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CHAPTER XXIV.

FROM GHAT TO MOURZUK.

Another Range of Black Mountains.-Habits of She-Camels when having Foals. Our Mahrys.-Intelligence of my Nagah.Geology of Route.-Arrive at the Boundaries of Ghat and Fezzan. The Moon-Stroke.-Sudden Tempest.-Theological Controversy of The Shereef.-Wars and Razzias between the Tibboos and Touaricks.-Forests of Tholh Trees.-The Shereef's opinion of the Touaricks.-Dine with The Shereef.-Saharan Travellers badly clothed and fed.-Style of making Bazeen.— Mode of Encamping.-Cold Day, felt by all the Caravan.— Well of Teenabunda.-Arrival in The Wady of Fezzan.Meeting of the two Slave Caravans.-Tombs of Ancient Christians.-Routes between Ghat and Fezzan.-Weariness of Saharan Travel.-Oases and Palms of The Wady.-We meet a rude Sheikh, demanding Customs-Dues.-Haj Ibrahim's opinion of the Virgin Mary.—Black Jews in Central Africa.-My Affray with the Egyptian.-Route to Tripoli, via Shaty and Mizdah.Features and Colour of Fezzaneers.-My Journey from The Wady to Mourzuk, on leaving the Slave-Caravans.-Tombs of former Inhabitants, and Legends about them.-Bleak and Black Plateau. The Targhee Scout.-Have a Bilious Attack.-Desert Arcadians, and lone Shepherdesses.-Oasis of Agath, and its want of Hospitality.

12th.-A LONG, long, weary day, and tormentingly hot in the middle of the day. Course north-east, over plains scattered with small stones. Traversed a few small ridges of hills. A new species of stone to-day, the hard slate-coloured, and some of it with a granitelike look. Afternoon, came in sight of the other chain of black, or, as sometimes designated, Soudan mountains, stretching boundlessly north and south, like those near

Ghat. This chain likewise extends to the Tibboo country. It is an error of some of the late French writers, to make the Saharan ranges always run east and west. This direction of development only applies to the Atlas ranges of the Coast. No trees, and no herbage for the camels. The hasheesh which the camels ate this evening was brought us from the encampment of yesterday. The poor slaves knocked up to-day; rested many times on the road, and another very ill. In all probability she will follow her companions lately dead. Others, however, sang and danced, and tried to forget their slavery and hardships. But the death of the two girls is a damper for the rest, and they have not been so merry since that mournful occurrence. The she-camels, which have foals, give no milk for want of herbage. The two mothers bite one another's children. This, perhaps, they do to teach the young ones their true mothers. One of them makes a great noise over her young one, and disturbs all the caravan. Evening, whilst all the people were at prayers, and prostrating in their usual parallel lines, I went up to her, and began teazing her. The angry brute slowly and deliberately got up, but, once on her legs, she made a dead set at me, running after me. Meanwhile, receding backwards as fast as I could, I fell over some of the people praying and prostrating, and the camel attacked them as well as me, spoiling their devotions. The camel now returned to her foal; and, prayers over, Haj Ibrahim said to me, laughing, "Yâkob, the camel knows you are a kafer, and don't pray with us. So she attacks you. Camels never attack good Moslems at their prayers." The foal of seven days' old walked the whole of our long march to-day! and nearly as fast

as a man. So the poor camel begins to learn by times its lessons of patience and long-suffering. The mahry of the Haj is very vicious and greedy, and bites all the other camels which eat with it. Camels are made to eat in a circle, all kneeling down, head to head, and eye to eye. Within this circle of heads is thrown the fodder. Each camel claims its place and portion, eating that directly opposite to its head. The people eat in the same manner in circles, each claiming the portion before them, but squatting on their hams instead of kneeling. The mahry of the Haj is quite white, and is a very fine animal; but its eye is small and sleepy-looking, so that it does not appear to have the amount of intelligence of the Coast camels. We have another smaller mahry, and some of the mahrys are as diminutive as others are gigantic in size. My nagah feeds by herself. The males never bite the females as they bite one another,a piece of admirable gallantry, so far, on their part, but they rob the females of their fodder, and I am obliged constantly to keep driving them away from my nagah. The nagah knows she receives her dates from our panniers. Stooping down on one of them this evening to find something, putting my head right in, and raising myself up, I found the nagah's head right over my shoulder, attentively watching me, to see if I was bringing out her dates. She distinguishes me well from the Moors and Arabs, by my black cloak, and is usually very gentle and civil to me, and familiar, more especially about the time of bringing out the dates.

13th. Our course north-east, over an undulating plain of sand and gravel, and at intervals the desert surface was a plain pavement of stone, of a dark slate

colour. Greater part of the route strewn with pieces of petrified wood, but no pretty fossil remains. Wood, apparently chumps of the tholh. We had all day the new range of black mountains on our right, which extend southwards far beyond the Fezzanee country to the Tibboos. Intensely cold all day, the air misty, and the wind from north-west. But I prefer this cold to the heat of yesterday. Haj Ibrahim complained of the cold, and was alarmed for his slaves. One of the females he chased on his mahry, the girl running away on foot, and gave her two or three cuts with the whip. She had been accused of too great familiarity with a male slave. Crime and slavery go hand in hand: Miserable humanity!

About noon, we reached the territory of Fezzan. Good bye, Touaricks! farewell to the land of the brave and the free! Farewell, ye Barbarians! where prisons, gibbets, murders, and assassinations are unheard of. We now tread the soil of despotism, decapitations, slavery and civilization, under the benign Ottoman rule, in conjunction with the Christianized Powers of Europe! The boundaries of Ghat and Fezzan are determined by two conspicuous objects, first, by a chain of mountains running north-east and south-west, joining the oases of Fezzan on the north, and extending to the Tibboo towns on the south, the eastern side of all which chain is claimed by the masters of Fezzan, the western by the Touaricks of Ghat; and secondly the forests of tholh trees, which are now appearing in our north, affording abundant wood to the people of the caravan, and browsing for the camels. I am now, then, once more under the power of the Porte, and within the region of Turkish civilization.

VOL. II.

T

Passed other desert mosques, with some Arabic characters written in the sand, near the Keblah.

To-night the moon shone with a sun's splendour; all our people seemed startled at this prodigious effulgence of light. Several of the slaves ran out amongst the tholh trees, and began to dance and kick up their heels as if possessed. It might remind them of the clear moonlit banks and woods of Niger. Haj Ibrahim at last got out his umbrella and put it up. "What's that for ?" I asked. "The moon is corrupt (fesed), its light will give me fever. You must put up your broken umbrella." So said all our people, and related many stories of persons struck by the moon and dying instantaneously*. This is another illustration of the passage, "The sun shall not smite thee by day, nor the moon by night." (Ps. cxxi. 6.) In the Scriptures are several allusions to a stroke of the sun, (see Is. xLix. 10, Rev. vii. 16,) but few to the moon-stroke. Saharan opinion is that the moon-stroke is fatal. I am not aware that the moon-stroke is well authenticated by our eminent physicians. The writer of the psalm spoke the current language of his epoch of science. It is probable that

moon-struck madness," and strokes of the moon, are the effects of noisome or infectious vapours which crowd about the night, and obscure with a still paler light that pale luminary. The sun-stroke seems to be well-authenticated; many cases of Europeans going hunting and sporting in the open country of Barbary, then and there

* In the East Indies persons are known to become blind for the night, (something like the night-blindness, which we have before mentioned,) by the influence of the moon; or such is what people say.