incorrect or a monstrous exaggeration. It would have been very nice to fight one's way through The Desert in the midst of every kind of beast and monster which the gloomy imagination of men may have conjured up from the beginning of the annals of adventure and travel; this would have made these pages undoubtedly very "stirring and exciting." Happily Providence has not filled up those vast spaces which separate Northern and Central Africa with such hideous tenants! Sufficient are the evils of The Desert to the wayfarer who sojourns therein.

In the evening, had a long conversation with a group of people. The subjects, in which they all felt more than ordinary curiosity, were, the new world of America, Australia, the Pacific, and the whales in it, and the gold and silver mines of South America, &c. The number of sheep, also, in Australia, amazed them, in comparison with the few wandering scattered flocks in The Desert. I am become a walking gazette amongst the people, and ought to be dubbed "Geographer of The Desert." They also question me on the relative forces of the Christian Powers, and have a great idea of the military strength of France. The capture of Algiers has produced a vivid and lasting impression of the French power throughout all North Africa. They consider England the great power on the sea, and France on the land. I have, besides, to tell them of the population of all the world, and to answer a thousand other questions. Sometimes their conversation, after being exceedingly animated, falls into unbroken and moody silence, and they recline for hours, without moving a muscle of the face or uttering a syllable. Indolence is the besetting sin of the Saharan tribes. It is also the same in Tripoli. Col. Warrington, in reporting upon the Tripolines, says:—"Whether the extraordinary indolence of the people proceeds from the climate, or want of occupation, I know not, but they are in an horizontal position twenty hours out of the twenty-four, sleeping in the open air." In this temperate season of the year, the Ghadamsees might find useful and healthful occupation in the gardens, but they are so confoundedly lazy that they won't stir, and what work really is done is performed by slaves. Such people deserve to starve. Caillié says:—"The Mandingoes would rather go without food part of the day than work in the fields; they pretend that labour would take off their attention to the Koran, which is a very specious excuse for laziness." Like most people in Central Africa, all their hard work is done by the poor slaves. The Ghadamsee people have, however, the excuse that, being a city of merchants, their object is repose when they return from long journeys.

Paid a visit to Rais; presented to his Excellency one of my best razors, with which he was highly delighted. Saw plenty of my acquaintances, all pleased with the Ramadan being about to terminate. Few patients.

FOOTNOTES:

[30] The Arabic seems to be used for a pustule or small tumour. The term is applied to the tumour of a camel. There is also the term , "decayed flesh or bone."

[31] , . Esaias is changed in the same way.

[32] , Thob—monitor: probably, monitor pulchra.

[33] , Kohel, "powder of lead," name derived from the epithet "black."

[34] , Henna, "Lawsonia alba," Law. The Henna shrub is cultivated in irrigated fields at Ghabs (Tunis), and is a source of wealth.

[35] It is the Ovis Tragelaphus of Zoologists.

[36] I was fellow-passenger from Mogador with the male oudad, now at the Royal Zoological Gardens. He is a very fine animal, but has but one eye.

[37] The foundation of Nimrod's reputation was laid in the East, many curious facts of which have been preserved in Armenian tradition. The Armenian Bishop, Dr. Nerses Lazar, says, for the benefit of all England, (See his Scriptural and Analogical Conversations on the Physical and Moral World with reference to an Universal Commercial Harmony, published by Bentley, London, 1846):—"In the second age of the world, just on entering the second century, Nimrod began to be a mighty one in the earth; he was the first great warrior, conqueror, or most severe governor. He was a mighty hunter before the Lord: wherefore it is said, Even as Nimrod the mighty hunter before the Lord, by which means he became a mighty monarch. For he inured himself to labour by this toilsome exercise, and got together a great company of young robust men to attend him in this sport; who were hereby also fitted to pursue men as they had done wild beasts. (Here the Free Kirk will find the beginning of the system which they are patronizing in Yankee Land.) Besides, in the age of Nimrod, the exercise of hunting might win him the hearts of men, whom he thus delivered from wild beasts, to which they were much exposed in their rude and unprotected way of living; so that many at last joined him in the great designs he formed of subduing men, and making himself master of the neighbouring people in Babylon, Susiana, and Assyria. The memory of this hunting of his was preserved by the Assyrians, who made Nimrod the same as Orion, for they joined the dog and the hare, the first creature perhaps that he hunted, with his constellation. He first erected Babylon, and Assyria is called the land of Nimrod, &c., &c. He began to exalt himself, and he is called Bel from his dominions, and Nimrod from his rebellion (against God)." The worthy prelate goes on giving a very long affair about the father of huntsmen and jockies. Nimrod has come up again in this our year of 1847. The French and English antiquarians and excavators have dug him up, and all his splendid posterity from the banks of the Euphrates at the Bir-el-Nimroud. The Royal Asiatic Society no doubt will soon find his mark, or cross, His Turfy Highness not being expected to be a letterato, in Cuneiform, wedge-shaped or arrow-headed characters upon the unbaked or sun-dried bricks thrown out of the famous Nineveh mound, so that at last Nimroud will have full justice done him by a grateful posterity.

[38] Pliny. This vulgar error of antiquity is cited from the Greek of Aristotle. .



CHAPTER VIII.

FAST OF THE RAMADAN.

The Shâanbah and Banditti of The Desert.—Native Plays and Dances of Ghadamsee Slaves.—Aâween, or Square of Springs.—The Women of Ghadames, their Habits and Education.—The Ghadamsee and Berber, or Numidian Languages.—Varieties of People and Population of Ghadames.—Charge of corrupting the Scriptures.—Ben Mousa Ettanee.—The Bishop of Gibraltar.—Continue teaching Geography.—Ruin of the Country.—Approaching end of the World.—Seeing the New Moon.—My Taleb disputes about Religion.—Movements of Banditti.—The small Force by which the Turks hold Tripoli.

