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Be it so; it is hard to cure men of this sort of folly, at best a most unwished, unrequited labour . I always tell the Ghadamsee people the medicine I distribute neither belongs to me, nor to the English Consul at Tripoli, but to the Queen of England, and which, I have observed, heightens its value in their eyes. 10th.
Ouweek, like a true politician, feasted the messenger dispatched from Ghat to me nearly all night, and told him to report on his return to Ghat: "The Christian wished to give Ouweek a handsome present, but the Ghadamsee people, who are sorry dogs, would not let the Christian act from the impulse of his heart. So Ouweek quarrelled with the people of the caravan."
"The Arabs of The Mountains," he added, "were all banditti, those amongst whom you resided eight days. The Touaricks were not so bad, they generally protected Ghadamsee merchants. Now since the Sultan, there are only the Shânbah and the Sebâah, therefore the Ghadamseeah must pay." So, Audi alteram partem. 26th. To-day, resident thirty days in Ghadames which time I have certainly not lost.
The Ghadamsee interpreter observed, "The English and the Mussulmans are the same." And if the English require our assistance they can have it. Tell this on your return to your Sultan." This amiable prince then took leave. If there be a desert aristocrat of gentle blood, it is unquestionably Jabour. A shoal of low Touaricks came to me afterwards, in the Sheikh's name, to beg.
Here the women gossip and the men pray, but the latter are often disturbed in their devotions by the intruding glimpses of some Desert beauty. Love-matches and intrigues are equally concerted here on house-tops. The flat-roofed house-top, as before observed, is the Ghadamsee woman's entire world; here she lives, and moves, and has her being.
I immediately observed, "God is greater than all the Touaricks." This stopped his gab, and was applauded by the rest. A Ghadamsee bawled out, "Oh! it requires a great deal much, much, much money to go to Soudan." "How much?" I asked, "Oh! much, much, much!" was rejoined. "What is much?" "Five hundred dollars!" was shouted out by half a dozen. I coolly observed, "It is not much for an Englishman."
Not very cold, clouds thick and dark, and no sun. The music of the wind in the date-palms is very agreeable, and tunes my soul to a quiet sadness. The Ghadamsee merchant who was overtaken on his road to Tourat, refuses to come back, and says he trusts in God against the Shânbah. Some Souf Arabs have come in to-day, giving out that the French wish to assume the sovereignty over their country.
It is astonishing how everybody's opinion varies; the majority, nevertheless, are in favour of the Bornou route for me. Probably they are afraid of the responsibility of escorting me through the Touarick districts. Determined a day or two after to go to Kanou viâ Ghat and Aheer. Cannot see any danger if I stick close to the Ghadamsee merchants.
I pushed the little scoundrels down stairs into the street. I could not however help remarking upon their audacity, and the early infant habits of Touarghee "begging by force." The Ghadamsee people have always been the fair game of the Touaricks. Asking one day a Ghadamsee, "What occupation the Touaricks followed?" he replied indignantly, "Beg, beg, beg, this is their trade!
This was, indeed, bad management; yet I could not insist upon the Pasha giving me a letter, nor could I importune the British Consul: but it often happens, where there is less help from man, there is more from God. Many of the Ghadamsee merchants, whose acquaintance I had made in Tripoli, came now to me and welcomed me as a fellow-traveller.