Part 3

The majestic ruins of a large castle, fortified at each corner with a round tower, give the place a picturesque appearance from the seaside. This castle is well known to be a structure of the time of Ibrahim the Aghlabite. In the midst of the ruins is a small mosque. But notwithstanding the ruinous state of the place, and the desolate condition of its plantations, there is still a little industry going on, consoling to the beholder in the midst of the devastation to which the fine province of Byzacium, once the garden of Carthage, is at present reduced. Several people were busily employed in the little market-place making mats; and in the houses looms, weaving baracans, were seen in activity. But all around, the country presented a frightful scene of desolation, there being no object to divert the eye but the two apparently separate cones of Mount Wuedrán, far in the distance to the west, said to be very rich in sheep. The officer who is stationed here, and who showed us much kindness, furnishing us with some excellent red radishes of extraordinary size, the only luxury which the village affords, told us that not less than five hundred soldiers are quartered upon this part of the coast. On my former journey I had ample opportunity to observe how the Tunisian soldiery eat up the little which has been left to the peaceable inhabitants of this most beautiful, but most unfortunate country.

Having spent two days and two nights in this miserable place without being able to obtain camels, we resolved to try the sea once more, in the morning of the 11th, when the wind became northerly; but before the low-water allowed us to go on board, the wind again changed, so that, when we at length got under weigh in the afternoon, we could only move on with short tacks. But our captain, protected as he was by the Promontory of Méheres, dared to enter the open gulf. Quantities of large fish in a dying state, as is often the case in this shallow water when the wind has been high, were drifting round our boat.

The sun was setting when we at length doubled the promontory of Kasr Unga, which we had already clearly distinguished on the 8th. However, we had now overcome the worst; and when on the following morning I emerged from our suffocating berth, I saw, to my great delight, that we were in the midst of the gulf, having left the coast far behind us. I now heard from our raïs that, instead of coasting as far as Tarf el má (“the border of the water”), a famous locality in the innermost corner of the Lesser Syrtis, which seems to preserve the memory of the former connection between the gulf and the great Sebkha or Shot el Kebír (the “palus Tritonis”), he had been so bold as to keep his little bark straight upon the channel of Jirbi.

Our voyage now became interesting; for while we were advancing at a fair rate, we had a charming view of the mountain-range, which in clear contours extended along in the distance behind the date-groves on the coast, seen only in faint outlines. The western part of the chain is very low, and forms almost a group apart, but after having been intersected by a gap or “gate,” the chain rises to greater elevation, being divided, as it would seem from hence, into three separate ranges enclosing fine valleys.

We had hoped to cross the difficult channel to-day; but the wind failing, we were obliged to anchor and await the daylight, for it is not possible to traverse the straits in the night, on account of their extreme shallowness. Even in the light of the following day, when we at length succeeded, our little bark, which drew only two or three feet, struck twice, and we had some trouble to get afloat again. On the conspicuous and elevated promontory the “Jurf,” or “Tarf el jurf,” stood in ancient times a temple of Venus, the hospitable goddess of the navigator. Here on my former journey I crossed with my horses over from the main to the island of Jirbi, while from the water I had now a better opportunity of observing the picturesque character of the rugged promontory. After traversing the shallow basin or widening, we crossed the second narrowing, where the castles which defended the bridge or “kantara,” the “pons Zitha” of the Romans, now lie in ruins on the main as well as on the island, and greatly obstruct the passage, the difficulty of which has obtained celebrity from contests between Islam and Christianity in comparatively modern times.

Having passed safely through this difficult channel, we kept steadily on through the open sea; and doubling Rás Mʿamúra, near to which our captain had a little date-grove and was cheerfully saluted by his family and friends, we at length entered the harbour of Zarzís, late in the afternoon of Sunday, and with some trouble got all our luggage carried into the village, which is situated at some distance. For although we had the worst part of the land journey now before us, the border- district of the two regencies, with the unsafe state of which I was well acquainted from my former journey, and although we were insufficiently armed, we were disposed to endure anything rather than the imprisonment to which we were doomed in such a vessel as our Mohammed’s gáreb. I think, however, that this nine days’ sail between Sfákes and Zarzís, a distance of less than a hundred and twenty miles, was on the whole a very fair trial in the beginning of an undertaking the success of which was mainly dependent upon patience and resolute endurance. We were rather fortunate in not only soon obtaining tolerable quarters, but also in arranging without delay our departure for the following day, by hiring two horses and three camels.

Zarzís consists of five separate villages—Kasr Bú ʿAli, Kasr Mwanza, Kasr Welád Mohammed, Kasr Welád Sʿaid, and Kasr Zawíya; the Bedowín in the neighbourhood belong to the tribe of the Akára. The plantation also is formed into separate date-groves. The houses are in tolerable repair and neatly whitewashed; but the character of order and well-being is neutralized by a good many houses in decay. Near the place there are also some Roman ruins, especially a cistern of very great length; and at some distance is the site of Medinet Ziyán, of which I have given a description in the narrative of my former journey.