28th.—HEARD the Shâanbah——and Touaricks are about to have a set-to. Last year they had a skirmish, and the Touaricks killed about eighty of the Shâanbah. These latter are going to avenge their defeat; they will attack the open districts, and then proceed to Ghat. The Shâanbah inhabit a desert of sand in the neighbourhood of Warklah——about fifteen days from Ghadames, and four from Souf. They are independent tribes, but small in number, not more than from five to six hundred. Nominally, however, they are located in French Algerian territory. They have been celebrated from time immemorial as the robbers and assassins of The Desert—to be a brigand is, with them, an hereditary honour—and they are equally the dread of the people of Warklah, whose neighbours they are, as of stranger merchants and caravans. They have a well of water scooped out in the sandy regions where their tents are pitched, and here they live in a horrid security, defying all law and authority, human and divine, and all the neighbouring Powers. Around them is an immensity of sandy wastes, and none dare pursue them to their abhorred dens. Horses, indeed, would be useless; and camels might wander for months without water, and perish before coming upon their hiding places in these dreadful regions. "Two hundred men would require four hundred camels, eight hundred water-skins, and provisions for two months," says the Rais, "and therefore we must leave them to be exterminated by time." Unfortunately, they are recruited from the bad characters of the Souafah, a kindred tribe of Arabs, and other outlaws. The Shâanbah are the great professional bandits of the North, but there are some other fragmentary tribes, located on the confines of The Sahara, and the valleys of the Atlas. Particularly I may mention the horde of brigands of Wady-es-Sour, which infest the routes between Touat and Tafilelt. But this horde is more placable, and mostly, after levying black-mail, will allow a caravan to pass uninterruptedly on its way. The expedition of the Shâanbah will take place after Ramadan, for, like the story of the Spanish assassins, who, being too early to enter the house of an unfortunate victim, went in the meanwhile to the matins which were being celebrated in a neighbouring church, so these pious assassins of The Desert highways will not proceed to their work of blood and slaughter until the fast of Ramadan is concluded. The Shâanbah and Touaricks are, besides, national enemies as to blood, the former being pure Arab, and the latter of the Berber, or aboriginal stock of North Africa. The Shâanbah have for arms common matchlocks, and a few horses in addition to their camels. The Touaricks have the spear, dagger, the straight broad sword, and a few matchlocks and pistols, it is said, and all are mounted on camels, so the contest is somewhat differently balanced with regard to the mode of equipment. People speculate as to the success of the parties, but their sympathies are entirely with the Touaricks.

Said comes in blubbering, sympathizing with his countrymen, saying, Rais has been bastinadoing his household slaves, natives of Bornou like himself. Rais certainly ought not to do this, for he does not bastinade his Moors or Arab servants. In the evening I went with Said to see the slaves of Ghadames indulge in their native dances and other plays. These are called "playing of the slaves." The festival of the evening was "the night of power" ( ), on which the Koran[39] descended from heaven, and the slaves were allowed a holiday in consideration of this solemnity. The slaves danced in a circle around a leader of the dance in the centre. At first, it is a simple walking round, face to back, the legs raised, and a little swinging, and the steps keeping time to the iron castanets fastened on the hands of each. Meanwhile, they sing, and the chorus comes at intervals between the noise of castanets, or finger-clappers. They now turn round and face their leader, some prostrating before him, and others twirling themselves round, but always moving in their circular motion and singing. The tones of their voice are melodious and deep, not the plaintive wearying monotony of the Arabs. Now the sounds increase, the chorus rises higher and higher, the steps fall heavy, like the tread of military, on the ground; and now, sounds, steps, and every noise and movement quickens, until it becomes a frantic rush around their terrified leader, who is at last, as the finish of the dance, overthrown in the wild tumult. . . . . . . Besides the castanets, they have a rude drum, consisting of a piece of skin stretched over the mouth of a large calabash, brought from Soudan, which makes a low hollow sound: to these is added occasionally a rude squeaking hautboy. This circular dance was performed by about thirty male slaves, gaily dressed in their best clothes, and evidently all very happy, in truth, the free blood of their native homes danced through their veins. Aye, the poor slave danced and sung! happier far than his proud and wealthy master, who looked on in moody silence. So God has ordained it to alleviate and balance human miseries. This dance of freedom lasted a full hour, and was very laborious. There were several Negresses near, who answered in shrill voices to the deep choruses of the Negroes, but did not themselves dance. After the circular dance, came off reels of couples. These were danced with great spirit, nay, violence: there was no dancing of a person singly. None of the dancing was indecent, like the Moorish; the lower part of the body and legs now and then assumed steps and positions like the well known Spanish fandango with castanets.

29th.—Weather is now tolerably cool all day long in the city, but not cool enough for agreeable travelling. Sketched to-day the Aâween, , or square of "fountains," which belongs to the faction of the Ben Weleed. A group of fifty persons surrounded me, all clamoring to see what I was doing, and making the funniest observations. They call drawing, writing a thing. One said, "Ah, it is well written, the Christians know everything but God." Another, "Yâkob, shall you give that writing to your Sultan?" From the fountains in this square, which merely run into stone troughs, the camels drink.



