Justin Marozzi - South from Barbary - Along the Slave Routes of the Libyan Sahara

To Julia

The hour is nigh; the waning queen walks forth to rule the later night,Crowned with the sparkle of a star, and throned on orb of ashen light:The wolf-tail sweeps the paling East to leave a deeper gloom behind.And dawn uprears her shining head, sighing with semblance of a wind:

The highlands catch yon Orient gleam, while purpling still the lowlands lie;And pearly mists, the morning-pride, soar incense-like to greet the sky.The horses neigh, the camels groan, the torches gleam, the cressets flare;The town of canvas falls, and man with din and dint invadeth air …

Do what thy manhood bids thee do, from none but self expect applause,He noblest lives and noblest dies who makes and keeps his self-made laws.All other life is living death, a world where none but phantoms dwell,A breath, a wind, a sound, a voice, a tinkling of the camel-bell …

Wend not thy way with brow serene, fear not thy humble tale to tell:–The whispers of the Desert-wind, the tinkling of the camel’s bell.

THE KASÎDAH OF HÂJÎ ABDÛ AL-YAZDI

SIR RICHARD BURTON

COVER

TITLE PAGE SOUTH FROM BARBARY Along the Slave Routes ofthe Libyan Sahara JUSTIN MAROZZI

DEDICATION Dedication DEDICATION EPIGRAPH CHAPTER I: Desert Fever CHAPTER II: Bride of the Sea CHAPTER III: ‘Really We Are in Bad Condition’ CHAPTER IV: The Journey Begins CHAPTER V: Onwards with Salek CHAPTER VI: Christmas in Germa CHAPTER VII: Murzuk CHAPTER VIII: The Hunt for Mohammed Othman CHAPTER IX: Tuna Joins the Caravan CHAPTER X: Wau an Namus CHAPTER XI: Hamlet in Tizirbu CHAPTER XII: Drama in the Dunes CHAPTER XIII: Buzeima CHAPTER XIV: Hotel Arrest in Kufra CHAPTER XV: ‘Now You Are in Good Condition’ BIBLIOGRAPHY INDEX ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ABOUT THE AUTHOR COPYRIGHT ABOUT THE PUBLISHER To Julia

EPIGRAPH Epigraph EPIGRAPH CHAPTER I: Desert Fever CHAPTER II: Bride of the Sea CHAPTER III: ‘Really We Are in Bad Condition’ CHAPTER IV: The Journey Begins CHAPTER V: Onwards with Salek CHAPTER VI: Christmas in Germa CHAPTER VII: Murzuk CHAPTER VIII: The Hunt for Mohammed Othman CHAPTER IX: Tuna Joins the Caravan CHAPTER X: Wau an Namus CHAPTER XI: Hamlet in Tizirbu CHAPTER XII: Drama in the Dunes CHAPTER XIII: Buzeima CHAPTER XIV: Hotel Arrest in Kufra CHAPTER XV: ‘Now You Are in Good Condition’ BIBLIOGRAPHY INDEX ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ABOUT THE AUTHOR COPYRIGHT ABOUT THE PUBLISHER The hour is nigh; the waning queen walks forth to rule the later night,Crowned with the sparkle of a star, and throned on orb of ashen light:The wolf-tail sweeps the paling East to leave a deeper gloom behind.And dawn uprears her shining head, sighing with semblance of a wind: The highlands catch yon Orient gleam, while purpling still the lowlands lie;And pearly mists, the morning-pride, soar incense-like to greet the sky.The horses neigh, the camels groan, the torches gleam, the cressets flare;The town of canvas falls, and man with din and dint invadeth air … Do what thy manhood bids thee do, from none but self expect applause,He noblest lives and noblest dies who makes and keeps his self-made laws.All other life is living death, a world where none but phantoms dwell,A breath, a wind, a sound, a voice, a tinkling of the camel-bell … Wend not thy way with brow serene, fear not thy humble tale to tell:–The whispers of the Desert-wind, the tinkling of the camel’s bell. THE KASÎDAH OF HÂJÎ ABDÛ AL-YAZDI SIR RICHARD BURTON

CHAPTER I: Desert Fever

CHAPTER II: Bride of the Sea

CHAPTER III: ‘Really We Are in Bad Condition’

CHAPTER IV: The Journey Begins

CHAPTER V: Onwards with Salek

CHAPTER VI: Christmas in Germa

CHAPTER VII: Murzuk

CHAPTER VIII: The Hunt for Mohammed Othman

CHAPTER IX: Tuna Joins the Caravan

CHAPTER X: Wau an Namus

CHAPTER XI: Hamlet in Tizirbu

CHAPTER XII: Drama in the Dunes

CHAPTER XIII: Buzeima

CHAPTER XIV: Hotel Arrest in Kufra

CHAPTER XV: ‘Now You Are in Good Condition’

BIBLIOGRAPHY

INDEX

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

COPYRIGHT

ABOUT THE PUBLISHER

‘Basically, you’re going to be bloody cold.’

ANTHONY CAZALET

‘Help me with this camel,’ said Abd al Wahab, while Ned and I were busily applying Elizabeth Arden Visible Difference Eight Hour Cream to our faces. Abd al Wahab, our guide, understood camels. They were part of his world. Moisturizer was not. Hastily we packed it away, put the finishing touches to the last camel load, and marched off into the desert. We were under way.

For six years I had longed to make the journey we were now beginning. In a way I owed it to my father, for it was he who had taken me to Libya for the first time. Together, in the warmth of February, we had walked through Tripoli as the wind streamed in from the sea; past the forbidding castle, which had seen 1,000 years of wars and intrigues between marauding corsairs, pirates, Spaniards, Italians, Englishmen, Arabs and Turks, and still stared out impassively towards the southern shores of Sicily; through the ancient Suq al Mushir and into an exotic medley of sights, sounds and smells that roused the senses and stirred the imagination. Throngs of prodigiously built matrons haggled ferociously with softly spoken gold- and silversmiths for jewellery they could not afford. Some were still dressed in the same white, sheet-like farrashiya s their forebears had worn hundreds of years before. Others hid behind their gaudy hijab s (Islamic veils) as they sailed through the narrow alleys hunting for perfume. Deeper into the market, beneath a minaret from which the muaddin was calling the faithful to prayer in haunting, ululating cadences, we had found a dilapidated café, its courtyard open to the sky, and taken our places alongside men playing cards and drinking mint tea, hunched protectively over their bubbling shisha pipes stuffed with apple-flavoured tobacco.