Chapter XXIII: From Ghat to Mourzuk (2)

Continuing our course on the plain for an hour or two, we arrived at the oasis of Serdalas, a handful of cultivation, but very fair and of vigorous growth. The valley or plain of Serdalas, which is also called Ludinat, and the site of a Marabet, is an extensive undulating plain, bounded east and west by two ranges of mountains, stretching north and south. Near the spot of our encampment are wells of excellent water, seven or eight of them, and the largest is a thermal spring, which is about the centre of the oasis. It is banked up, or rather issues from a rocky eminence, where large lumps of bog iron may be picked up. Formerly this spring was fortified, the high walls built around its mouth still remaining, and there are besides the brick ruins of a castle close by. Tradition relates that the oasis was formerly colonized by Christians, and others say, by Jews. It may, indeed, have been colonized previously to the arrival of the Arabs in Africa by the ancient Berbers, or Numidians, but the castle itself is of Moorish modern construction. The present miserable population does not exceed ten persons, Fezzaneers and one or two Touaricks, who cultivate a little wheat and ghusub. The houses are huts of sticks, date-leaves, and dried grass. Near the great spring is a large tree, with prickly thorny leaves, not unlike the tholh. It is called _Ahatas_, اهتس, and was brought from Soudan, where its species grows to an enormous magnitude. Its wood makes excellent bowls, spoons, and several useful domestic utensils. This tree measures at least twelve feet round its trunk; its principal branch is prostrate, bent beneath the burden of many a Saharan summer's heat and winter's cold. From the old paralyzed arm, however, shoot up young green branches, offering a pleasant shade to the weary and thirsty wayfarer in these wilds. Under this tree money is buried to a great amount, but the writings, pointing out the particular spot, were destroyed by a son of the Marabout, whose tomb consecrates this desert spot. Several small birds are hopping about, like those seen in Ghat, with white heads and white under tails, the rest black. This seems a _bonâ fide_ feathered tenant of Sahara.

We remain here to-day and to-morrow. It is, perhaps, for the better, for we are all knocked up. By preserving the body we preserve the mind. Our party consists of four merchants, the rest being servants and slaves. My friend Haj Ibrahim is the principal one. We have the Medina Shereef, who is in charge of a male and two female slaves, the property of the Governor of Ghat. He continues his route from Tripoli to Mecca, and expects to be absent two years on his pilgrimage. The Shereef makes great pretensions to learning and sanctity, and I believe he is clever, if not learned; he says to me, "My business is study and prayer." He asked me about Khanouhen, his father-in-law, and the presents which I made the prince, and said, "Khanouhen sent back his presents to you, and would not accept them." I told him I commuted the goods into silver; at which he laughed and remarked, "Ah! Khanouhen is deeper than the devil himself." He considers Jabour's protection omnipotent in the route of Timbuctoo, but says the Touaricks only, and not caravans, can protect European travellers: I think the Shereef is right. Another of our merchants is a very civil Ghadamsee, and acts as a sort of broker for Haj Ibrahim. He is very civil and good-natured, but, nevertheless, keeps mostly in his hand a little nasty whip, with which he lays it into the unlucky slaves. The last of the four is a queer dwarfish Touatee, from Aïn Salah, who is carrying a few little bags of gold to Tripoli, perhaps a dozen ounces. At the instigation of the Shereef, who likes a laugh, I keep roasting him on the way, telling him, "You have got so much gold about you that we are sure to be attacked by banditti before we arrive safely at Tripoli." This makes him very savage, and sometimes he calls me a kafer. Haj Omer is the great factotum of Haj Ibrahim, an Arab of Tripoli, and a most hardy hard-working fellow. Omer has two camels which are hired by his master. One of these foaled a little before we left Ghat, and he carried the young camel the half of a day's journey on his back. Omer never rides, walks all day long, pitches the tents, looks after the camels, looks after the slaves, and from morning to night is on his legs. So these people can work when it is necessary; indeed, I am sure, with a good government, and an equitable system of trade, the Moors and Arabs of North Africa would be as industrious and persevering as any other people.