The white women, or the respectable women of Ghadames, white or coloured, never descend to the streets, nor even go into the gardens around their houses. Their flat-roofed house is their eternal promenade, and their whole world is comprehended within two or three miserable rooms. The date-palms they see, and a few glimpses of The Desert beyond—and this is all. Truly it is necessary to establish an Anti-Slavery Society for the women of this oasis. I have visited a few of them in their private apartments with their husbands, in my capacity of quack-doctor. None of them were fair or beautiful, but some pleasing in their manners, and of elegant shape; they are brunettes, one and all, with occasionally large rolling, if not fiery, black eyes. They are gentle in their manners, and were very friendly to The Christian. Many of them, in spite of their seclusion, shewed extreme intelligence; they are also very industrious. My taleb assured me the little money he got from keeping the register of the distribution of water, and other minor matters, could not keep his family, and his chief support was from the industry of his wife in weaving, whom he highly praised, adding, "God has given me the best wife in Ghadames." Most of the women weave woollens enough for the consumption of their family, and some for sale abroad. The education of women consists in learning by heart certain prayers, portions of the Koran, and legendary traditions of the famous Sunnat. The women are proud of their learning, and the men pride themselves in saying, "Only in this country are women so well instructed!" Besides this, they have the privilege of going to the mosques very early in the morning, and late in the evening, where they say their prayers like men, at least, so I understood from my taleb; but a Christian must not ask questions about women in these countries. The same authority assured me, the women, mostly negresses and half-castes, seen in the streets in the day-time, are slaves, or esteemed as such, the Touarick women excepted. I have no doubt the manners of the women of this city are generally very correct, and as chaste as any women in North Africa. But the Touarick women, especially of the elder sort, are not always exceedingly refined. One morning, going out from my house, I found some seven or eight Touarick women sitting on the stone-bench at the door. They began to laugh and joke with me; at last one of the elder present said, "Now, Christian, give me some money, and then I'll come into your house." At this delicate sally, all expressed their approbation in loud laughter: the half-caste women are much the same. A Moor said something to me, which I did not understand, and then laughed and said, "It is a Negro word," and, lest I should want an interpreter, an half-caste lady present, putting her hand deliberately to something, said, "That's the meaning," repeating the action two or three times. On the whole, however, I have not seen so many cases of indelicacy in this part of the world, as are to be seen almost every day in Paris and London. No, the morals of The Desert are mostly pure and continent as compared to those of our great European cities.

My taleb to-day made a vocabulary of the Touarghee, Ghadamsee, and Arabic languages. He finished also the translation of the third chapter of Matthew into the Ghadamsee language, which I sent afterwards to the British and Foreign Bible Society. I did not expect that he would have done it so easily, thinking his religious scruples would have interfered. He would have done all the Gospels had I paid him. According to Ben Mousa, the Ghadamsee language contains a few Arabic words, and is a most ancient dialect. It is spoken only at Siwah and Ougelah, two Tripoline oases near the coast, ten days apart, on the route to Egypt, and there is a dialect something like it in one of the Tunisian mountains. Many of the Touarghee words, he says also, are very much like, if not the same, as those of Ghadamsee. I showed him the Gospel of St. Luke, translated into the Berber language of Algeria, through Mr. Hodgson, and published by the Bible Society. He was only able to recognize a few Ghadamsee words in this translation. The Berber dialects, which comprehend the Ghadamsee, the Touarghee, the Kabylee, the Shouweeah (of Dr. Shaw), and the Shelouk of Morocco, although more or less intimately related, are very dissimilar in many words and expressions. But they are sister branches of one original mother, which require to be reduced to consistency and harmony by some mastermind, and then a very copious and powerful language might be formed. Such is said to have been the state of the German language when Luther made his translation of the Scriptures, by which he laid the foundation of the present mighty language of the Germans. Their common enemy is the Arabic, which is daily making inroads upon them; and the probability is, instead of being moulded into one mighty whole, they will in the course of a few centuries be destroyed by the language of their religion, for which the Berber tribes have a superstitious reverence. There is a singularity about the language of Ghadames: it has differences as spoken by the two factions of the Weleed and the Wezeet, the provincialisms of the country. It is highly probable that the various Berber dialects are the fragments of the language of those formidable, but doubtful, auxiliaries, which so often balanced and changed the fortune of Roman and Carthaginian arms. Of all these Numidian dialects, only one people has amongst them a native alphabet, the rest using Arabic characters: this people are the Touaricks. It is besides worthy of remark, that amongst all the African tribes of Central Africa, nay, every part of Africa, excepting the Coptic and Abyssinian Christians, only one alphabet has been found, none of the other tribes having any characters wherewith to write. Specimens of the Touarghee and Ghadamsee language, as well as this alphabet, have been recently published, under the auspices of the Foreign Office.

The language of Ghadames is spoken by an extremely mixed and various population. Some are from Arabs of the plains, others from Arabs of the mountains, others from Berber tribes, others from Moors of the Coast, and not a few from Negress mothers, of every description of Negro race found in the interior. Sometimes the men make a boast of being descended from ancestors of pure Arab blood, from immigrants of the princes of Mecca and countries thereabouts in Arabia, but in practice they contemn the principle of uncontaminated blood, cohabiting with their favourite female slaves, and from these rearing up a large family of mixed blood and colour. In the Arab suburb a considerable number of free Negroes, the offspring of liberated slaves, are settled. This class of population has been mistaken for emigration from the interior, by some writers; but Negroes never emigrate from the south to the north over The Desert, however, some may wander, like the Mandingoes, in the countries of Western Africa, as itinerant traders, tinkers, and pedlars. The city of Ghadames presents therefore a most mixed and coloured population, there being but very few of pure Arab blood, and fewer still of fair complexions. I have seen, nevertheless, some families of sandy hair and fair skins; but, certainly, the barbarossa ("red beard,") or flaxen locks, are not esteemed. These children of the sun prefer the raven-black beard, the tanned skin, and the gazelle eye. The united population amounts to about 3,000, but there are many Ghadamsee families established in Soudan and Timbuctoo. I may add, six languages are spoken daily in Ghadames, viz., Ghadamsee, Arabic, Touarghee, Housa, Bornouse, and Timbuctoo. The Rais has not a Turkish soldier or servant with him, or Turkish would make seven. Mourzuk being a garrison town, there Turkish, Greek, Italian, and Tibbo may be added to these six languages. The Negro languages are spoken by the slaves and free Negroes, and the merchants in conversing with them.

As a specimen of flying reports, I heard yesterday Bona was not in the hands of the French, but the Mussulmans. With respect to shamatah ("fighting"), the reports added, the French had lost 100,000 men in battle! The eyes of all genuine Moslems are turned anxiously westwards, and force and conquest, is everything with them.

30th.—The mornings are now very cool and delicious. Walked on my terrace, and enjoyed the fresh air of this autumnal spring. The palms are beautiful to look upon, and the Desert city has the aspect of an Hesperides. Are these the "fortunate isles" of the ancients? A few birds twittering and chirping about, pecking the ripe dates.

