CHAPTER VII.

Grennah, a Charming Retreat-Pleasant Camping-ground.-Rencontre with an Arab Saint-The Son of a Rich Prince.-Striking Cures.

AFTER spending six weeks in Grennah, I struck my tent most unwillingly, and made preparations to continue my journey eastwards. It was too late in the autumn longer to sojourn here, as I wished to see the other remains of antiquity which exist in this country. The rains set in usually about the middle of November, and then come down with a violence which no tent can resist. But I cannot quit my pleasant quarters near the fountain without a few words in praise of a country where I have found both recreation and health. I have already told what abundant materials of interest it offers to the antiquarian. The sportsman will find ample employment among the red-legged partridges, quails, and kata'ah, a sort of yellow grouse, and a little further south, he will meet with the gazelle and the houbara, or bustard; while the lover of a luxurious

Chap. VII. GRENNAH, A CHARMING RETREAT.

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climate, decked with all the beauties of nature, will sympathise in the story of the Odyssey, and easily picture to himself the difficulty with which the Ithacan tore away his companions from the land of the Lotophagi. A more delightful residence for the summer months cannot be imagined. The nights and mornings are always cool. In the daytime the thermometer ranges from 75° to 98°, the highest I have seen it; but there blows all day a cool breeze from the sea, which renders the heat insensible in the tent, and quite endurable on horseback. The means of comfortable existence are by no means wanting. A sheep costs from 4s. 6d. to 68., and will keep good for four days; vegetables and fruit can be obtained from Derna, where the grape, the banana, the pear, and the water-melon, are abundant; potatoes, bamias, tomatoes, cucumbers, and many other vegetables, may also be had there. Vegetables are likewise cultivated in this neighbourhood, in the little gardens of the Bedawin; and the milk of their cows affords the richest cream I ever tasted, though the pale butter which is made from it is not very good. A man must, therefore, be very hard to please, as far as the substantial necessaries of life are concerned, if he be not satisfied with such fare as this country affords; of course, wine, beer, biscuits, cheese, and such other superfluities, must be obtained from Malta. There is also to be had

here a substitute for the Swiss cure de raisins," in the camel's-milk, which, from experience, I can recommend as singularly efficacious. When drunk fresh, it is hardly to be distinguished from the milk of the cow, though richer; but in cooling it acquires a most disagreeable salt-taste. Warm or cold, it is equally efficacious, and might fairly take its place among the remedies prescribed by the faculty. If nowhere else in Europe, it might probably be obtained in Pisa, from the farm of the Grand Duke.

To the traveller who has tarried in Egypt till the spring-who is tired of Syria, and unwilling to go to Europe, a more delightful retreat for summer cannot be suggested. The air is far purer than in any part of Italy, the scenery more beautiful and more varied, and fever and dysentery are unknown. From early spring to the middle of October, no rain ever falls, though the sky after the middle of August is almost always cloudy; a heavy night-dew supplies the moisture which, at this season, covers the hills with a fresh coat of verdure. The distance from Alexandria to Derna is not great, and there is constant communication by sea between the two places. I should recommend for encampment one of the terraces in the eastern part of the Wady Bil Ghadir, a little beyond the first fountain, in descending the Wady from the south, rather than the fountain by which I pitched my tents. There

Chap. VII. PLEASANT CAMPING GROUND.

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is here a triangular patch of ground, beneath a lofty rock, which shelters it from the mid-day and evening sun; trees rise on every side, and there is a break in the hills, giving a lovely peep of the sea. The ground is dry gravel; along the edge of the terrace runs a streamlet of water from the fountain; and, near at hand, are some caves, which, if cleaned out, would make commodious store-rooms, or would serve other useful purposes. It is not, like the fountain, a place of resort for the camels, oxen, goats, sheep, and Bedawin, in the neighbourhood; and is free, therefore, from the dirt and insects they leave behind them. Where I was, the wind is sometimes disagreeable, raising clouds of dust which filled the tent; the other spot is more sheltered, and even in high wind, is secure from dust. If the traveller is accompanied by such a guide as Mohammed, who spent all his time in buying beeves, let him be prepared to have a hundred objections raised to the situation, as this place is not convenient for such purchases-" experto crede."

From the disagreeable experience I have had of the servants of this country, I should advise travellers to bring with them all the servants they may require, even to a groom, either Maltese, or what is better still, Egyptians. Their ignorance of the roads is of little consequence, as few of the Benghazi people are acquainted with them; for guides it is better to trust the

camel-drivers by doing so the travellers will have servants who know their duty, and who, having no private interests to serve in the country, fear not to displease the people; Mohammed, serving his own, utterly neglected my interests. Egyptian servants would not be more expensive than Benghazini, and they have none of that overweening Moslem pride, which makes the latter regard a Christian as something infinitely beneath them.

There is one nuisance in Cyrene, too characteristic of the country not to be mentioned. A small community of Derwishes, or Marābuts, as they are called here, has established itself lately in one of the largest tombs not far from the fountain. They belong to an order recently founded by a reputed saint, called the Sheikh Es-Senousy, and their president in Grennah is a fanatic of the first water, who will not defile his eyes by even looking at a Christian. He busily employed himself after my arrival here, in impressing upon my servants the degradation of serving me. The consequence was, that they all grew so uncivil-I must except the cook - that I was at last obliged to change them. The groom—an eater of pork and drinker of wine in the town-here missed none of the five prayers; and, between the devotion of my servants and their visitors, the encampment resounded all day long with "Allah akbar!" I was glad to see so