It is now afternoon, and very hot. The weather has been sultry the four days of our route. But our faces are nearly always north, and a slight fresh breeze blows from either N., N.E., or N.W. every day, a most grateful relief. It is, however, cold at nights, and very cold in the morning after the heat has been absorbed during the night. The negresses are busy either pounding ghusub, or washing themselves, or making the toilet and arranging their sable persons in showy trinkets. Certainly woman in the negro races is a remarkable creature. She bears her bondage and its hardships with consummate fortitude, and the greatest good humour and gaiety, never quarrelling or sulking with her master, and only now and then having a little bickering of jealousy or rivalry with her fellow slave. Two or three slaves only, for the present, are unable to keep up, and placed on the backs of camels. I am astonished to see how well they keep up, what fatigue they are capable of bearing; I should myself die of exhaustion were I placed in their situation. There is a little boy only four or five years of age, who walks as well as any of them. He refused my offer to give him a ride, and answered, "I don't wish to ride. I walked all the way from my native country to Ghat." Should this little creature continue to walk his way to Tripoli, by the time he arrives in that city he will have walked over eighty-five days of Desert, besides the distance he may have walked before reaching Aheer, perhaps some additional thirty days.

Another of Haj Ibrahim's camels foaled to-day. The foal is stretched upon the ground as if lifeless, the mother standing over and staring at it. But the foal will not remain so long, for to-morrow or next day it will be up on its legs, and after four, five, or six days, it will be able to run after its dam. In fact, the foal, now five days' old, runs after its mother part of the day's march, and after two or three more days it will be able to continue a whole day's journey. Here is an instance of the immense superiority of the lower animal over the higher animal man. It is curious that the cry of the foal is very much like a child, and I once turned round to see a negress child crying, and found it was a camel-foal. In marching the foal is tied upon the back of its mother, and so borne along, the dam grumbling regular choruses to the cry of the foal. (_Later an hour._) The foal is actually upon its legs, about four hours after its birth, and it has sucked its mother twice. The mother does not quarrel so much about her child as the first she-camel. Such is the varying dispositions of brutes. A foal is worth ten dollars when a year old. Most she-camels have a foal every other year, but some few every year. The foal remains a whole year with its mother. None of these camels give milk, because there is not sufficient herbage in our way. In cases of extremity, when the herbage is scarce and the camels give little milk, the Touaricks of Ghat will drive their camels to graze as far as Aheer, or even to Soudan. Milk is an essential portion of their means of existence. The reader must not be surprised to find so frequent a mention of the Camel-Ship of The Desert. In the Koran the camel is thus introduced, "Do not they consider the camels, how they are created?" (Surat Lxxxviii.) and very properly, as a wonderful instance of the creative might of Deity. These animals are of such use, or rather necessity, in The East and in The Desert, that the creation of a species so wonderfully adapted to these countries, is a very apposite and proper instance to an Arabian and African, or even an European (travelling here), of the power and wisdom of the Creator. Like the reindeer, and the lichen, or moss, on which it feeds in the polar regions, the camel and the date-palms in the Great Desert furnish striking and remarkable examples of the inseparable connexion of certain animals and plants with human society and the propagation of our common species. Providence, or nature, for it is the same, has so formed the faithful, patient and enduring camel, as to create in this animal a link of social and commercial intercourse amongst widely-scattered and otherwise apparently unapproachable nations. The she-camel which I am riding through these solitary wastes never fails me, except from sheer exhaustion, the enduring creature never giving in whilst nature sustains her! In the most arid, herbless, plantless, treeless, thirsty wastes, she finds her loved-home, for The Desert is the natural sphere of life and action for the camel. The Desert was made for the Camel, and the Camel was made for The Desert.

_10th._--Did not sleep very well, and felt very cold during the night. But as soon as the sun is up it is hot. Such is The Desert. It is also cold in the shade, and hot in the sun. When riding, a hot wind burns the one cheek, and a cold wind blanches the other cheek[100]. You wander through these extremes like the spirits of the nethermost regions,--

"And feel by turns the bitter change
Of fierce extremes, extremes by change more fierce:
From beds of raging fire, to starve in ice--
Thence hurried back to fire."

I usually am obliged to wear my cloak out of the sun, besides a woollen burnouse.