My taleb, backed with two or three Mussulman doctors, charged me in the public streets with corrupting and falsifying the text of the word of God. "This," he said, "I have found by looking over your Elengeel (Gospel)." It is precisely the charge which we make against the Mohammedans. But our charge is not so much corrupting one particular revelation as falsifying the entire books of the Jews and the Christians, of giving them new forms, and adding to them a great number of old Arabian fables. A taleb opened the Testament at the Gospel of St. Mark, and read, that Jesus was the Son of God. Confounded and vexed at this, he said, "God neither begets nor is begotten," (a verse of the Koran). An Arab from the Tripoline mountains turned upon me and said, "What! do you know God?" I answered sharply, "Yes; do you think the knowledge of God is confined to you alone?" The bystanders applauded the answer.

In general, the ignorant of the population of this part of North Africa, as well as Southern Morocco and Wadnoun, think the Christians are not acquainted with God, something in the same way as I heard when at Madrid, that Spaniards occasionally asked, if there were Christians and churches in England: "Hay los Cristianios, hay las iglesias in Inglaterra?" But in other parts of Barbary, I have found, on the contrary, an opinion very prevalent, that the religion of the English is very much like the religion of the Moors, arising, I have no doubt, from the absence of images and pictures in Protestant churches.

This evening, when visiting the Ben Weleed, conversation turned upon the Bas-Relief. The people showed some jealousy at my possessing it, and would have prefered that it remained in the oasis, and were not sent to Tripoli. They added:—"Because it proves that God has given us the land of the Christians." This is the grand argument in proof of the Mussulman's religion, that God has given him the countries of the Infidels. Indeed, the sooner the Bas-Relief is off the better. On my observing that the slab belonged to a date prior to the Christians, they were astonished, and asked, "Who were before the Christians?" They have no idea of people before the Christians. The conversation was suddenly stopped by the appearance of a remarkable personage, the quasi-Sultan of the Ben Weleed. This was the famous rich and powerful Haj Ben Mousa Ettanee. He is a man of a great age, and nearly blind, and the chief of the most numerous and influential family of Ghadames. He always exhibits a most difficult and obstinate temper in public affairs, and, I understand, from the first, has shown an hostility to my residence in Ghadames, unlike the Sheikh Makouran, who is the recognized Chief of the Ben Wezeet, and who has shown himself as favourable as the other Chief hostile. There may be a little of the spirit of faction in this; for we see often a person unsupported by the one party, because he is supported by the other party. But the whole family of Ettanee is considered wâr ("difficult"). The Rais speaking to me of this family, said: "Wâr, wâr—I can do nothing with the Ettanee." Ettanee was attended by two or three servants, one carrying a skin, and another a cushion to recline on (mokhaddah). These arranged, the old gentleman mounted upon the stone-bench and took his seat, everybody making way for him with the greatest alacrity. Having heard I was present, after a short silence, he addressed me: "Christian, do you know Scinde[40]?" I replied, "I know it." "Are not the English there?" he continued. "Yes," I said. He then turned and said something to the people in the Ghadamsee language[41]. My conversation with them was always in Arabic. He abruptly turned to me, "Why do the English go there, and eat up all the Mussulmans? Afterwards you will come here." I replied, "The Ameers were foolish, and engaged in a conspiracy against the English of India; but the Mussulmans in Scinde enjoyed the same rights and privileges as the English themselves." "That's what you say," he rejoined, and then continued: "Why do you go so far from home, to take other people's countries from them?" I replied, "The Turks do the same; they came here in The Desert." "Ah! you wish to be such oppressors as the Turks," he continued very bitterly, and then told me not to talk any more. No one present dared to put in a word. This painful silence continued for some time. I was anxious to get off, feeling very disagreeable; and beginning to move, he said to somebody, "Who's that?" for he couldn't see much, being nearly blind. They told him it was the Christian going. He cried out, "Stop!" and then added, "You have books with you, but you English are not Christians. You deceive us. Nor are the Danish, or the Swedes, or the Russians Christians. They have no books." He meant religious books. The same opinion, I found afterwards, was entertained by Haj Ibrahim, a very respectable and intelligent Moorish merchant of Tripoli. Haj Ibrahim said to me, "How is it that you have books on religion, when the English have none?" Formerly Ettanee resided at Tripoli; and I have not the least doubt both these Moors derived this false information from the intolerant and Protestant-hating Romanist priests resident in Tripoli, backed as the falsehoods were by the absence of any English church or worship, although the English Consul very regularly celebrated worship in his family every Sunday,—a circumstance which ought to have been known amongst the town population of all religions. I am sorry the intentions of the British Government have been so feebly carried out by the Bishop of Gibraltar. Her Majesty's Government was anxious that Dr. Tomlinson should visit all the coasts of the Mediterranean, both to strengthen the few Protestants scattered on these inhospitable shores, and to show the various authorities and people of this famed inland sea, that the English had a religion, and cared for its prosperity. Up to the time I left the Barbary coast, Dr. Tomlinson had neither visited Tunis nor Tripoli, though he had been resident at Malta some three years. This is too bad; and it is quite clear the Bishop does not understand the object of his mission in the Mediterranean. He ought to have shown himself at once in all Barbary; he then might have annihilated this monstrous error, propagated by Romish priests, that the English had no religious books, and were not Christians. It is but justice to add, the Bishop went to Tangiers. Mr. Hay expected a very unctuous episcopal visit, and was shocked to hear the good Bishop talk so much about fortifications and "horrid war." There is consistency in everything; and common sense dictated that the Bishop should have, on such a visit, assumed his character of "Overseer of the scattered Protestant flock." Unfortunately, when he went first to Malta, Dr. Tomlinson acted more like an episcopalian tight-rope dancer, always balancing himself between Puseyism and Evangelicalism, and so distracted the few Protestants at Malta. He is eminently a man of no decision of character; and whenever he does manage to get up his reluctant will to a decision, it is invariably on the wrong side of the question. Here in The Desert I found myself pestered with both political and religious questions; and to have shirked either, would have been to offend the people. There was no alternative but to preach to them that all the English and all Protestants had the same Bible as the Romanists, and were equally Christians with them. I may add, of the Bishop of Gibraltar: Since my return, I have heard that his Lordship found all his efforts useless to conciliate the Malta papistical authorities; that he was much shocked at their treachery; and that he was determined, on his return again to Malta, to become once more a good Protestant. The truth is, he had nothing to do with the Roman Catholics. He was to mind and care for the Protestants in Malta, and on the shores of the Mediterranean. I believe, however, he did do something in the way of unpleasant interference with Colonel Warrington. It is well known the Colonel was high-priest of Protestantism through his long Consular service of thirty-three years, as well as Her Britannic Majesty's Consul. The Colonel baptized, married, and buried, whenever applied to. He baptized, married, and buried the members of his own family, and was surprised Sir Thomas Reade had not the courage to do the same. Of this the Colonel was very proud, citing the authority of some peer in the British Parliament, who said, "If the King's subjects wished to procreate in a foreign land, where there was no parson, why should not the British Consul help them?" This the Bishop demurred at; but the Colonel supported himself on the authority of Dr. Lushington. The Colonel was undoubtedly right. Still, politically and ecclesiastically, it would be much better if English clergymen of some denomination or other were established along the line of the whole coast of North Africa, which would show the native Mussulmans we had a religion, and that we could afford to support and protect our co-religionists. The French reap a good harvest by their protection of Christians, which, characteristically enough, they use as a political engine of aggrandizement.