Besides the eight men attached to our five animals, we were joined here by four pilgrims and three Tripolitan traders; we thus made up a numerous body, armed with eight muskets, three blunderbusses, and fourteen pistols, besides several straight swords, and could venture upon the rather unsafe road to the south of the Lake of Bibán, though it would have been far more agreeable to have a few trustworthy people to rely on instead of these turbulent companions.

Entering soon, behind the plantation of Zarzís, a long narrow sebkha, we were struck by the sterile and desolate character of the country, which was only interrupted by a few small depressed localities, where a little corn was cultivated. Keeping along this tract of country, we reached the north-western corner of the Lake of Bibán, or Bahéret el Bibán, after a little more than eight miles. This corner has even at the present day the common name of Khashm el kelb (the Dog’s Nose), while the former classical name of the whole lake, Sebákh el keláb, was only known to Tayyef, the more learned of my guides, who, without being questioned by me, observed that in former times towns and rich corn-fields had been where the lake now is, but had been swallowed up by a sinking of the ground.

The real basin has certainly nothing in common with a sebkha, which means a shallow hollow, incrusted with salt, which at times is dry and at others forms a pool; for it is a deep gulf or fiord of the sea, with which it is connected only by a narrow channel called Wád mtʿa el Bibán. The nature of a sebkha belongs at present only to its shores, chiefly to the locality called Makháda, which, indenting the country to a great distance, is sometimes very difficult to pass, and must be turned by a wide circuitous path, which is greatly feared on account of the neighbourhood of the Udérna, a tribe famous for its highway robberies. Having traversed the Makháda (which at present was dry) without any difficulty, we entered upon good arable soil, and encamped, after sunset, at about half a mile distance from a Bedowín encampment.

[Sidenote: January 15th.]

Starting from here the following day, we soon became aware that the country was not so thinly inhabited as we had thought; for numerous herds covered the rich pasture-grounds, while droves of gazelles, now and then, attested that the industry of man did not encroach here upon the freedom of the various orders of creation. Leaving the path near the ruins of a small building situated upon a hill, I went with Tayyef and the Khalífa to visit the ruins of a Roman station on the border of the Bahéra, which, under the name of el Medaina, has a great fame amongst the neighbouring tribes, but which, with a single exception, are of small extent and bad workmanship. This exception is the quay, which is not only of interest in itself, formed as it is of regularly-hewn stones, in good repair, but of importance as an evident proof that the lake was much deeper in ancient times than it is now.

Traversing from this spot the sebkha, which our companions had gone round, we soon overtook them, and kept over fine pasture-grounds called el Fehén, and further on, Súllub, passing, a little after noon, a group of ruins near the shore, called Kitfi el hamár. At two o’clock in the afternoon, we had directly on our right a slight slope which, according to the unanimous statement of our guides and companions, forms the mágttʿa, مَقْطَعٌ, or frontier between the two regencies[8]; and keeping along it we encamped an hour afterwards between the slope and the shore, which a little further on forms the deep gulf called Mirsá Buréka.

[Sidenote: January 16th.]

Starting at an early hour, we reached after a march of ten miles the ruins of a castle on the sea-shore, called Búrj el Melha, to which those of a small village, likewise built of hewn stone, are joined, while a long and imposing mole called el Míná juts out into the gulf. Four and a half miles further on we reached the conspicuous hill on the top of which is the chapel of the saint Sidi Sʿaid ben Salah, sometimes called Sidi Gházi, and venerated by such of the natives as are not attached to the Puritan sect of El Mádani, of which I shall speak hereafter. All our companions went there to say a short prayer.

Here we left the shore, and, having watered our animals near a well and passed the chapel of Sidi Sʿaid, close to which there are some ruins, we passed with expedition over fine meadows till we approached the plantation of Zowára, when, leaving Mr. Overweg and my people behind, I rode on with the Khalífa, in order to procure quarters from my former friend Sʿaid bu Semmín, who, as I had heard to my great satisfaction, had been restored to the government of that place. He had just on that very day returned from a visit of some length in the capital, and was delighted to see me again; but he was rather astonished when he heard that I was about to undertake a far more difficult and dangerous journey than my former one along the coast, in which he well knew that I had had a very narrow escape. However, he confided in my enterprising spirit and in the mercy of the Almighty, and thought if anybody was likely to do it, I was the man.[9]

[Sidenote: January 17th.]