Visited the marabet, or mausoleum, of Sidi Bou Salah, about two hundred paces from the large spring. My Fezzanee guide told me the daughter of the buried Marabout was still living in the oasis, but his sons were residing in Fezzan. When the corn was reaped, late in the spring, he himself should return to Fezzan. One or two persons would remain here. The tomb of the Marabout is enclosed within the usual square little house, having a dome or cupola roof, but it is not clean whitewashed, as these sanctuaries generally are on the Coast. On the tomb is a coverlet of particoloured and showy silks. The room of the mausoleum is snug and clean. A little lamp is kept burning at the head during the night. This is a sort of perpetual fire. There are two or three outhouses, or rooms, adjoining, in which, if anything be deposited, it is quite safe, it is sacred, no robbers in these wild countries being bold enough to commit such a sacrilege against the God of the Islamites. The entire oasis is peculiarly protected by the halo of the awful Marabout here buried. It is a place of perfect security for all travellers. In this way the sentiment of religion confers its advantages, whatever may be the creed of its professors. No doubt the sentiment of religion, as connected with superstition, inflicts upon mankind intolerable evils; but here, at any rate, is some compensation.

I surveyed again the great thermal spring. The water issues from a rocky ferruginous soil of iron ore, giving the water a mineral taste. Yet it is of the best quality. Apparently the water descends from the neighbouring mountain chains, and collects here, but its flow or stream is perennial. From this little eminence I had a panoramic view of the country, and was gratefully affected with the beautiful situation of the oasis. In the hands of Europeans, a city would be created here, one of the largest of The Great Desert, for water abounds on every side. This oasis would become the centre of a dense population, fed from the products of the soil. A mart of commerce would concentrate a great Saharan traffic, ramifying through every part of Africa. But what can be expected from people whose one predominant and _quasi_-religious idea teaches them that everything should remain as it is; as it was before so shall it be hereafter. People nevertheless pretend that political causes keep the oasis in its present miserable condition. Serdalas belongs to the Touaricks, who let it out to the Fezzaneers, but will not permit them to plant date-palms, lest the oasis should flourish and rival Ghat, and so injure that mart of commerce. Be it as it may, man always fails of his work, and if he does so in the more genial climes of Europe, what can come of his idleness and his improvidence in The Vast African Desert? Desolate as The Sahara may be in its essential character, it is rendered still more so by the neglect of its heedless and dreamy tenants. Many are the oases in this neglected, abandoned state. And the saddening, sickening thought often recurs to me, that, however desolate The Sahara may have been in past ages, it is now getting worse instead of better. Ghadames, and many oases of Fezzan, are dwindling away to nothing, the population lessening, and dispersing under the curse of the Turkish system!

Fezzan is only reckoned five days from Serdalas, good travelling, but, with a caravan of slaves, it will occupy us six or seven days. How fond of lying are the Moors, or, shall we say, boasting? The Shereef, I hear from my other companions, is not going on a pilgrimage to Mecca, as he boasted to me. He merely goes to Tripoli on a trip to sell his three slaves for the Governor, his uncle, and purchase a little merchandise in return.

Had a visit from the daughter of the Marabout, the wild Sybil of The Desert. She is an Arab lady of some seventy or more years of age, but, like most ladies, does not know how old she is. At first sight of her, I

"Gaz'd on her sun-burnt face with silent awe,
Her tatter'd mantle,
Her moving lips,--

"Whose dark eyes flash'd, through locks
of blackest shade."