On returning home, my Moorish friends pestered me still with more questions, as to what people were before the Christians. I endeavoured to impress upon them, that the Christian era was comparatively new, and that before Christ, there were many nations, and great events occurred. I found them grossly ignorant. But I had the good fortune to procure an Arabic map in the possession of one of the merchants, who had laid it up for many years amongst dusty papers. This had been published by the printers and agents of the Church Missionary Society of Malta, very much to their credit. By the aid of this, I made more progress in teaching geography to the people. Seeing several dots on the map where Sahara is written, the people asked me what it meant. I told them sand. However, I must protest against this device. We shall see that the greater part of The Desert is stone and hard earth. The term "sandy border" of The Desert is equally incorrect. Such a distinction does not exist in the Tripoline provinces. The Desert comes up to the gates of Tripoli, it then gives way to cultivation and The Mountains; it beyond them appears again here and there and everywhere, within and without the regions of rain. There is nothing like a border of The Desert. The "Grand Desert" and "Petite Desert" of the French, are equally incorrect and absurd. All is Sahara, or waste, uncultivated lands, and oases scattered thick within them, as spots on the back of the leopard[42].

Saw the Rais late, who had heard all about my conversation with Ettanee, and jokingly said, "Wâr, wâr, that old fellow, aye?" His Excellency turned, to other matters: "The Shânbah are not going to attack the Touaricks, they are coming hereabouts to plunder our caravans." Asked him, if the city was secure enough to prevent them entering and pillaging it? His Excellency replied, "Yes," but adding, "koul sheyan maktoub (all is predestinated)." This doctrine is not only a comfort in every misfortune, but also an apology for every fault, crime, or mismanagement a person may be guilty of. Nay, if a man be starved to death, because he will not work, which is sometimes the case in this part of the world, as well as Ireland, it is destiny and the will of God! . . . . . . So of all other things. If Ghadames should be stormed and plundered by the Shânbah in its present defenceless condition, it will be, as a matter of course, the will of God. But I must add, which unhappily cannot be said of Ireland, the security of human life is very great in Ghadames and the neighbouring desert. I have heard of no murder since I have been here, and a murder is the last thing thought of. This does not arise from any preventitive police, but from the simple dispositions of the people—their horror and unwillingness to shed human blood! If a messenger from a distant planet were to come to prove the divinity of a religion, from the absence of the crime of murder, and were to take these Saharan oases, and our Ireland, and put them in the balances of Eternal Justice, we should soon see Ireland and its popular religion kick the the beam, as—

"The fiend look'd up, and knew His mounted scale aloft."

The "signs of the times" in this country are, when I first came here bread was found in the Souk occasionally, as a luxury for the poor who could not buy wheat and make bread; now, and it is only a little more than a month, no bread is to be found. To-day not a single sheep was killed anywhere, and I am obliged to go without meat. So the country progresses in poverty and misery, so rapidly is its money being filched from the people! Or, is it because every body has conspired together against the Rais, and determined to wear an air of abject poverty? And thus to evade the new contributions? This cannot be. To-morrow is the last day of Ramadan; provided the new moon can be seen. I hope they'll see it, for I am heartily sick of the Ramadan: the most amiable and kind-hearted get out of humour in Ramadan; as to the Rais, I never go to see him, except in the evening, unless to get a little money from him, his Excellency being my banker. A Turk, who smokes all day long for eleven months out of twelve, must suffer greatly in these thirty days. Should like to have tried a day's fasting, as I have been so strongly recommended by the people, but I expect to have enough of fasting in The Desert, and it is of no use adding to our miseries for the sake of curiosity or vanity. From recent conversations, it appears there is no great danger in attempting Timbuctoo, but I have resolved on the route of Kanou, because my object is not so much a journey of discovery, as to collect a statistical account of the slave-trade, and see whether there are any practicable legitimate means for extinguishing the odious traffic. For this latter object, the Kanou route is decidedly more advantageous. A wild adventure to Timbuctoo, ever so successful, can never serve me in such stead in the end, when I have to read my own heart and its motives, as a humane mission on the behalf of unhappy weak Africans, doomed, by men calling themselves Christians, to the curse of slavery.

