and painting jobs that may never come.
Back at the hotel there was no sign of Taher in his office.
‘It might be a good sign,’ I said to Ned. ‘Perhaps he’s still talking to his friend about buying camels.’ I didn’t really believe a word of it. Ned looked equally unconvinced. Fearing the worst, I checked in with Hajer to see if he could shed some light on Taher’s prolonged disappearance.
‘Taher go to Tunisia,’ he said matter-of-factly. ‘He go to meet new tourists.’
This was testing our patience excessively. It was all very well waiting in the hope of something happening, but Taher was obviously over-stretched and doing nothing on our behalf. There was no point delaying any further in Tripoli. We had to get on with looking for camels ourselves. Hajer looked uncomfortable, as though he feared the worst from his boss should he let us leave during Taher’s absence. He implored us to stay. We shook our heads. He changed tactics.
‘Taher very angry you go Ghadames.’
‘Well, we’re very angry he went off to Tunisia without even telling us,’ I replied.
‘No, you stay in Tripoli,’ said Hajer. ‘Taher go to Tunisia.’
‘We go to Ghadames,’ we responded firmly.
‘Really We Are in Bad Condition’
Libya is – as the others show, and indeed as Cnaeus Piso, who was once the prefect of that country, told me – like a leopard’s skin; for it is spotted with inhabited places that are surrounded by waterless and desert land. The Egyptians call such inhabited places ‘auases’.
STRABO, THE GEOGRAPHY
The details of the [slave] traffic are really curious. A slave is heard of one day, talked about the next, reflections next day, price fixed next, goods offered next, squabblings next, bargain upset next, new disputes next, goods assorted next, final arrangement next, goods delivered and exchanged next, etc., etc., and the whole of this melancholy exhibition of a wrangling cupidity over the sale of human beings is wound up by the present of a few parched peas, a few Barbary almonds, and a little tobacco being given to the Soudanese merchants, the parties separating with as much self-complacency, as if they had arranged the mercantile affairs of all Africa.
JAMES RICHARDSON, TRAVELS IN THE GREAT DESERT OF SAHARA IN THE YEARS OF 1845 AND 1846
Outside Tripoli, we got out of our taxi and stopped in a roadside restaurant for a hasty supper. The news bulletin was just beginning. Until recently, the opening sequence had showed Libya and the Arab world as a solitary block of green in a black world. In the heavens hung a copy of The Green Book, growing steadily brighter as a ray of light beamed up towards it from Tripoli. Then, like a satellite sending out signals, the book started zapping countries one by one until the whole world had succumbed to Gaddafi’s malevolent genius and turned green itself. All this was until 1998, when invitations were sent to Arab leaders to join the celebrations in Tripoli for the 29th anniversary of the revolution. Not one turned up. Several premiers, including Hosni Mubarak of Egypt, had arrived several days earlier and made a discreet exit before the ceremonies began. Foreign heads of state were limited to a handful of African leaders. Stung by this snub from his Arab brethren, the man who had spent three decades in power campaigning for a single Arab nation, declared that henceforth Libya was an African, not an Arab, nation. The news no longer showed the outline of the Arab nations. Libya beamed out green light to the black continent of Africa instead.
The main item tonight was the meeting in Libya between the All African Students Union, an African president and Gaddafi. The African leader sat in impressively colourful costume, nodding off periodically during a long ranting speech from his host. Flanking the Libyan head of state was Louis Farrakhan, the American Muslim firebrand, who had probably been given a handsome stipend to lend revolutionary Islamic chic to an otherwise tedious function. Dutifully, he praised his Libyan host. ‘We admire your great moral stature in international affairs and your fight against the imperialist policies of colonialism,’ he droned on sycophantically. ‘You are one of Islam’s great revolutionary leaders. We salute you for your work around the world in support of our Muslim brothers.’ The next item reported claims made by the renegade MI5 officer David Shayler that Britain had plotted to assassinate Gaddafi. ‘It was a pity they didn’t kill him,’ muttered a driver on the neighbouring table.
We sank into the seats of our Peugeot taxi and sped through flat, barren country, listening to French rap, soft Arab rock and All Saints. All that broke the emptiness of the evening landscape were occasional car scrapyards, unsightly heaps of abandoned Peugeot hulks next to squat Portakabins, and thick bands of rubbish on the roadside, mostly car tyres, food packets, and empty tins and bottles. And then darkness fell. At three in the morning, we nosed into the black mass of Ghadames and drove to the house of Othman al Hashashe, where I had stayed the last time I was here. Othman, a gangling twenty-six-year-old accountant and devoted Manchester United fan resplendent in Nike leisure suit, rubbed the sleep from his eyes wonderingly, recognized me and let us in. It was a bitterly cold night inside the house, a harbinger of things to come.
Richardson reached this oasis on 24 August 1845, after an uncomfortable two weeks on camel. He had been preceded by a letter announcing him somewhat disingenuously as the ‘English Consul of Ghadames’. Initially, he was ecstatic. By his own account he was only the second European ever to set foot in this holy trading city. Another Briton, Major Alexander Gordon Laing, had passed through twenty years before en route to becoming the first European to reach Timbuctoo, but had been murdered shortly afterwards. Back in 1818, Ritchie and Lyon had intended to travel to this far-flung town but had been discouraged by Yousef Karamanli ‘on account of the alledged dangers of the road’.
‘I now fancied I had discovered a new world, or had seen Timbuctoo, or followed the whole course of the Niger, or had done something very extraordinary,’ Richardson gushed. ‘But the illusion soon vanished, as vanish all the vain hopes and foolish aspirations of man. I found afterwards that I had only made one step, or laid one stone, in raising for myself a monument of fame in the annals of African discovery!’ For the time being, the great mission to investigate and help eradicate the slave trade had been forgotten. Richardson’s personal ambitions as an African explorer were proving more immediately compelling.
I awoke next morning to a familiar booming voice. Mohammed Ali, who had acted as guide and interpreter for me during my last visit, was breakfasting with Othman. I joined them and was instantly bombarded with a barrage of greetings from Mohammed.
‘Mr Justin, kaif halek (how are you)? Fine? Really, I have missed you, believe me. I thought maybe you were not coming to Libya. How are you? Fine? How is your family? Now I am happy to see you, alhamdulillah (praise God). Believe me, I am too shocked now you come to Ghadames. Alleye berrik feik (God bless you). How is your father? How are you? Fine?’ The exchange of greetings lasted some time. Libyans are an exceedingly courteous people. It reminded me of Lyon’s first impressions of Tripolines in 1818, when he observed:
Very intimate acquaintances mutually lift their joined right hand, repeating with the greatest rapidity, ‘How are you? Well, how are you? Thank God, how are you? God bless you, how are you?’ which compliments in a well bred man never last less than ten minutes; and whatever may be the occasion afterwards, it is a mark of great good breeding occasionally to interrupt it, bowing solemnly and asking, ‘How are you?’