We had now behind us the most dreary part of our route, having entered a district which in ancient times numbered large and wealthy cities, among which Sabratha stands foremost, and which even in the present miserable state of the country is dotted with pleasant little date-groves, interrupted by fine pasture-grounds. In the westernmost part of this tract, however, with the exception of the plantation of Zowára, all the date-groves, as those of Rikdalíye, Jemíl, el Meshíah, and Jenán ben Síl, lie at a considerable distance from the coast, while the country near the sea is full of sebkhas, and very monotonous, till the traveller reaches a slight ridge of sand-hills about sixteen miles east from Zowára, which is the border between the dreary province of that government and a more favoured tract belonging to the government of Bú-ʿAjíla, and which lies a little distance inland. Most charming was the little plantation of Kasr ʿalaiga, which exhibited traces of industry and improvement. Unfortunately our horses were too weak and too much fatigued to allow us to visit the sites either of Sabratha or Pontes. The ruins of Sabratha are properly called Kasr ʿalaiga, but the name has been applied to the whole neighbourhood; to the ancient Pontes seem to belong the ruins of Zowára e’ sherkíyeh, which are considerable. Between them lies the pretty grove of Om el hallúf.

About four o’clock in the afternoon we traversed the charming little valley called Wadi bú-harída, where we watered our horses; and then following the camels, and passing Asermán with its little plantation, which is bordered by a long and deep sebkha, we took up our quarters for the night in an Arab encampment, which was situated in the midst of the date-grove of ʿUkbah, and presented a most picturesque appearance, the large fires throwing a magic light upon the date-trees. But there are no roses without thorns: we were unfortunately persuaded to make ourselves comfortable in an Arab tent, as we had no tent of our own; and the enormous swarms of fleas not only disturbed our night’s rest, but followed us to Tripoli.

We had a long stretch the following day to reach the capital, which we were most anxious to accomplish, as we expected Mr. Richardson would have arrived before us in consequence of our own tedious journey; and having sent the Khalífa in advance to keep the gate open for us, we succeeded in reaching the town after an uninterrupted march of thirteen hours and a half, and were most kindly received by Mr. Crowe, Her Majesty’s consul-general, and the vice-consul Mr. Reade, with whom I was already acquainted. We were surprised to find that Mr. Richardson had not even yet been heard of, as we expected he would come direct by way of Malta. But he did not arrive till twelve days after. With the assistance of Mr. Reade, we had already finished a great deal of our preparations, and would have gladly gone on at once; but neither the boat, nor the instruments, nor the arms or tents had as yet arrived, and a great deal of patience was required. However, being lodged in the neat house of the former Austrian consul, close to the harbour, and which commands a charming prospect, our time passed rapidly by.

On the 25th of January Mr. Reade presented Mr. Overweg and me to Yezíd Bashá, the present governor, who received us with great kindness and good feeling. On the 29th we had a pleasant meeting with Mr. Frederic Warrington on his return from Ghadámes, whither he had accompanied Mr. Charles Dickson, who on the 1st of January had made his entry into that place as the first European agent and resident. Mr. F. Warrington is perhaps the most amiable possible specimen of an Arabianized European. To this gentleman, whose zeal in the objects of the expedition was beyond all praise, I must be allowed to pay my tribute as a friend. On setting out in 1850, he accompanied me as far as the Ghurián; and on my joyful return in 1855 he received me in Murzuk. By the charm of friendship he certainly contributed his share to my success.

[Footnote 6: I cannot leave Tunis without mentioning the great interest taken in our undertaking, and the kindness shown to us, by M. le Baron Théis, the French consul.]

[Footnote 7: The town presented quite the same desolate character which I have described in my former journey, with the single exception that a new gate had since been built. Several statues had been brought from Medinet Ziyán.]

[Footnote 8: This point is not without importance, as a great deal of dispute has taken place about the frontier. Having on my former journey kept close along the seashore, I have laid it down erroneously in the map accompanying the narrative of that journey.]

[Footnote 9: I will here correct the mistake which I made in my former narrative, when I said that Zowára is not mentioned by Arabic authors. It is certainly not adverted to by the more celebrated and older writers; but it is mentioned by travellers of the 14th century, especially by the Sheikh e’ Tijáni.]

[Illustration: DR. BARTH’S TRAVELS IN NORTH AND CENTRAL AFRICA Sheet No. 2.

MAP OF THE ROUTE through the YÉFREN, GHURIÁN, TARHÓNA & MESELLÁTA MTS. 4 to 26 February 1850.

Constructed and drawn by A. Petermann.

Engraved by E. Weller, _Duke Strt. Bloomsbury._

_London, Longman & Co._]

CHAP. II.

TRIPOLI. — THE PLAIN AND THE MOUNTAIN-SLOPE; THE ARAB AND THE BERBER.