1st October.—Sheikh Makouran paid me a visit this morning. Our conversation turned chiefly on the discoveries of lands and countries since the times of Christ and Mahomet. The Sheikh was a little surprised when I told him: "We ought to consider the world as just beginning, for the ancients knew but little, and the greater part of the now inhabited world was unknown to them." Moors, like some Christians, think the time is near when Deity shall appear to destroy all unbelievers in their respective religions. For myself, I cannot but believe that the world has only yet begun. It is impossible that the Creator should destroy the world in its present imperfect state. No—the world will go on yet thousands of years on years in the path of improvement unto (shall I say?) perfection. At any rate, I belong to those whose aspirations are for the future and not for the past. I am not enamoured with Hebrew patriarchal innocence, or Grecian classic polish and freedom, or Christian mediæval chivalry of the past. I am of the New Englanders, but not for the resurrection of the past. Rather than subscribe to divinely-anointed kings and pious monks, church charities and May-day holidays and May-poles for the people, I would sooner affix my signature to railways, electric telegraphs, and the wild, bold, and raving aspirations of a Shelley—in fact, to plunge anywhere head foremost, than back again into the past.

A Moor to-day, in wishing to give a grand idea of the Touaricks (some of whom were present), said, "Muley Abd Errahman (Emperor of Morocco) and the Sultan of Stamboul, pay tribute to the Touaricks; but they pay tribute to no one." This is ingeniously made out by the merchants of Tripoli and Morocco, the subjects of the two Sultans, being obliged to pay black-mail in passing through the Saharan districts of the Touaricks. Some of the ill-natured are continually magnifying the dangers of the route of Kanou, and one present said, "You can't go, there are thousands of Touaricks to block up your way." Annoyed with this man and others, I replied, "Do Touaricks eat the flesh of Christians after they have killed them?" This made him very angry, and he began to apologize for the Touaricks, one class of Mohammedans being always anxious to defend another from unwonted or odious suspicions. They have, nevertheless, not the least difficulty in confessing that the Touaricks will kill Christians, as such, thus tacitly acknowledging it to be right to kill Christians. The more respectable Ghadamseeah argue that in no case, if I pay the Touaricks a certain sum as tribute, or what not, have the Touaricks a right by the law of the Prophet to do me the least harm. Heard all the Arab soldiers have run away from Emjessen, being without anything to eat. These wise Turkish commanders gave the poor fellows a bag of barley and a little oil, and left it, like the widow's cruse in Holy Writ, to replenish itself. The Shânbah may now go and drink the water of the well, and plunder the caravans as they please. The wonder is that more open-desert robberies are not committed.

The Rais told me this evening that one person saw the moon, but it is necessary two should have seen the dim, pale, half-invisible crescent streak. Then the âyed after the fast would have been to-morrow. At sun-set, all the people were on the qui-vive, the Marabouts mounting the minaret tops, but none saw it but this solitary moongazer, who, said the Rais, "might have imagined he saw the moon." The telescope was not lawful, he added, "The people must see it with the naked, unassisted eye."

2nd.—No patients; only a little girl with severe ophthalmia, and the old blind man, who fancies his eyes are better with the application of the caustic. Generally the Moors think there is a different sort of medicine for women. Yesterday I was asked for a medicine for women. I gave a man a fever powder for his wife. This morning being the last before the Ramadan, the Rais sent me a backsheesh of meat (not cooked) and a quantity of rice, enough to make a sumptuous festa. Certainly the Rais is very gracious, and continues, if not increases, in his friendly feelings towards me. People are killing and preparing for the festival. There's a report, the merchants in Tripoli are afraid to leave for this city on account of rumoured depredations of the Sebâah and Shânbah. To-morrow, my taleb says he marries his two daughters. He prepares the wedding-feast, and gives his daughters a stock of semen (liquid butter), and barley and wheat, to begin the world with. The sons-in-law make presents to their brides of clothes, besides a little money; and this is all the matter. My taleb seems very glad to get rid of his daughters so easily; they are extremely young—thirteen and fifteen. Besides these daughters he has a pet son. People usually choose a religious festival, for the day of the celebration of their nuptials, as in some parts of England. The taleb then, who is excessively fond of religious discussion, began, "The essence of all religion is,—

He (God) neither begets nor is begotten: and

God has no associate":—

both referring to the unity of God. Speaking of the duration of the world, I said:—"The world must now begin, for, up to this time, men have been generally very ignorant; and until lately the whole of the earth has not been discovered." Very angry at this, he replied:—"Now the world will finish; God is coming to destroy all you Christians, and all the black kafers (infidels), as well as the white." He then gave me an account of the creation. "The world," he said, "was created seven times," &c., &c., adding many curious things.

I.—"What is to become of the world; are nearly all its inhabitants, from its beginning until now, to be d——d?"

He.—"Yes."

I.—"Is this the decree of God?"

He.—"Yes, all is maktoub."

I.—"But you say, God, is , (Most merciful.)"

He.—"Yes; but men won't obey his religion and Mahomet."

I.—"What is to become of those who never saw, nor never could see or read the Koran?"

The Taleb.—"I don't know; God is great; God must have mercy upon them."

I.—"Undoubtedly God created the world; but according to you, the world is now all corrupt (fesad), and nearly all men must soon be destroyed. Is this honourable to God?"

The Taleb.—"All is decreed."

I.—"But many of the unbelieving Infidels are better than the Touaricks and Arabs. Is not the British Consul in Tripoli better than a Shânbah bandit?—better than an assassin who cuts the throats of the Faithful? Do not all the people speak well of our Consul?"

The Taleb.—"I know it; he's very good."

I.—"But you can't change the religion of some people though you kill them. When the Mohammedans conquered India, they got tired of putting Hindoos to death for not changing their religion, and becoming Mussulmans."

The Taleb.—"God knows all, but you don't know," (a frequent phrase in the Koran).

I.—"Now, I don't think it's of much use to talk about religion, for you won't change yours nor I mine. Here's the end of the matter. We must all die, that's a thing no one disputes; but as to who is saved, or who perishes, we cannot tell."

The Taleb.—"The truth, by G—d! If God please, we shall see all soon."

