Chapter II

Preparations for Departure from Benghazi. — Leave Benghazi. — Arab Horses. — Ruins of Kasa Tawileh. — Labiar. — What an Arab is. — Mode of Travelling. — Retinue. — Silphium. — Tombs. — Cyrene.

I was detained in Benghazi much longer than I could have wished by the non-arrival of a vessel containing a part of my luggage, and by the beginning of Ramadhan, during which time it is next to impossible to travel.

Servants who are fasting all day cannot be expected to be much inclined for exertion, and as at night they sit up to gossip, or to sing, waiting till it is time to take the last meal before the dawn, it is hopeless in a tent to look for sleep. I made up my mind, therefore, to wait till this month was over, and gave orders for a start on the morrow of the Bairam. This, however, happened to be Wednesday, and my guide represented to me that Wednesday is the most unlucky of days to start on a journey, and the argument was too sound for me to think of opposing it. Thursday afternoon was, therefore, fixed on, but so little notion have the Arabs of punctuality, and so little are Arab servants of use in preparing for a journey, that everything had to be done by my European servant, and it was Saturday morning before I left the town. An Arab merchant, who was frequently in the habit of visiting me, gave me, however, some consolation for the delay, by explaining that the seventh is the luckiest day in the month, and as Saturday was the seventh, I had only gained by the change of day. This is, perhaps, the place to describe my equipment for the journey, and my companions. I bought two wretched horses for myself and servant, hired a quick stepping camel to carry a light tent, carpets, and other articles required during the day (which was ridden by a young Arab servant, who acts as coffee-maker and pipe-filler), and other camels for carrying the rest of the baggage, including a larger tent, crowbars and pickaxes for excavations, with water-skins and barley for six days for the horses. My guide, an immense man, one Mohammed El Adouly, provided his own horse, rather a showy white mare, and one of the best I had seen in the country; mounted upon this, and enveloped in his white barracan, new yellow and red shoes on his feet, which rested in the broad shovel-shaped brass stirrups; his long gun slung over his shoulders, with a blunderbuss at his saddle bow; a pair of pistols slung under the left arm, and a Koran and a white bundle of talismans under the right—he presented a very majestic figure, and evidently thought so himself. He was recommended to me as an indispensable guide for such a journey, as he is well known to all the Bedawin in the country, and his last wife was from the neighbourhood of Grennah; he had accompanied M. de Bourville and one or two English Vice-Consuls in their excursions through this country. I am, in general, averse to taking into my service such necessary personages, as they invariably endeavour to become the masters; but as the written information concerning the places I was to visit is very scanty, and no trust can be placed in the oral communication of the natives, I submitted to the infliction. I was determined, however, to have my own way, in which I succeeded very well, retrenching myself in my English coldness, while listening to his reasons why I should not do as I proposed, and then simply repeating the order; this being somewhat the Turkish fashion, he soon understood my method, and for some time obeyed my orders without opposition. In addition to Mohammed and the pipe-boy, I had with me a tall thin man, who fancied himself a cook, and an inexpressibly dirty fellow who was to groom the horses, and also make himself generally useful. The breed of horses in the Pentapolitan is sadly degenerated from its renown in former times; they are small and ill made, with no appearance of Arab blood; but there are a few in the interior which have great powers of endurance. My servant’s horse, of the Dongola breed, which had been reduced to a skeleton by a thirty-five days’ journey, during which his only food was what he could pick up on the road, promises to turn out a better horse than is usually met with in the country; he delights me by the very knowing look, which he owes to his ears being slit at the top—a sign that he was foaled at night.

After much screaming and scolding among the drivers, and the usual amount of growling on the part of the camels, everything was got into marching order, and, accompanied by some of my acquaintance, who escorted me for an hour out of the town, I quitted Benghazi. We stopped in about an hour and a half to fill the water-skins, at a deep well of cool and sweet water, as we were to find none till the next day, at Labiar. Our route was in a south-easterly direction, across the hills, which bound the plain of Benghazi, and while my luggage made directly for the spot where we were to spend the night, I made a long _détour_ to visit a ruin called Kasa Tawileh, through an uninteresting country, and without finding anything to reward my exertion. At about six hours and a half from Benghazi we reached the foot of the hills, and entered a beautiful ravine clothed with bushes and underwood; here we saw some coveys of partridges, a few hares, and flights of wood-pigeons; but the Arabs galloping about frightened them, so that it was impossible to get a shot. They never think of firing except when the game is on the ground, having never dreamt of a flying shot; but their flint-locks generally missing fire, their poaching does not do much harm to the game. We slept in an open space towards the end of the ravine. The hills around it are called Bu Miriam, and from them we descended the next morning to the great plain called Ghat-es-Sultan, which stretches away to the right; we crossed it in a south-east direction to Labiar. The country to the edge of the hill, at the foot of which lies the valley of Labiar, is covered with low underwood, juniper trees occasionally rising amidst it.

From Benghazi to Labiar is fourteen hours of camel travelling.

