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The style of architecture, both here and in Ghadames, is the same, except that of Ghadames is neater and more fantastically elaborated. Most of the walls are surmounted with a mud-plaster work, and the tops and terraces of the houses are surmounted with the same style of material, and generally very irregularly done, as seen in the annexed diagram.
The city of Ghadames presents therefore a most mixed and coloured population, there being but very few of pure Arab blood, and fewer still of fair complexions. These children of the sun prefer the raven-black beard, the tanned skin, and the gazelle eye. The united population amounts to about 3,000, but there are many Ghadamsee families established in Soudan and Timbuctoo.
However, with care and due preparation, this route, and all Saharan routes, can be and are travelled in every season of the year; as is sufficiently proved by my own journey to Ghadames. Two days after the Tuscan left Sockna, came on a terrible ghiblee, but infinitely more intense and stifling than any south wind could be in this season.
Sometimes I get the conversation turned by telling them, if I turn Mussulman I shall offend my Sultan. They reply, "Oh! you can confess with your lips, that you are a Christian, whilst you remain a Mussulman in your heart." Threatening to report him to the Rais of Ghadames, he exclaimed, "The dog Rais has no rule in The Sahara." The other people made him hold his tongue.
The character of the people are petty traders, commission agents, camel-drivers, and slaves. There are several Arabs, natives of Ghadames, Seenawan, and Derge, and five strangers from Souf. We have with us also three Touaricks. There may be half-a-dozen low women and female slaves distributed amongst the ghafalah. Respectable females scarcely ever travel in The Desert.
I often asked the Arabs, if they ever killed the camel to get the water from its stomach? They replied, "They had often heard of such things." A merchant of Ghadames made, however, an apposite observation: "This is our sea, here we travel as you in your sea, bringing our provisions and water with us." These pits are considered the half-way house or station to Ghat.
Nay, if a man be starved to death, because he will not work, which is sometimes the case in this part of the world, as well as Ireland, it is destiny and the will of God! . . . . . . So of all other things. If Ghadames should be stormed and plundered by the Shânbah in its present defenceless condition, it will be, as a matter of course, the will of God.
French penetration in the far-off districts of no man's land beyond Tafilalt was well-known to these travelling market-folk; the Saharowi had spoken with the heads of a caravan that had come with slaves from Ghadames, by way of the Tuat, bound for Marrakesh. Resting by day and travelling by night, they had passed without challenge through the French lines.
Ah, that's your grandfathers of the time of Sidi Nimrod. Take it home with you. Ah, that's your grandfathers!" This evening, heard that the heads of the people of Ghadames had adopted my suggestion of sending a deputation to Tripoli, to state their inability to meet the new and extraordinary demand of 3,200 mahboubs, the Governor consenting to their determination. 27th.
If I had been murdered in The Desert tract from Ghadames to Ghat, it would have most justly been attributed to the placard placed on the doors of the Consulate at Tripoli. Justice requires from me, however, that I should state an indiscretion also on my part. I wrote to the Consul that I had communicated the charge against Messrs.
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