A small caravan of Arabs, bringing sheep for the Ayed, arrived this morning from Tunis. The route is viâ Jibel Douerat, and only seven days. If the roads were safe, travelling indeed about North Africa could soon be rendered expeditious. The Arabs report:—"That great military preparations are making at Jerbah, where the Bey of Tunis is expected after the Ayed, and whence he will invade Tripoli, all his Arabs being ready to march with him." After this, a caravan of forty slaves arrived from the south, under the conduct of Touaricks. The ghafalah is originally from Bornou, but half left for Fezzan on arriving at Ghat. Was much surprised when Rais told me this evening, after five or six days, he would send a soldier to sleep as a guard in my house. He explained he had received authentic intelligence from Souf, of the Shânbah banditti being on the march, five hundred strong, proceeding in the direction of Ghat and Ghadames, and he expected them near this in the course of ten days. Their intention is to avenge themselves on the Touaricks for the defeat last year. They are the immemorial enemies of the Touaricks, who have a stake in the commerce of the Desert, but they as professional robbers have none. Besides this, we hear the Sebâah continue their depredations, and have carried off 2,000 sheep from The Mountains: they also threaten an attack on Derge. The whole country, indeed, will soon be full of banditti, unless some energetic measures are adopted, and we shall have no communication between this and Tripoli. All the routes are now considered unsafe. Rais assured me, he has applied to the Pasha for a few Turkish troops, but His Highness refused, on the plea of expense. The whole force of the Rais is not a hundred Arabs, and poor miserable fellows they are, with two or three horses placed at their disposal. With such inconsiderable means the Pacha presumes to hold in the heart of The Desert this important commercial city, and its dependencies of Seenawan and Derge! The French manage matters very differently in Algeira. Indeed, the united force occupying all Tripoli, with its wide-spread provinces of many hundred miles apart, does not exceed five thousand men of all arms! Compare this to the hundred and thirty thousand men (including native troops) in Algeira, and be astonished at the different effects of the French and Turkish systems. . . . . To add to the Rais's embarrassments, the people are in ill-humour, whilst some hear the news with pleasure, and fancy they see in our present troubles the beginning of the end of Turkish rule in Ghadames.

FOOTNOTES:

[39] This book is said to be eternal as God himself, even UNCREATED. This is argued metaphysically from all the thoughts and volitions of Deity being eternal and immutable, and therefore the laws of the Koran have no relation to time or creation.

[40] Most of the people here have heard of Scinde; but their knowledge of it is very imperfect.

[41] I afterwards learnt it was—"You see these Christians are eating up all the Mussulman countries."

[42] Strabo mentions the oasis:—"To the south of Atlas lies a vast desert of sand and stones, which, like the spotted skin of a panther, is here and there diversified by oases, or fertile grounds, like isles in the midst of the ocean."



CHAPTER IX.

CONTINUED RESIDENCE IN GHADAMES.

The Ayed (little Festival of Moslems).—Ghadames a City of Marabouts.—Every Accident of Life ascribed to Deity.—Second Day's Feast, Swinging and Amusements of the People.—Death of the Sultan of Timbuctoo.—Various Terms employed for denoting Garden.—French Woman in The Desert.—Price of Slaves.—Time required to go round the World.—Stature of the Touaricks.—Oases of Derge.—Reconquest of the World by the Mahometans.—Tibboo Slave-dealer.—Touatee Silversmith and Blacksmith.—Assassination of Major Laing.—Tibboos compared to Bornouese.—The Touarick Bandit again.—First Encounter with the Giant Touarick.—Water of Ghadames unhealthy.—Manacles for Slaves.—Second Meeting with the Giant.—The Souafah, and Tuggurt.—Visit from the Giant.—Chapter in the Domestic History of Ghadames.—Serpents and Scorpions, the Banditti of The Desert.—Toys Prohibited.—The Wahabites.—How Moslems despise Jews.

3rd.—THE Ayed , succeeding Ramadan, is ushered in with a cold morning, the first cold morning I have felt in The Desert. Might venture to put on my cloth pantaloons. Happy to feel this invigorating cold. This is the little âyed; the âyed kebir, or âyed Seedna Ibrahim, takes place two months hence, when every family, in imitation of Abraham offering up his son Isaac, kills or sacrifices a lamb. The caravan from Bornou reports the road to be good. It is added, rain has fallen in Ghat as well as in The Sahara, near Tunis and Tripoli, so that the oasis of Ghadames is the only dry spot, for no rain has yet fallen.