Labiar presents a strange appearance; a marābut on a slight eminence looks down upon a long stony vale, in which are several wells, but not a trace of vegetation. These were surrounded by Bedawin busily employed in drawing water in goat-skins, while their flocks and herds covered the bare rocky sides of the surrounding hills, patiently waiting their turn to approach the watering-place. From constant agitation the water in these wells is always muddy, and even of this the cattle only have a drink once in two or three days, as many are driven from pasture grounds at a great distance. Here we were visited by hosts of Bedawin, who formed a circle round the small daytent in which I was resting until the camels should come up. Nothing was to be learned from their conversation, but they left behind them many lively reminiscences of their visit, and as this was the case every time a Bedawy visited me, I soon came to the resolution of forbidding their reception. The genuine Bedawy, of this country at least, is one of the dirtiest animals on the earth; their dress is often nothing but a brown barracan, which is a mass of rags, and a dirty, very dirty, skull-cap. There is one of them in this neighbourhood, who boasts of not having used water for forty years, and it is only rarely that any of them make external use of this precious commodity. The sheikh of Labiar brought me a small skin of milk, and I bought of him a sheep for the evening’s meal, which he made me pay dear for, though he refused money for his milk, as to take money for it would be, as he said, (’aib,) “a shame.”

Beyond Labiar, the country becomes less barren, being covered with short grass, which, even when quite dry, has a greenish yellow tone; it is thickly dotted with thorny plants, some of which were just bursting into fresh leaf, and were most gaily green.

In four and a half hours from Labiar, our route taking a direction east by north, we reached Sanct Bella Ghür, where we stopped near a well ill supplied with water. From this vast plain five hours’ travelling over a beautiful range of hills called Jebel Fawaid, through gorges clothed with the juniper—here almost a stately tree—brought us to the wells of Elbenish, which presented a very similar appearance to those of Labiar, though the country round the Wadi, in which they lie, is less bare. While my tent was being pitched for the mid-day repose, I rode to a distance of twenty minutes to the north to see the remains of a ruined castle, called by the Arabs Kasr Jbilla. It is a square building, with towers at the corners, built of oblong blocks of wrought stone, of which, in some parts, several courses still exist, devoid of ornament; it may belong to Roman, or still earlier times. Placed on the summit of a conical hill, it commands an extensive view, and may have been destined to serve as a place of refuge from the attacks of the nomad tribes. With every care I could discover no trace of the inscriptions of which Della Cella speaks, and am inclined to think he mistook for characters the effect of the weather on the worn surface of the stones. The Arabs of the neighbourhood (they are Anaghir) bury their dead round the walls, and I saw several recent graves.

From Elbenich we entered the Jebel el Abid, inhabited by Arabs of the same name, and in four hours reached Zardes, where we slept, keeping, however, a good watch, as the Abid have a villanous reputation for thieving, and during the night gave us more than one _alerte_. Zardes is a valley containing wells, and surrounded by hills, in the protruding summits of which are many crevices, wherein grow the juniper and wild thyme, whose perfume fills the air; the ground around glittering with white flowers. This country, towards evening, when a pink tinge covers it, reminded me frequently of a Scotch moor. The next day was a fatiguing one; there being no suitable place for resting in the middle of the journey, I rode six hours before I halted my party. I generally left the camels with my servant, to prevent loitering, and rode on ahead with a guide and some Arab attendants. At the leisurely pace of an Arab traveller I gained upon the luggage fifteen or twenty minutes in every hour. I have noted the distances, for convenience’ sake, by the times of the departure and arrival of the camels, (at which I was always present,) their pace being uniform. I rode on or loitered on the road. Mohammed, in all his magnificence, led the way; the servants, equally well armed, being generally with him, and any chance traveller who might have joined the caravan; I usually followed a little in the rear. My guide and the other Arabs from time to time solaced themselves with song. They have two unmusical and strange, which is remarkable, as the music of the countries on either side—Egypt and Tunis—is very pretty. The leader sings a couple of lines, which he constantly repeats with slight variations, while the rest join in a strange howling chorus. The verse is generally extempore, containing little rhyme and still less reason, and the best idea I can give of its import and style is by recalling the nursery ditty,—

Here we go up, up, up,
Now we go down, down.

_Chorus_—How, wow, how.

as like bow wow wow as can be.

In leaving Zardes our road lay for three hours over hills covered with large junipers and other trees of the cypress tribe. This species of juniper is indigenous to the Cyrenaica; it is the _Thuya_ of Pliny, and though it now only furnishes the small rough beams of which the roofing of the Benghazi houses is formed, it was in ancient times extensively used in upholstery, and furnished the precious citrian tables to the luxury of Greece and Rome. The wood has a bright yellow colour, and might, I should think, become again fashionable if introduced into Europe.[1]

