ks of Mourzuk, and found them to be commodious, and
apparently salubrious. The good living of these stationary troops
surprised me. They have meat and excellent soup everyday, with rice and
biscuit. The Fezzanee is never so well fed and well clothed and lodged
as when he is a soldier. Indeed the men seem too well off, in comparison
with their former state and with the rest of the population.
Nevertheless, they are glad to escape when the time of their service
expires. The people all dread being made soldiers: so that Government is
compelled to resort to the most paltry tricks to get recruits. Men are
often unjustly charged with theft or debt, and put in prison, and then
let out as a favour to be enlisted, or sometimes are clapped into the
ranks at once. Youths have been seized as soldiers for kicking up the
dust in front of a sentinel and dirtying his clothes. I remarked the
number of soldiers that were black, and the Bim Bashaw observed that he
hoped the time would come when there would not be a white private left
in Mourzuk. The Turks manage to do with twenty or thirty of their own
people, mostly officers, in this garrison; but, by one method or
another, get as many Fezzanee recruits as they want.

The Turkish system is vastly superior to the French in this important
matter of garrisoning their possessions in Northern Africa. The latter
require one hundred men where the Turks are content with one to hold the
country. Perhaps one of the chief reasons may be the difference of
religion. The Arabs and other natives of North Africa cannot endure the
sight of a ruler of another faith. Something, however, may be attributed
to the immense and sacred authority of the Ottoman Sultan, the great
chief of the Mussulmans of the East, as the Shereefan Emperor of Morocco
is the chief of the Mussulmans of the West. We may add, also, the
tremendous severity of the Turkish criminal law, or, rather, the
inexorable justice with which a crime committed against a Turkish
functionary is visited. The French make their razzias and strike off
heads enough; but their criminal code in Algeria is perhaps not so
summary and sanguinary as that of the Turks. Possibly one of the chief
reasons of this curious contrast may be the fact that the French soldier
is scarcely to be depended on when isolated. He acts well in masses, but
considers himself deserted and betrayed when left comparatively alone.
At any rate, the fact is that the Turks hold Tripoli wi