Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 9.djvu/140

 130 F I A F I A routes between these countries passing through it and centring at Murzuk. In later times the slave trade seems rather to have increased than diminished : the slaves are partly sent on to be sold in Tripoli and Tunis, partly by Aujila towards Egypt. The whole number that pass northward by the main caravan route from Kuka in Bornu is estimated at 10,000 annually. Toivns. Murzuk, the present capital, lies in the western corner of the Hofra depression, in lat. 25 55 N. and long. 14 10 E. It was founded about 1310. One of the earliest buildings was the kasbah in the west of the town. The Turks have restored it as well as the wall of the town, which forms almost a perfect square. The town is cut in two by a wide street, the dendal, with shops on each side, which open at each end to the chief gates. The popula tion within its walls is estimated by Kohlfs at 3000, excluding the garrison of 500 men ; with its extra-mural huts it may have 8000 inhabitants. In its main streets a busy market is held in which provisions, meat, bread, and vegetables are bought; but it is insignificant in com parison with some of the other markets of the Sahara, such as that of Abuam in Tafilet. There are two Turkish coffee-houses which are busily frequented. Sokna, about midway between Tripoli and Murzuk, situated on a great gravel plain north of the Soda range, seems to stand next to Murzuk in point of importance. Its population was estimated by Vogel at 2500. The other noteworthy centres of population are Zuila and Temissa, on the route towards Egypt, E.N.E. of Murzuk ; Germa, or Djerma, a walled place in the Wadi Sherki, 70 miles N.W. of Murzuk, near which was the ancient capital of Garama, which gave its name to the nation of the Garamantes ; Gatron (1000 inhabitants) and Tejerri on the southern route towards Bornu, the latter being the frontier castle round which a village of low mud huts has grown up ; Sebha in its oasis 90 miles N.N.E. of Murzuk; Fughaa on the plateau S.W. of the Haruj-el-Aswad ; and Zella at the northern base of that range. History. The group of oases in the south of the present country of Fezzan represents the ancient Phazania, which has had for its capitals at successive periods Germa or Djerma under the Garamantes, Garama under the Romans, Trjlghen under the Nesur, Zuila under the conquering Arabs, and Murzuk under the dynasty of Uled Mohammed, under Abd-el-Jelil, and under the Turks. The capital of the Garamantes is found under the name of Djerma-el- Kedima, south of the modern Djerma (N.W. of Murzuk), in a sort of bay formed by the hill edge of Amsak. The capital under the Nesur is represented still by the ruins of the ancient castle of Tr&ghen (40 miles E. of Murzuk). Of the Garama of the Romans there remains now only one well -preserved monument, which is depicted in M. Duveyrier s work (Les Touaregs du Nord, Paris, 1864) situated amid ruins to the south of modern Djerma. Zuila, the Arab capital, remains as the chief place of the depression called the Sherguia, east of the Murzuk, through which the most direct Egyptian route leads. Tradition and his tory are in accord in representing the most ancient in habitants of the oases to have been the Berauna, a namo under which the Arabs group the negroes of Bornu as well as the Tebu. The oldest dynasty of the Berauna was that of the Nesur, originally from the Sudan. Its kings reigned at Traghen, and were long in power before they were conquered and dethroned by an Arab tribe, that of Khorman, who reduced the people of Fezzan to a state of slavery. During this period of bondage, a sherif of Morocco, Sid-el-Monteser-uld-Mohammed by name, on a pilgrimage to Mecca, passed through Fezzan. Yielding to the supplications of the people, on his return from the sacred city, he gathered a force of devotees and set out to liberate the Fezzanians. He defeated and expelled the Khorman Arabs, and, being elected sultan, founded the dynasty of Uled Mohammed. This dynasty, which reigned for about 550 years, advanced the interests of the country, and gradually extended its borders as far as Sokna in the north. The last of these sultans was killed in the vicinity of Traghen in 1811 by El-Mukkeni, one of the lieutenants of Yousef-Pasha, the last sovereign of the independent Karamanli dynasty of Tripoli. El-Mukkeni now made himself sultan of Fezzan, and became notorious by his slaving expeditions into Nigritia, in which he advanced as far as Borgu, the Bahr-el-ghazal, and Bagirmi. In 1831, after the lieutenant of the Karamanli had reigned for 20 years, Abd-el-Jelil, the celebrated chief of the Uled-Sliman Arabs, usurped the sovereign authority, and held it for ten years, during which time he maintained a contest which kept all Fezzan in a ferment. In 1841, Tripoli having meanwhile been erected into a province of the Ottoman empire, Bakir Bey was sent at the head of a column of troops to subjugate Fezzan. A battle took place at El- Bagla, not far from the sea, in which Abd-el-Jelil was slain, and soon after this Fezzan was made a kaimakamlik of the Ottoman empire. From 1811 onward there is no doubt about the facts above enumerated. Previous to 1811, the documents preserved by the marabouts of Traghen show that the dynasty of tiled-Mohammed occupied the throne of Fez zan for many centuries ; but the date of its establishment, 1261, is perhaps questionable. M. Duveyrier adduces a number of proofs to show that the Berauna above men tioned were identical with the Garamantes, so that it becomes almost a matter of certainty that at a very ancient date a negro civilization prevailed over the northern Sahara ; and that this was very far advanced for its time is shown by the remains of remarkable hydraulic works, by tombs of distinct character, and by rock sculptures which record the chief facts of their history. The most notable of the European travellers who have visited Fezzan, and to whose works the student is referred for more detailed information regarding it, are, taking them in the order of date, as follows : Hornemann, 1798; Lyon, 1819 ; Dcnham, Clapperton, and Oudney, 1822; Richardson, 1845; Earth, 1850-55; Vogel, 1854; Duveyrier, 1859-1861; Yon Beurmann, 1S62; Eohlfs, 1865; Xach- tigal, 1870. (K. J.) FIACRE, ST, an anchorite of Irish descent, who was nobly born, but renounced his worldly advantages, and sailed to France to find a solitude where he might devote himself to fasting, prayer, and the practices of charity. On reaching Meaux he addressed himself to St Faro, the bishop of the diocese, who assigned him a dwelling in the forest of Breuil, in the province of Brie. Here Fiacre constructed a cell, and at a little distance from it an asylum for the reception of the strangers and pilgrims whom the fame of his austere life and charitable deeds soon attracted in large numbers. He died about 670, and his day is the 30th of August. He was buried in the oratory constructed by himself ; and on account of the miracles reported to be performed at his shrine, it was soon resorted to by pilgrims from all parts of France. The name fiacre was first given to French hackney-coaches because they were used to convey pilgrims from Paris to the shrine of this saint, and started from an inn which was known by the sign of St Fiacre. A part of the remains of the saint were in 1568 transferred to the cathedral of Meaux, and in 1627 and 1695 the grand-dukes of Florence obtained other portions of them, but some, it is said, were still left in their old place of sepulture. St Fiacre is patron of the province of Brie, and patron saint of gardeners. FIARS PRICES, in the law of Scotland, are the average prices of each of the different sorts of grain grown in each county, as fixed annually by the sheriff, usually after