We now came to an extensive plain called El-Hhiah, and further on to Sharb Tawalun, which was entirely burnt up, though the camels still found ample amusement, as they stragglingly loitered along, in plucking on this side and on that the half-dried tufts of thorny shrubs with which it is overgrown. Merawah, eleven hours distant, was our next halting-place; near it we started numbers of gazelles, which I could not get within shot of, though I had murdering intentions, our stock of provisions being very low. Here the camel drivers were busy, all the evening, preparing muzzles for the camels, to prevent them eating the _Driâs_, with which the country between here and Cyrene is covered. Most authors consider this plant to be the old _Silphium_, though its medicinal virtues are forgotten, and it is only known as the dreaded poison which threatens the lives of camels which are not reared in this tract of country. It is from no partiality for its flavour that they eat it, for they refuse it when offered to them. They crop it as they pass along, tempted by the long stem, which brings it so near their noses. It is at the present season, when in seed, that it is considered most deadly; I am told that in spring it is unnecessary to take precautions against it. If not the real _Silphium_, it certainly answers to the description given of the plant by Theophrastus, and I cannot think the objection to its identity urged by the learned M. Duchalais, from the form of the seed on the medals, is of much weight. I have seen seeds which nearly enough resemble the _Magydaris_ on the medals, though they certainly are not heart-shaped, but the plant itself, as represented on them, is evidently what Mr. Pugin would call a conventional Silphium, for no plant of this species has the stem so thick in proportion to its height and flower. The seeds are highly medicinal, but I was unfortunately too late to ascertain if it yields a juice corresponding to the ancient Opos.

The next day our travelling from Merawah to Sireh, nine hours, and thence to Slŭnt, two hours, was very slow, for the camels, with their mouths tied up, were in a very bad humour, and could hardly be made to move. The appearance of the country was now varied by a number of caroub trees, which, contrasted with the duller juniper, looked of a bright green, and afforded a most grateful shade. Half-way between Merawah and Sireh is a large reservoir of ancient construction. It had been supported on six columns, and in many places the cement still adheres to the walls. There being no well in this neighbourhood, it was constructed to collect the rain-water from the hill at whose base it lies; its presence denotes, I presume, the site of some old town or village; but I observed no other remains of antiquity in its neighbourhood. It is true that the morning was very hot, and I, perhaps, gave myself little trouble in looking for them.[2] At Sireh are remains of a square castle, like that which I visited at Elbenich, but not so well preserved nor in so commanding a situation. Many similar remains of castles, which probably formed a line of defence against the border tribes, are to be seen on the summits of the hills. In the face of the rocks at Sireh are many excavations, devoid of ornament, and evidently intended as sepulchres, though the Arabs, of course, assert that they were the abodes of the ancient inhabitants. At Slŭnt the rock is burrowed with such excavations, each with a fore-court cut in the rock, having one or three entrances to the sepulchral chambers, some of which are most extensive, and supported by rude columns. I found one occupied by Arab ladies, who did not welcome my visit; probably thinking I had sinister intentions on their grain, for which it served as a magazine. It was certainly from no Oriental idea of the sacredness of the Hareem that they seemed so relieved when I turned my horse’s head. The Bedawin women, dirty and tattooed, have no difficulty in showing their bare faces to strangers; and, notwithstanding the stories of Herodotus, I think there is no risk in their doing so. They wear leather leggings up to the knee; in other respects their dress differs little, except in its darker colour, from that of the Benghazi women.

The next morning a ride of two hours and a quarter through an interesting country brought us to the Marābut Sidi Mohammed el Himary, where there is an ill-supplied well, and a rock, under which a shade may be obtained without the trouble of pitching a tent. Barth, I think, gives this as the site of the ancient Balaerai, whose distance was twelve miles from Cyrene; but it took my camels seven hours and a half from here to Grennah, which, at the slowest rate of travelling, must give fifteen miles, and from the length of time I was on horseback I should judge the distance nearer eighteen. The ride from here to Grennah is worth a journey from Europe. About half-way, after passing through a valley containing many splendid old junipers, under which goats, flocked together, were enjoying the shade, we came to a spring of living water, called Menezzah Wad Fairyeh. The rest of the journey was over a range of low undulating hills, offering, perhaps, the most lovely sylvan scenery in the world. The country is like a most beautifully arranged _Jardin Anglais_, covered with pyramidal clumps of evergreens, variously disposed, as if by the hand of the most refined taste; while _bosquets_ of junipers and cedars, relieved by the pale olive and the bright green of the tall arbutus tree, afford a most grateful shade from the mid-day sun. In one of these bowers I had my carpet spread for luncheon; some singing birds joined their voices to the lively chirping of the grasshoppers, and around fluttered many a gaily-painted butterfly. The old capital of the Pentapolis was before me, yet I was strongly tempted to pitch my tent for a time in this fairy scene.

“Nunc viridi membra sub arbuto
Stratus, nunc ad aquæ lene caput sacræ.”

Whoever has traversed these fresh groves in the parching heat of an African July can understand the enthusiastic praises of the older writers, and why the Arabs, coming from the Desert, called the country the Green Mountain. As we approached Cyrene, this exuberant vegetation disappeared, and in its place we passed through long avenues of tombs, hewn in the rock, or out of it; next we came in sight of the ruined towers of the old city walls; and then, through a long line of ruins, we reached the street of Battus, where a narrow gorge opens upon a magnificent view over plains and hills to the blue Mediterranean. I rode on to the cave whence gushes the perennial spring of Cyre, took a draught of its bright, cool water, and fixed my temporary home beneath the world-famed fountain, amidst the countless ruins of temples and public buildings.