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Updated: May 4, 2025
The reverse of what we find in other Mahometan countries. But also the reverse of what the native modesty of the human mind dictates. Atkee, the Ghadamsee Arab, who was to have been my companion to Soudan, went off, returning to Ghadames, without paying the money which I committed to his care for the owner of the camel's flesh, which we ate on the route of Ghat.
The Touaricks of Ghat conduct the merchants from Ghadames to Ghat, and the Touaricks of Aheer the merchants from Ghat to Aheer, and so of the rest of the route, as far as Kanou, the final destination of the Soudan caravan. My Ghadamsee friend Bel Kasem came up to me today, and whispered in my ear the question, "If slaves would be allowed to be sold now in the market of Tripoli?"
On telling a Ghadamsee I ate some Thob, he said, "Ah, that's forbidden; the Thob was formerly a human being, before it had its present shape. Don't you see its hands are still human?" The notion of the transmigration of souls lingers in these parts, but it is a doctrine not generally received. I observed this man afterwards fattening his sheep with date-stones, broken into small pieces.
I may add, six languages are spoken daily in Ghadames, viz., Ghadamsee, Arabic, Touarghee, Housa, Bornouse, and Timbuctoo. The Rais has not a Turkish soldier or servant with him, or Turkish would make seven. Mourzuk being a garrison town, there Turkish, Greek, Italian, and Tibbo may be added to these six languages.
I gave them some sugar and cake, and we parted apparent friends. On going out, they could not forbear asking Said if he was a Mussulman. Like many other Moslemites of Sahara, they said, "The Turks are not good Mussulmans." I replied, "Mustapha, the Bey of Ghadames, is a better Mussulman than any of the Ghadamsee people."
They have not the least idea of the courage and enterprise of European tourists, nor can they understand their objects. But these their objections may be founded in jealousy of us Christians. The following is a nice neat facsimile specimen of the writing of a young taleb and Ghadamsee Marabout, one of the best I have seen in The Desert.
His Excellency complained that the Ghadamsee people show him scarcely any attention. He never receives the smallest present, neither a few dates, nor a melon, nor a vegetable; he buys and is obliged to buy everything . I thought myself more fortunate than the Rais, for I have received several little presents from various individuals.
It is the quarrels of the Touaricks themselves, and not our not being able to trust them individually, which renders the route so dangerous. Slave-dealing is so completely engendered in the minds of the Ghadamsee merchants, that they cannot conceive how it can be wrong.
He certainly behaves better than the other Ghadamsee merchants resident here. I'm told, there will not be many Touarick visitors this year at Ghat. They have unexpected occupation to defend themselves against the sanguinary forays of the Shânbah. And then, the late rains having produced abundant herbage, they are also occupied in grazing the camels.
In time I may alter my opinion of Ghadamsee gratitude. Some new patients, nearly all ophthalmia and diarrhœa. Visited to-day the two wells, which serve a portion of the population, in addition to the great spring. It is surprising what an interest I take in water. It is to me like precious gold, and the most fine gold. One of these wells has better water than the central running spring.
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