The stunning debut of a talented young travel writer.‘South from Barbary’ – as 19th-century Europeans knew North Africa – is the compelling account of Justin Marozzi’s 1,500-mile journey by camel along the slave-trade routes of the Libyan Sahara.Marozzi and his travelling companion Ned had never travelled in the desert, nor had they ridden camels before embarking on this expedition. Encouraged by a series of idiosyncratic Tuareg and Tubbu guides, they learnt the full range of desert survival skills, including how to master their five faithful camels.The caravan of two explorers, five camels with distinctive personalities and their guides undertook a gruelling journey across some of the most inhospitable territory on earth. Despite threats from Libyan officialdom and the ancient, natural hardships of the desert, Marozzi and Ned found themselves growing ever closer to the land and its people.More than a travelogue, ‘South from Barbary’ is a fascinating history of Saharan exploration and efforts by early British explorers to suppress the African slave trade. It evokes the poetry and solitude of the desert, the companionship of man and beast, the plight of a benighted nation, and the humour and generosity of its resilient people.Written with infectious wit and insight, and a terrific historical grasp, this is a superbly readable travel book about a rarely visited but enthralling and immensely beautiful region of the world.
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Justin Marozzi. South from Barbary: Along the Slave Routes of the Libyan Sahara
SOUTH FROM BARBARY. Along the Slave Routes ofthe Libyan Sahara. JUSTIN MAROZZI
Dedication
Epigraph
Contents
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
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To Julia
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 …
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By 1795, the father and his two sons had made up their differences and a reunited Karamanli family expelled the Turkish impostor from Tripoli, installing Yousef as the new Pasha. His rule dovetailed neatly with growing British interest in unexplored Africa, born of the desire both to extend commercial relations with the continent and to investigate and suppress the Saharan slave trade. In 1788, in recognition of the fact that ‘the map of the interior of Africa is still but a wide extended blank’, the Society Instituted for the Purpose of Exploring the Interior of Africa (African Society for short) was founded in London. European knowledge of the continent and its peoples had hardly developed since the times of Herodotus, Strabo, Pliny and Ptolemy. Arab writers and travellers of the Middle Ages such as Abu Obeid al Bekri, Ibn Khaldun and Ibn Battuta, the fabled fourteenth-century adventurer who blazed a swathe through the lands of Islam, had forged ahead. In the sixteenth century the Arabs pressed home their advantage, most notably through the travels of Ali Hassan Ibn Mohammed, or Leo Africanus (the African Lion), who crossed the Sahara to Timbuctoo in 1513. It fell to Jonathan Swift to lampoon this lamentable European ignorance.
