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I asked them, "Whether they thought it showed any of the friendship which they professed towards me to embroil me with the people of the country, whose hospitality I was receiving?" They were so convinced of the justice of my appeal, that they went off without replying. A Ghadamsee peasant called to me, "Yâcob, you must be our Consul!" Afternoon, Essnousee left for Ghat.
I asked a Ghadamsee whether these women were not afraid to go by themselves, particularly now as banditti are reported to be in the routes. He replied, "These Touarick women are a host of witches and she-devils. No men will dare to touch them." This ghafalah of women is a perfectly new idea to me.
Indeed, the obstacle of English merchants joining the Tripoline is at present insuperable, on account of the slave traffic; if they could unite in one firm, it would be equally advantageous for both parties. 2nd. Not so many patients this morning. A respectable Ghadamsee came to me to beg medicine to assist in conjugal pleasures.
It is quite a pleasure now to walk about Ghat, the noisy rabble is hushed, and the Touaricks, excepting some chiefs of Berka, are all gone. The remaining Ghadamsee merchants are as pleased as myself that the Touaricks are gone. A strange hallucination got possession of my brain to-day. "I determined I would stop five years in Africa. I would visit all the great kingdoms of Nigritia.
This "bago" is neither Touarghee, nor Ghadamsee, nor Arabic, although used by persons speaking almost exclusively these languages. Bago is Housa, as before mentioned. Then the slave called "Bago, bago, bago;" then half-a-dozen slaves, close to the street-door, called "Bago, bago, bago." The knocking continued; the "bagos" continued, the uproar was hideous.
His friend, the Ghadamsee merchant, Ahmed Ben Kaka, who makes the journey from Tripoli to Noufee, says he saw the English steamers of the late Niger expedition, so he must have descended lower than Noufee. He says they came up to Yetferrej, "amuse themselves," and look about. He had not heard of their anti-slavery objects. According to him, "Fever and sickness prevail more at Kanou than Noufee."
I seem, indeed, to get on better with the people, their prejudices apparently are beginning to give way; I shall be able to open the way for some other person. The father of one of my young friends has been now twelve years in Kanou; when he returns he brings a fortune. Speaking to the Rais of the Ghadamsee people, I asked him what they did for soldiers before the Turks came?
Many slaves are, however, captives of war, for the negro princes are as fond of war as the military nations of France and Prussia, and can play at soldiers as well as the King of Naples. Evening, as usual, paid a visit to Haj Ibrahim. Nothing new, except an economical bill of expenses, from Ghat to Soudan, chalked out for me by a Ghadamsee, in prospect of my journey, viz:
In Ghadamsee and Touarghee a corruption of this pure Arabic word is used for heaven, اجّن. The Tripoline and Tunisian Moors use the term سانية, and the people here قابة, for garden, but which is, rather, kitchen-garden. Now, all these words are good Arabic, and may be used indifferently, at least the two latter.
One of these went once upon a time to Morocco, and endeavoured to persuade the people he could destroy all the locusts by some chemical process. I believe he was a French adventurer. 2nd. Occupied in taking notes of routes. The whole day overcast but no rain. Rais alternately laughs and admires the Ghadamsee people.
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