In the Introduction I have given a rapid sketch of our journey from Tunis, and pointed out the causes of our delay in Tripoli. As soon as it became apparent that the preparations for our final departure for the interior would require at least a month, Mr. Overweg and I resolved to employ the interval in making a preliminary excursion through the mountainous region that encompasses Tripoli in a radius of from sixty to eighty miles.

With this view, we hired two camels, with a driver each, and four donkeys, with a couple of men, for ourselves and our two servants, Mohammed Belāl, the son of a liberated Háusa slave, and Ibrahim, a liberated Bagirmi slave, whom we had been fortunate enough to engage here; and through the Consul’s influence we procured a shoush, or officer, to accompany us the whole way.

Neither the instruments provided by Her Majesty’s Government, nor the tents and arms, had as yet arrived. But Mr. Overweg had a good sextant, and I a good chronometer, and we were both of us provided with tolerably good compasses, thermometers, and an aneroid barometer. Mr. Frederic Warrington, too, was good enough to lend us a tent.

We had determined to start in the afternoon of the 4th of February, 1850, so as to pass the first night in Ghargásh; but meeting with delays, we did not leave the town till after sunset. We preferred encamping, therefore, in the Meshíah, a little beyond the mosque, under the palm-trees, little knowing at the time what an opportunity we had lost of spending a very cheerful evening.

[Sidenote: February 5th.]

Soon after starting, we emerged from the palm-groves which constitute the charm of Tripoli, and continued our march over the rocky ground. Being a little in advance with the shoush, I halted to wait for the rest, when a very peculiar cry, that issued from the old Roman building on the road-side, called “Kasr el Jahalíyeh,” perplexed us for a moment. But we soon learnt, to our great surprise, not unmixed with regret, that it was our kind friend Frederic Warrington, who had been waiting for us here the whole night. From the top of the ruin, which stands on an isolated rock left purposely in the midst of a quarry, there is a widely extensive view. It appears that, before the Arabs built the castle, this site was occupied by Roman sepulchres. A little further on we passed the stone of Sidi ʿArífa. This stone had fallen upon the head of a workman who was digging a well. The workman, so runs the legend, escaped unhurt; and at Sidi ʿArífa’s word the stone once more sprung to the surface. Further on, near the sea-shore, we passed the chapel of Sidi Salah, who is said to have drawn by magic to his feet, from the bottom of the sea, a quantity of fish ready dressed.

From this point our kind friend Mr. Frederic Warrington returned with his followers to the town, and we were left to ourselves. We then turned off from the road, and entered the fine date-plantation of Zenzúr, celebrated in the fourteenth century, as one of the finest districts of Barbary, by the Sheikh e’ Tijáni, passing by a great magazine of corn, and a mouldering clay-built castle, in which were quartered a body of horsemen of the Urshefāna. Fine olive-trees pleasingly alternated with the palm-grove, while the borders of the broad sandy paths were neatly fenced with the _Cactus opuntia_. Having passed our former place of encampment in Sayáda, we were agreeably surprised to see at the western end of the plantation a few new gardens in course of formation; for there is a tax, levied not on the produce of the tree, but on the tree itself, which naturally stands in the way of new plantations.

Having halted for a short time at noon near the little oasis of Sidi Ghár, where the ground was beautifully adorned with a profusion of lilies; and having passed Jedaim, we encamped towards evening in the wide courtyard of the Kasr Gamúda, where we were kindly received by the Kaimakám Mustapha Bey, whom I was providentially destined to meet twice again, viz. on my outset from, and on my final return to, Fezzan. The whole plantation of Zawíya, of which Gamúda forms a part, is said to contain a hundred and thirty thousand palm-trees.

Ibrahim gave me an interesting account to-day of Negroland. Though a native of Bagirmi, he had rambled much about Mandara, and spoke enthusiastically of the large and strong mountain-town Karawa, his report of which I afterwards found quite true; of the town of Mendif, situated at the foot of the great mountain of the same name; and of Mora, which he represented as very unsafe on account of bands of robbers,—a report which has been entirely confirmed by Mr. Vogel. Our chief interest at that time was concentrated upon Mandara, which was then supposed to be the beginning of the mountainous zone of Central Africa.

[Sidenote: Wednesday, February 6th.]

While the camels were pursuing the direct track, we ourselves, leaving our former road, which was parallel to the sea-coast, and turning gradually towards the south, made a circuit through the plantation, in order to procure a supply of dates and corn, as we were about to enter on the zone of nomadic existence. The morning was very fine, and the ride pleasant. But we had hardly left the plantation, when we exchanged the firm turf for deep sand-hills which were broken further on by a more favoured soil, where melons were cultivated in great plenty; and again, about four miles beyond the plantation, the country once more assumed a genial aspect. I heard that many of the inhabitants of Zawiya habitually exchange every summer their more solid town residences for lighter dwellings here in the open air. A little before noon we obtained a fine view over the diversified outlines of the mountains before us.