The Pythoness asked me how I liked her country, a hundred times, and then begged for something in the name of Allah. She kept saying, "What have you got for the daughter of the great Marabout?" "What have you got for her who dedicates her life to God?" She was very proud of the distinction, _Bent-El-Marabout_ ("daughter of the Marabout"). And why should she not be proud? When all comes to all, the Saharan lady is as good as a Roman Nepote of the Pope. She continued, "What have you got for the daughter of the great Marabout?" And, indeed, I had got very little. I then gave her a little looking-glass, the only one I had. But this is no privation in The Desert, however necessary elsewhere. The looking-glass exceedingly delighted the sybil, for in it she saw the stern features of her face, with her dauntless eye. She then got familiar. She wondered why I was not married, and how I could go to sleep without a wife. She prayed me to take one from Fezzan, or buy a negress of the caravan, telling the people, "The Christian is very good, but very foolish. The Christian has plenty of money, and does not buy a wife." I told her it was prohibited to buy slaves. And as to a wife, I could not carry her about in The Desert. To which she at length, after much persuasion, consented to agree. The daughter of the Marabout showed no hostility against me as a Christian, although of such pure blood, and in which the antagonism of the eastern to the western spirit is supposed to be stronger. She gave me her blessing, and we parted friends. The only piece of dress of any kind which the Maraboutess wore was a thick, dark, woollen frock, with short sleeves. She had no ornaments; her hair was black, mixed with grey, long, and dishevelled about her neck and shoulders. An air of the Pythoness overshadows the countenance and carriage of this Desert priestess. Amongst the people she is a holy being. She lives alone. She has the power of foretelling future events. She receives small presents from all the ghafalahs which visit the oasis, as tithes of the Marabout shrine. She never leaves this Desert spot. Her person was ever inviolable. It is related that, many years ago, an Arab once attempted to surprise her in the night, and share a part of her bed, but was immediately struck dead before he could stretch out his hand to open the door of her grass-built hut. So The Desert has its incorruptible vestals. But the conversation which her ladyship had with me was all pro-matrimonial, and would not have suggested to the stranger that she was an ancient maiden of inviolate chastity. Perhaps she might have thought this sort of conversation would please me best. The Maraboutess, as well as the few Fezzaneers in Serdalas, are of short stature, of a very dark-brown complexion, approaching nearly to black, and some have the broad distended nostrils of the negro. The Shereef said to me this afternoon, "I'm going to pray at the Marabout shrine; I go happily, I return happily." Our Shereef is a little self-righteous.

Evening, died a young female slave. She had been ill a month. She was of the most delicate frame, and cost seventy dollars as a great beauty. She was buried in the grave-yard of the Marabet without any ceremonies. Happy creature to have so died. They first tried to dig a grave in open desert, but not succeeding, they carried her to the burial-ground of the Marabet.

_11th._--To-day is the fourteenth day of the month, and Wednesday instead of Monday, by the reckoning of my fellow travellers. A fine morning, but we all felt severe cold during the past night, and which nipped up the poor slaves.

This morning visited Haj Ibrahim early, and seeing a young female very ill I remarked: "You had better leave her with the daughter of the Marabout." He replied, much agitated, "Oh, no, it's a she-devil." Thinking she might be sulky, as Negroes often sulk, I made no other observation. A few minutes after I heard the noise of whipping, and turning round, to my great surprise, I saw the Haj beating her not very mercifully. He had a whip of bull's hide with which he gave her several lashes. This displeased me much, for I thought if the girl had sulked a little she might have been cured without recourse to the whip, in her debilitated state. About a quarter of an hour afterwards, or not so much, I saw Haj Omer, servant of the Haj, going towards the graveyard, with a small ax in his hand, and suspecting something had happened, I followed to see what it was. On arriving at the Marabet, I asked,

"What are you going to do?"

"Dig a grave, only," was the reply.

"What," I continued, "are you going to dig the grave of the Negress whom Haj Ibrahim was just now beating?"

"Yes," Omer returned, greatly ashamed.

I was not surprised at the answer, but a disagreeable chill came over me. Omer then added apologetically, "They bring these poor creatures by force, they steal them. They give them nothing to eat but hasheesh (herbs). Her stomach is swollen. We couldn't cure her; Haj Ibrahim beat her to cure her. She had diarrhœa." This requires no comment. I add only, if Haj Ibrahim, who is a good master, can treat his slaves thus, what may we not expect from others less humane? There is no doubt but that the whipping of this poor creature hastened her death. She was, indeed, whipped at the point of death. I stopped to see the lacerated slave buried. She was some eleven years of age, and of frailest form. A grave was dug for her about fifteen inches deep and ten wide. It is fortunate there are no hyenas or chacalls to scratch up these bodies. They do "rest in peace." Into this narrow crib of earth she was thrust down, resting on her right side, with her head towards the south, and her face towards the east, or towards Mecca. She had on a small chemise, and her head and feet and loins were wrapped round with a frock of tattered black Soudan cotton. Omer, before he put her in, felt her breast to see if she were really dead. At first he seemed to doubt it, and fancied he felt her heart beating, but at last he made up his mind that she was really dead. I felt her hands. They were deathly cold. At times Moors bury people warm, and not unfrequently alive. They are always in a desperate hurry to get corpses under ground, thinking the soul cannot have any peace whilst the body lies unburied. As the last service to the body, Omer took some earth and stopped up her nostrils. This was done to prevent her reviving should she be not really dead, and attempt to move. Unquestionably if buried in the open desert, it is a service, for the wretch only revives to die a more horrible death. Some small flag-stones were then laid over the narrow cell, and these were covered with earth, in the form of a common grave, being only a little narrower than our graves, as the body is turned up on its side. The two poor young things lay side by side, the one who died yesterday, and the one to-day, giving their liberated spirits opportunity to return to the loved land of freedom, the wild woods of the Niger. Happy beings were they;--better to die so in The Desert, in the morning of their bondage, than live to minister to the corrupt appetites of the unfeeling sensualist! Seeing others, free people, with pieces of stone raised up at their heads, and wishing the slave and the free to have equal rights in the grave, I fetched two pieces of stone and placed them at their heads likewise. If it be permitted to pray for the dead, God save, in mercy, these two youthful, frail, but almost sinless souls!

