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I am the second Christian who has visited Ghadames; the first being the unfortunate Major Laing, who never returned to record what he saw in this city! But his residence of a few days here is forgotten by nearly all the present generation. The Rais is the only Turk. All the troops are Arabs. The Ghadamsee people are never soldiers. This evening the Rais sent me supper, much the same as the dinner.
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.
The morning is cool and cloudy; a few drops of rain fell soon after sunrise, still it holds up. Amused in finding the Ghadamsee word for father was the same as dad or dady, which is written دادا dada. This morning the giant Touarick honoured me with a visit; he had enough to do to get through the doors of my house with his pine-tree spear. He behaved extremely well.
He considers Jabour's protection omnipotent in the route of Timbuctoo, but says the Touaricks only, and not caravans, can protect European travellers: I think the Shereef is right. Another of our merchants is a very civil Ghadamsee, and acts as a sort of broker for Haj Ibrahim.
A Ghadamsee resident here, came in to-day, with a severe gash on his hands, and one of his fingers, to ask my advice and beg medicine. The gash was inflicted upon him whilst at prayer, by a vagabond Touarghee. For such violence, such a daring act perpetrated on a man whilst in the solemn performance of prayer, our Marabout Governor was obliged to give satisfaction to the injured party.
The house is a mezzonina, having no ground-floor apartments; the parlour, or grand room, or hall, was surrounded, to my surprise, with small apartments, in which three or four sheep were fattening, as people fatten pigs. The sheep is with the Ghadamsee people what the pig is with the Irish, their dii penates.
As the people can never depend upon rain, the whole culture is conducted on irrigation. The Ghadamsee garden-gate, of all the absurdities of inconvenience is the greatest I ever met with. It is scarcely large enough for a small sheep to enter. Every person entering a garden must not only stoop but crawl through the gate.
My Marabout prayed in it with devout fervour as we passed, I being obliged to wait for him. This evening dined with the Rais at his house for the first time. His Excellency was extremely kind and spoke freely of the Ghadamsee people. "These," said he, "are a people given up to prayer, and many of them spend their time in nothing else." I said, "Are there ten thousand people in Ghadames?
To ascertain its value would be hopeless, for the merchants, with the real jealousy of mercantile rivalry, conceal their affairs from one another. Two of the principal Ghadamsee merchants are with us, the Sheikh Makouran and Haj Mansour, besides a son of the great house of Ettence. These merchants belong to the rival factions of the city, and accordingly have separate encampments.
Of all the French writers who have recently written on Africa, M. Carette is most correct. Wrote down a vocabulary of Ghadamsee words from my turjeman's dictation. I was conversing with a group at the time, and I took the opportunity of observing that doctors were paid amongst us.
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