Travels in the Great Desert of Sahara, in the Years of 1845 and 1846 | Page 8

deny the advancement of civilization in that
zone of the African continent which has formed the field of our inquiry.
Yet barbarism is there supported by natural circumstances with which it
is vain to think of coping. It may be doubted whether, if mankind had
inhabited the earth only in populous and adjoining communities,
slavery would have ever existed. The Desert, if it be not absolutely the
root of the evil, has, at least, been from the earliest times the great
nursery of slave hunters. The demoralization of the towns on the
Southern borders of The Desert has been pointed out; and if the vast
extent be considered of the region in which man has no riches but
slaves, no enjoyment but slaves, no article of trade but slaves, and

where the hearts of wandering thousands are closed against pity by the
galling misery of life, it will be difficult to resist the conviction that the
solid buttress on which slavery rests in Africa, is--The Desert." (p.
139.)
[5] See MR. DUNCAN'S Travels in Western Africa.

ILLUSTRATIONS.
VOLUME I.
PLATES. Portrait of the Author Map of the Desert Slave Caravan
WOOD-CUTS. Arab Tents Facsimile Specimen of the Writing of a
Young Taleb Manner of drawing Water from Wells Great Spring of
Ghadames Bas-Relief Square of Fountains City of Ghadames Cistern
of an Ancient Tower Negro's Head Ancient Ruins of Ghadames Region
of Sands Rocking Rock
[Illustration: A SLAVE CARAVAN. J. E. S. del. J. W. Cook. sc.]

TRAVELS
IN
THE GREAT DESERT.
CHAPTER I.
FROM TUNIS TO TRIPOLI.
Project of Journey.--Opinions of People upon its practicability.--Moral
character of Europeans in Barbary.--Leave the Isle of Jerbah for Tripoli
in the coaster Mesâoud.--Return back.--Wind in Jerbah.--Start again
for Tripoli.--Sâkeeah.--Zarzees.--Biban.--The Salinæ, or
Salt-pits.--Rais-el-Makhbes.--Zouwarah.--Foul Wind, and put into the

port of Tripoli Vecchia.--Quarrel of Captain with
Passengers.--Description of this Port.--My fellow-travellers, and Said
the runaway Slave.--Arrival at Tripoli, and Health-Office.--Colonel
Warrington, British Consul-General.--The British Garden.--Interview
with Mehemet Pasha.--Barbary Politics.--Aspect of Tripoli.--Old Castle
of the Karamanly Bashaws.--Manœuvring of the Pasha's Troops.--The
Pasha's opinion of my projected Tour.--Resistance of the Pasha to my
Voyage, and overcome by the Consul.--Departure from Tripoli to
Ghadames.
ACCIDENT often determines the course of a man's life. The greater
part of human actions, however humiliating to our moral and
intellectual dignity, is the result of sheer accident. That the accidents of
life should harmonize with the immutable decrees of Providence, is the
great mystery of an honest and thinking mind. The reading accidentally
of a fugitive brochure, thrown upon the table of the public library of
Algiers, gave me the germ of the idea, which, fructifying and
expanding, ultimately led me to the design of visiting and exploring the
celebrated Oasis of Ghadames, planted far-away amidst the most
appalling desolations of the Great Saharan Wilderness. This should
teach us to lower our pretensions, and take a large discount from our
merits in originating our various enterprises; but, alas! our
over-weening self-love always manages to get the better of us. The
brochure alluded to was a number of the Revue de L'Orient, published
at Paris, containing a notice of Ghadames by M. Subtil, the notorious
sulphur[6]-explorer and adventurer of Tripoli.
On leaving Algiers, in January, 1845, I carried the idea of Ghadames
with me to Tunis; and thence, after agitating an exploration to The
Desert amongst my friends, some of whom plainly told me, if I went I
should never return, I should be consumed with the sun and fever, or
murdered by the natives, and to attempt such a thing was altogether
madness, I journeyed on to Tripoli, where I entered with all my soul
and might into the undertaking. But as in Tunis so in Tripoli, I heard
the birds of evil-omen uttering the same mournful notes of
discouragement:--"I should never reach Ghadames, no one else had
done so, or no one else had gone and returned. I should perish by the

hand of banditti, or sink under the burning heat. I was not the man; it
required a frame of iron. Enthusiasm was very well in its way, but it
required a man who was expert in arms, and who could fight his way
through The Desert." And such is the absurd character of men, and
some people pretending to be friends of African discovery, that, on
hearing of my safe return after nine months' absence, they felt
chagrined their sagacious vaticinations were not verified. Like a man
who writes a book, and ever so bad a book, he cannot afterwards adopt
a right sentiment, or course of action, because he has written his book.
It is true, the fate of Davidson, in Western Barbary, and the late
disastrous mishap of the young Tuscan on his return from Mourzuk,
favoured the pretensions of these Barbary-coast prophets, who cannot
comprehend a