Travels in the Great Desert of Sahara, in the Years of 1845 and 1846 Part 49

_3rd._--The female slaves are subjected to the most obscene insults and torments by the Arab and Moorish slave-drivers; whilst the youngest females (children of four or five years of age) are violated by their brutal masters, the Tibboos, in coming from Bornou to Ghat, or Fezzan.

_4th._--Slave children, of five years of age, walk more than one hundred and thirty days over The Great Desert, and other districts of Africa, before they can reach the slave-markets of Tripoli to be sold.

_5th._--Three-fourths of the slave-traffic of The Great Desert and Central Africa, are supported by the money and goods of European merchants, resident in Tunis, Tripoli, Algiers, and Egypt.

_6th._--A considerable traffic in slaves is carried on in the Southern Provinces of Algeria, under French protection, by the Soufah and Shanbah Arabs.

_7th._--At present there are no wars carried on in Central Africa, except those for the capture of slaves, to supply the markets of Tripoli and Constantinople; (so far as my information goes).

_8th._--Slaves are the grand staple commerce of the Soudan and Bornou caravans, and without slaves this commerce could hardly exist. Twenty years ago, the Sheikh of Bornou reiterated to our countrymen; "You say that we are all the sons of one father; you say also, that the sons of Adam should not sell one another; and you know every thing. G.o.d has given you great talents. What are we to do? The Arabs who come here will have nothing else but slaves. Why do you not send us merchants?"

The gardens of Tajourah are about one and a half hours' ride. There was then the break of an hour, where are pools of stagnant salt-water, with snipes running about. Afterwards we entered the gardens of the Masheeah, amongst which is the British garden, or residence of Colonel Warrington.

The Masheeah is a series of mud-walled gardens, or small fields of corn, fruit, and vegetable cultivation, and houses within the enclosures. Some of them not unlike town farms. The whole stretches some ten miles along the sea-sh.o.r.e. The population of the Masheeah, including Tajourah, is equal to that of the city of Tripoli itself, if not greater. These suburban villages have their mosques and religious establishments. They have besides a separate Governor from that of the town, and their inhabitants exercise great political influence during a revolution. In the last, these people supported one Bashaw, or pretender against the other, or that of the city. The Masheeah is two-thirds of a mile from the gates of Tripoli. The houses and gardens being situate mostly on the east and southeastern suburbs of the city.

We arrived in the neighbourhood of the British Consul's garden an hour before sunset. On the road, near it, are great gaping holes, very convenient for tumbling in on a dark night. These holes were dug years ago to store grain in. The Tripoline Government thinks it not worth while to fill them up. Immense fig-trees have grown up in some of these holes.

I deemed it prudent to wait near the Consular Gardens till dark, having rather a dervish appearance, and being without an European hat, cap, or shoes. Whilst waiting in a neighbouring garden, a Moor came up to me and talked, and then brought me a little cuscasou. I felt sensibly this trifling manifestation of hospitality on my return.

It is now just eight months and a half since I left Tripoli for Ghadames.

I have pa.s.sed eighty days, or nine hundred and sixty hours, out of this on the camel's back, and made a tour in The Sahara of some one thousand six hundred miles. I reckon my distances and days thus, averaging one with another:--

DAYS' JOURNEY.

From Tripoli to Ghadames 15 days From Ghadames to Ghat 20 "

From Ghat to Mourzuk 15 "

From Mourzuk to Tripoli 30 "

-- Total 80 "

These eighty, days, at the rate of twenty miles per day, make 1600 miles.

I walked every day, one day with another, about two hours, which, at the rate of two and a half miles per hour, makes the distance of four hundred miles that I went on foot through the Great Desert.

I wore out two or three pairs of shoes, but not one suit of clothes. My Moorish articles of dress I gave to Said, except the burnouse, which I gave away afterwards in Algeria. My whole expenses, including servant, camel, provisions, lodging, Moorish clothes, &c., &c., for the nine months' tour, did not exceed fifty pounds' sterling, and nearly half of this was given away in presents to the people and the various chieftains, who figure in the journal. I am sure, for I did not keep an exact account, my expenses did not exceed the round number of fifty by more than half a dozen pounds. I hope, therefore, I shall not be blamed for want of economy in Saharan travelling, especially when it is seen that the Messrs. Lyon and Ritchie expedition cost Government three thousand (3000) pounds' sterling, whose journey did not extend further south than mine, nor did they, indeed, penetrate so completely into The Sahara as I have done. Capt. Lyon likewise writes, that without "additional pecuniary supplies," he could not think of proceeding farther into the Interior, and accordingly returned. But were a person to ask me these questions, "Did you spend enough? Did you supply all your necessary wants? Could you safely recommend others to follow your example?" I must reply negatively to them all. This tour, to have been performed properly, as undertaken only by a private individual, ought to have cost at least one hundred pounds. The reader will, perhaps, be inquisitive to know, at whose expense the journey was accomplished. On this score, I am also disposed to be as communicative as on other points, for I do not wish this or that patronage to be suspected, although certainly the spending of fifty or sixty pounds' sterling is not a very mighty business. Well, then, the expenses were paid out of the funds of a salary granted for correspondence by one of the London newspapers. So much for the aid supplied by the Fourth Estate for the prosecution of philanthropic objects and discoveries in Africa. Let our printers' devils have their due in these days of universal patronage and pretension.

I now lay down and stretched myself at full length upon the fresh herbage under a sheltering palm, watching with a silent melancholy the last departing rays of the sun. I then thought over all my journey, beginning with the beginning and ending with the end, all the incidents of the route from first to last, and all the privations and sufferings I had undergone--praying to and thanking the Almighty for having delivered me from every ill and every danger.

POSTSCRIPT.--Said, on my leaving Tripoli, was committed to the care of Signor Merlato, the Austrian Consul, who promised to find him employment, or keep him in his own service. My poor camel, for which, were I a poet, I would chant a plaintive strain of adieu! I was obliged to sell. The Bengazi Arab who bought her promised me, however, to treat her lightly, and only to use her to ride upon.

"The world and I fortuitously met, I owed a trifle, and have paid the debt."

FOOTNOTES:

[127] On the plains of Angadda the French troops, at the battle of Isly, pa.s.sed two or three days together through fields of barley.

THE END.