Identifier: travelsdiscoveri02bart (find matches)
Title: Travels and discoveries in North and Central Africa. From the journal of an expedition undertaken under the auspices of H.B.M.'s government, in the years 1849-1855
Year: 1859 (1850s)
Authors: Barth, Heinrich, 1821-1865
Subjects:
Publisher: Philadelphia, J.W. Bradley
Contributing Library: The Library of Congress
Digitizing Sponsor: The Library of Congress

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therwith Sidi Alawate, the Sheikh El Bakays brother, and seve-ral of his followers, who took up their quarters on the terraceof my house in order to be out of the reach of the musquitoes ;and after they had been regaled with a good supper, whichhad been provided beforehand by some of the townspeople, Iwent to pay my respects to them. It was an important interview; for, although this was notthe person for whom my visit was specially intended, and whosefavorable or unfavorable disposition would influence the wholesuccess of my arduous undertaking, yet for the present I wasentirely in his hands, and all depended upon the manner inwhich he received me. Now my two messengers had only dis-closed to himself personally that I was a Christian, while atthe same time they had laid great stress upon the circumstancethat, although a Christian, I was under the special protectionof the Sultan of Stambul ; and Sidi Alawate inquired there-fore of me, with great earnestness and anxiety, as to the pecu-
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1420) ENTERS TIMBUKTU. 421 liar manner in which I enjoyed the protection of that greatMohammedan sovereign. Now, it was most unfortunate for me that I had no directletter from that quarter. Even the firman, with which we hadbeen provided by the Basha of Tripoli, had been delivered tothe governor for whom it was destined, so that at the time Ihad nothing with me to show but a firman, which I had usedon my journey in Egypt, and which of course had no especialrelation to the case in question. The want of such a generalletter of protection from the Sultan of Constantinople, whichI had solicited with so much anxiety to be sent after me, wasin the sequel the chief cause of my difficulty and dangerousposition in Timbuktu ; for, furnished with such a letter, itwould have been easy to have imposed silence upon my adver-saries and enemies there, and especially upon the merchantsfrom Morocco, who were instigated by the most selfish jealousyto raise all sorts of intrigues against me. Having heard

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