Page:Africa by Élisée Reclus, Volume 2.djvu/43

 TOPOGRArnV. 27 fail to effect a reformation in this respect, by rendering divorces less frequent, and Tv'st rioting the consumption of palm wine. The trade of the Aujila oases with the states of the interior, and esixjcially with Wmlai and Dar-Fur, appoars to have acquired some expansion since the route of the Nile hjjs Ix^en elose<l hy the revolt of the Egyptian Sudanese. In 1800 the traffic between Aujila and Wadai was completely susjx^uded for some years in con- s(H|uence of the action of some Maltese traders, who, at the instigation, as was said, of the Pasha of Tripoli, attacked a caravan near Aujila, killed several jx^rsons, and carried oil thirty captives. It was to avenge this outrage that the Sultan of Wadai put Vogel to death, vowing at the same time to slay all Christian travellers falling into his hands. The religious order of the Senusiya virtually rules througtiout the oases, but the official representative of authority is a mudir who resides in the Jalo oasis, and who ii'sues his mandates in the name of the Governor of Benghazi. His power is limited to the levying of taxes, the various Wajili, Mojabra, and Zwiya tribes, to the number of twenty, enjoying local independence in all communal matters. When Pacho visited the Jalo oasis, the authority was in the hands of an old French drummer, who had escai)ed from the Egyptian expedition, and who after a scHl^s of remarkable adventures at last found himself at the head of a petty state surrounded by the wilderness, and forgotten by his fellow-countrNracn.