DIRGE[101].

"O'er her toil-wither'd limbs sickly languors were shed,
And the dark mists of death on her eyelids were spread;
Before her last sufferings how glad did she bend,
For the strong arm of death was the arm of a friend.

"Against the hot breezes hard struggled her breast,
Slow, slow beat her heart, as she hastened to rest;
No more shall sharp anguish her faint bosom rend,
For the strong arm of death was the arm of a friend.

"No more shall she sink in the deep scorching air,
No more shall keen hunger her weak body tear;
No more on her limbs shall swift lashes descend,
For the strong arm of death was the arm of a friend.

"Ye ruffians! who tore her from all she held dear,
Who mock'd at her wailings and smil'd at her tear;
Now, now she'll escape, every suffering shall end,
For the strong arm of death was the arm of a friend."

I returned to the encampment and found the caravan in motion. Burning hot to-day. I felt the heat as oppressive as in my journey of August to Ghadames. Fortunately our faces were north-east, away from the sun in its greatest power. No one can understand this passage, καὶ ἡ ὄψις αὐτοῦ ὡς ὁ ἥλιος φαίνει ἐν τῇ δυνάμει αὐτοῦ, (Rev. i. 16,) who has not travelled under the influence of the Saharan sun. The rays dart down with a peculiar fierceness upon your devoted head, depriving you of all your life-springs. As to its splendour, the eye of the eagle turns away daunted from its all-effulgent beams. Since leaving Ghat we have passed many graves of the "bond and the free," who have died in open desert. Passed one to-day, with Arabic characters carved on the stone raised at its head. Passed by also several desert mosques, which are simply the outline in small stones, of the ground-plan of Mahometan temples.

We have, in many instances, only the floor of the mosque marked out, or rather the walls which inclose the floor. Within the outlines the stones are nicely cleared away. Here the devout passers-by occasionally stop and pray. The desert mosques are some of them of these shapes--

The places projecting in squares or recesses are the kiblah, upon which the Faithful prostrate themselves towards the east, or Mecca[102].

Our course is through an undulating country of hills and valleys. We made a short day, for we began to fear we might lose many of the slaves. A Touarghee caravan, going to Fezzan, overtook us _en route_, but soon turned off to the north-west.

FOOTNOTES:

[96] I hope I offered up a heartfelt prayer of thankfulness to the
Almighty for my deliverance from perishing in The Desert.

[97] It is a very wide valley, nay an extensive plain. But the
Doctor writes about it before he arrives there.

[98] Tholh--الظلح--_Acacia gummifera_, (Willd.) It bears what
the Moors and Arabs call _Smug Elârab_ (صمغ العرب),
or "Gum Arabic." This is the most hardy tree of The Desert, and,
like the karub-trees of Malta, strikes its roots into the very stones.

[99] Dr. Oudney says, who was a man of science:--"Rain sometimes
falls in the valley (of Sherkee, Fezzan,) sufficient to overflow
the surface and form mountain torrents. But it has no regular
periods, five, eight, and nine years frequently intervening
between each time. Thus, no trust can be placed in the occurrence
of rain, and no application made in agricultural concerns." In
truth, the rain which falls in these uncertain intervals, seems to
answer no available purpose, unless to feed the wells and
under-currents of water.

[100] The blowing hot and cold with the same breath is here a
reality, or thereabouts.

[101] Adapted from an anonymous piece, called "_The Dying Negro_."

[102] "But we will cause thee to turn towards a _Kiblah_ that will
please thee. Turn, therefore, thy face towards the holy temple of
Mecca; and wherever ye be, turn your faces towards that
place."--_Surat_ ii.