280 
TRAVELS IN NORTHERN AFRICA. 
CHAP. VII. 
are distinguislied from the poor by being admitted into the Sultan's 
presence, and Hving in every respect better than the Arabs and the 
other natives. They have great power to oppress and ill treat 
their inferiors ; yet are as free with their slaves as with each other, 
and associate as much with them. A slave will come and sit down 
with his master, though not on the same mat, and join in the 
conversation, amusement, or meal, even without a shirt on his back ; 
when the master wears his best clothes, hoAvever, he is too dig- 
nified to permit such freedom. 
The Fezzanners are possessed of but little courage, spirit, or 
honesty, and are as completely submissive to their tyrants as oppres- 
sion could wish ; they seem insensible of their abject state, never 
having known freedom, or having been exempt from the caprice of 
their rulers. There is little chance, therefore, that amongst such 
men, any struggles for liberty should be made ; and it never enters 
their heads to take advantage of the power they possess from their 
situation in the desert to render themselves independent of Tripoli. 
The Arabs, and particularly those of the tribe Waled Suliman, of whom 
I have already spoken, were once dangerous, lawless freebooters, 
but are now at an end. AVhen the Sultan goes to Tripoli, which 
he generally does once a year, he leaves his eldest son to command 
in his absence, under charge of whoever may, at the moment, 
be most in favour ; this decision, or more properly those of his 
governor, are equally to be enforced as the Sultan's own orders. 
Mukni's military force, if he presses the Arabs into his service, 
may, on an emergency, amount to 5000 men. No Fezzanners are 
ever allowed to go on military excursions, being considered too 
pusillanimous to be trusted ; but they pay deeply for their exemption 
from bearing arms, by being obliged to support those who do. 
There are no wars in which the Sultan is called upon to engage ; 
but his love of gain, and the defenceless state of the Negro king- 