Had several visits from persons all dressed out in festival finery, amongst the rest the black dervish. He looked like a dusky Nigritian Sultan. Twenty paras he condescended to take from me, which added to his holiday happiness; sometimes he won't accept of money. Now comes Ben Mousa, my taleb, to pay his respects. Not, as amongst the great unwashed of London, do they shave for a penny and give a glass of —— (I shall not say what), in the bargain, here in Ghadames they shave for nothing. "How is this," I said to my turjeman who had now come in. "This is the custom of the country," he replied, "we always shave one another for friendship." There are several other little things done gratuitously in Ghadames, but shaving the head is the principal one[43]. He who has the sharpest razor is expected to do the most work. They cut and hack one another about most barbarously, some using no soap, only rubbing a little water over their heads. I have seen a score in a row, all sitting on the ground, waiting patiently their turn. Some shave the head every month, others allow several months to elapse. By way of diverting conversation, my taleb had the extreme kindness to tell me that the Touaricks of Aheer and Aghadez (not those of Ghat) killed Christians and Jews on the principle of religion, and would refuse to compound matters, even if I gave them a thousand dollars. He, however, condescended to add, "They are mahboul (foolish)." He then went on to boast of the sanctity of this city, and said, "Our people are not afraid of the Sebâah and Shânbah, because they are a city of marabouts." The taleb had just come from a full divan of the people, where the Rais, on this festival morning, had been haranguing them and flattering their prejudices. "Be assured," said the Governor, "if the Bashaw knew that you were a holy city, a city of dervishes, a zaweea (or sanctuary), he would write to the Sultan at Constantinople, and the Sultan, hearing of this, would immediately give orders that no 6,000 mahboubs were to be exacted from you, but that, on the contrary, money from the Sultan would be sent to you, holy people." I wondered that a man of the Rais's sense could so commit himself. What would he have done if after the âyed, the people had brought a petition to him, addressed to the Sultan, setting forth that they were "a city of marabouts," and praying to have their tribute remitted? But the poor people are incapable of taking such an advantage. They were excited by their religious feelings, and believed all the Rais told them. It was certainly a fine compliment for the feast, to men in the situation of the people of Ghadames. And my informant added: "Ahmed Effendi in The Mountains is the rascal and the infidel, and does not tell the Pasha we are a nation of dervishes." Said told me a slave was brought up to day to be bastinadoed, but reprieved till to-morrow on account of the feast. Said's sympathy is always excited on these occasions, he remembers ancient days. On asking what he had done, he said, "The slave stole some dates because he had nothing to eat." My taleb, occasionally rather free in tongue, took upon himself to call all Negroes thieves. I admonished him: "The poor slaves got little from this city of dervishes, now and then a little barley-meal, or lived almost altogether on a few dates. It was not surprising they stole to satisfy the cravings of hunger." Berka the liberated slave of Makouran, and Said's intimate friend, now came in, dressed up in his holiday clothes. He asked for Said. "He is gone to The Desert, run away, for he has broken our cooking-pot; see here are the pieces, here's the meat spoilt; what am I to do for dinner?" I added, "He ought to have a good beating." The poor old negro stared and looked really grieved. At last he muttered, "Why, Christian, that breaking comes from God, and not Said." "The truth," said the taleb laughing. Said now came in, having borrowed another pot, and Berka was comforted at the return of his friend. In The Desert, every accident of life is ascribed to an ever-present and all-superintending Divinity!

All people enjoy their festival or carnival, to-day. They follow the reckoning of Tripoli, but as the people saw the moon a day sooner there, a day of fasting is here saved. It is so fortunate not to see the moon too soon. The appointed Ramadan is twenty-nine or thirty days; ours is twenty-nine. However, rigid Moslems did not begin to eat to-day till noon, after the morning prayers, so delicately scrupulous are they. My taleb agrees with me, that the Arabs, who usually only eat in the evening, and don't smoke, experience but little inconvenience from the fast. Nothing particular took place to-day's âyed, except every one being dressed in his best clothes, and most of the youth having on something new. It is the same with the Jews of Mogador on the feast of Passover. The Sanctuaries hoist the holy colours of their religion, beautiful vermilion, and yellow, and green; these are their holiest and most-loved colours. The slaves danced and sang all day long. I was present during the closing scene at night, which was curious. After their continuous and laborious dancing, they all suddenly stopped as if struck with paralysis, offered a prayer to Allah, and dispersed. Did not go out till evening, for if I had gone out at all in the day-time I must have dressed up, and I did not wish to appear a Guy Fawkes amongst the people, or excite their curiosity or prejudices on the day of a solemn festival. The Rais asked why I did not come in the morning, for this was a grand receiving-day, when all his particular friends and the heads of the people paid him visits. On telling him, he approved my reason, and said, "You, Yâcob, have compass yaiser (plenty of wit)."

4th.—To-day is half a feast, and full-grown men and aged men are amusing themselves with swinging, like so many boys. A dead aoudad was brought in from The Sahara, which the Touaricks had killed. These Touaricks are also bearers of a letter, written at Timbuctoo, which has come the round-about way of Soudan, announcing that the Sultan of Timbuctoo is dead. Sidi Mokhtar, a marabout, is appointed Governor of Timbuctoo by the new Sultan. The Sultan himself, after visiting Timbuctoo and making this appointment, retired to Jinnee, his royal residence. Sheikh El-Mokhtar has a good reputation; he is now occupied reorganizing his government. No other news. Met in the streets one of the Touaricks who came yesterday with fifteen camel-loads of senna. Asked him if Touaricks killed Christians. Surprised at this abrupt question, he asked, "Why?" I added, "If you are a good fellow I will go with you to Ghat." Pleased at this confidence, he came home with me and took some coffee. A camel-load of senna now sells for seventeen mahboubs. He asked me what the Christians did with the senna, and would not believe it was all used for physic. Said Christians were not numerous enough to drink all they bought. There is a wady near Ghat covered with senna, during rain, but the greater portion of senna is brought from Aheer.

An instance of the way in which the Arabic language is used, and which makes some people think there are different dialects in this language, may be given in the terms denoting Garden. For garden, the Touaricks and people of Touat use , a word which frequently occurs in the Koran, conveying the highest and purest idea of garden, and which we usually translate "paradise." In Ghadamsee and Touarghee a corruption of this pure Arabic word is used for heaven, . The Tripoline and Tunisian Moors use the term , and the people here , for garden, but which is, rather, kitchen-garden. Now, all these words are good Arabic, and may be used indifferently, at least the two latter. In the New Testament translation, the Persian is used, which I imagine is the Eastern term for garden generally, in opposition to the western . The Garden in North Africa is very different from our ideas of a garden. Corn-fields, overshadowed with the palm, the olive, and a few other fruit-trees, is the species of plantation to which the term is usually applied. Certainly a few flowers are sometimes cultivated in these gardens of Africa, but this is the exception to the usage.

The Rais, who is a grave Turk, nevertheless unbended himself to-day, amusing himself in seeing the boys swing. The Moors sadly wanted me to join their swinging, but I politely declined. They said, it was "medicine," meaning good for the health, everything conducive to health being called "medicine" by people in The Desert. Was gratified to see some sports amongst the people, for the men are always gloomy and reclining about the streets, brooding over their ruinous affairs, and the boys are little encouraged to healthful and innocent games. Up to this time, the only persons I have seen happy are the slaves, who dance and sing, and forget everything but the present moment. The swings are tied high up to the tallest date-palms, two or three persons swing together, and the sport is a little dangerous. Saw no other amusements during the âyed, except here and there drafts, played in the primitive way of making small holes in the sand for the squares.