Race for Timbuktu: In Search of Africa's City of Gold

by Frank T. Kryza

  As soon as Bongola was free to wander about Tripoli, Hassuna D’Ghies got hold of him through a servant and offered to house and clothe him. Warrington, when he learned of this, was upset. He summoned Bongola back to the British consulate, but he was “fobbed off by Hassuna’s servants with evasive replies,” according to Rossoni, his vice-consul. When Warrington insisted on seeing Bongola again to continue interviewing him, the bashaw forced Hassuna to give him up, but it was obvious the freed slave “feared for his life.”

  Moreover, he now told an utterly different story—so different that Warrington concluded Bongola had been threatened, perhaps terrorized, by Hassuna. Bongola now claimed that he had not personally witnessed Laing’s death and had no idea what had become of his papers. Warrington hastily arranged Bongola’s passage on a British warship bound for Malta, accompanied by one of his trusted servants, charged with keeping an eye on him.

  Safe in British-controlled Malta, Bongola recanted his second statement, claiming that Hassuna had taken personal possession of Laing’s papers, and told him that if he, Bongola, breathed one word of this, Hassuna would burn him alive (not an idle threat in a country where this was not an uncommon fate for unruly slaves). Bongola could not explain how the documents had made their way back to Tripoli, but there was now little doubt in Warrington’s mind that Laing’s papers had reached the coast in July or August 1827, a year earlier, and were delivered to Baron Rousseau.

  Other evidence seemed to confirm this. Abram Curriel, who had been Rousseau’s servant for eight months, claimed that toward the end of September 1827 Rousseau had had a conversation with Hassuna D’Ghies in the gallery of the French consulate. (This edifice in Tripoli, like the British consulate, had a large central atrium three stories high, with interior galleries on the upper floors giving access to it, allowing for circulation of air in that era before motorized fans. Unlike Warrington, Rousseau often used his consulate as his residence, though he, too, had a country house in the menshia.) According to Curriel, Rousseau said, “Do not be afraid of anything when I give you my word.” But Hassuna seemed not much reassured by this pledge, and after some whispered arguing, Hassuna left the consulate.

  That night Rousseau went to Hassuna’s house, accompanied by Curriel and a French guard. Hassuna was in bed, but was roused by his staff. Curriel heard Rousseau say to Hassuna: “On my word and honor, no one shall hear anything of it.” But Hassuna still was not comfortable. The next day, Curriel heard Rousseau give orders to his son, Timoléon (who sometimes served as his secretary), to draft an official demarche to the bashaw about Hassuna’s personal debts to him. At that moment a letter came from Hassuna. Rousseau opened it, and immediately countermanded his order to Timoléon.

  That evening Baron Rousseau again visited Hassuna. This time their conversation was friendly, and the next morning Hassuna again called at the French consulate. He rushed upstairs and went into the open gallery. From another floor, across the atrium, Curriel saw Hassuna and Rousseau sitting together on a sofa. He claimed to have observed Hassuna take three packages of papers from his robes, each about fourteen inches long and six inches thick.

  “I hope no one will find out about these,” Hassuna said. Rousseau swore no one would. He also pledged to Hassuna that the financial claims against him would be “arranged.” As soon as Hassuna left, Rousseau called all his servants together and ordered that if anyone called at the consulate, they were to say he was indisposed. For the next two days Rousseau shut himself up in his office, presumably studying documents.

  Though Curriel’s tale seems almost too pat, when Warrington heard it, Rousseau’s guilt seemed beyond doubt to him.

  By late October 1828, two years after Laing penned his last known letter, Warrington was committing his own poisonous thoughts to paper. In an official consular dispatch to Robert W. Hay, Bathurst’s permanent undersecretary of state at the Colonial Office, he wrote:

  You are aware of the Miserable Intrigue carried on here, and I have cause to suspect the French Consul may have purloined the papers of Major Laing.… If His Majesty attaches any importance to the papers, and is pleased to demand their production, we shall obtain them, I am fully certain. We know Mr. Rousseau to be a man replete in intrigue and what could be easier than with the connivance of the Minister [Hassuna D’Ghies] to intercept the papers….

  The oblique reference to King George was a clever way of raising the stakes of the contretemps with the bashaw and Rousseau. Warrington hoped to get a reply that would make the matter an issue of personal interest to his sovereign, thus increasing the pressure he could put on Yusuf Karamanli, who was very likely still bewildered by the importance Warrington attached to Laing’s papers. By now through rumor, counter-rumor, accusation, and denial, the entire consular corps in Tripoli was drawn into the fracas. Warrington was supported by the Dutch consul, de Breughel, the Spanish consul, Joseph Gómez Herrador, and the whole British community. Rousseau and Hassuna D’Ghies, on the other hand, had a supporter in Charles D. Coxe, the recently arrived American consul, who, with the memory of the British capture and burning of the White House still fresh in his mind, loathed all things British.

  Even if he was beginning to understand the international importance attaching to Laing and his papers, the bashaw was slow to help Warrington. He liked playing the British against the French, the only way, he thought, to keep either from making inroads in his own little corner of Africa.

  Another painful year went by. Though Timoléon was still her constant companion in Tripoli, on April 14, 1829, Emma acceded obediently to her father’s wishes and married his vice-consul in Benghazi, Thomas Wood, bowing to the parental authority that surely tormented her as much as her bereavement did.

  In May 1829, Warrington reported to the Colonial Office that Hassuna D’Ghies was expecting not only a copy of the History of Tomboucto but also the arrival from Tuat of its author, one Sidi Ali Baba D’Arowan. Could this book, Warrington mused, be one that Laing had obtained in Timbuktu? He reminded Hay that Laing had written: “I have been busily employed during my stay, searching the records in the town, which are abundant, & in acquiring information of every kind, nor is it with any common degree of satisfaction that I say, my perseverance has been amply rewarded.”

  From this simple statement, Warrington took a leap: “We are surely justified,” he concluded in his letter to Hay, “in believing that Laing was in possession of the History of Tomboucto.” Though not borne out by evidence or facts, it was but a quick step from this assertion to the inference that whoever possessed the History of Tomboucto also possessed Laing’s journals. Moreover, circumstances pointed to the book having been in Rousseau’s possession as far back as the previous July (while Laing’s death was still debated in French and British newspapers). At the time, the baron had written to the Bulletin de la Société Géographique that he had obtained an Arabic volume on the history of Timbuktu. This suggested to Warrington that Rousseau had known far more than he had let on, and that he was now laying the groundwork for purloining Laing’s work for dishonorable French ends.

  Warrington was unwavering in his belief that foul play was involved, that Laing’s journals had reached Tripoli, and that it was only a matter of pressuring Yusuf Bashaw to produce them. He decided, in June 1829, to do something more drastic than he had ever done before. “Driven beyond endurance,” according to his vice-consul, Rossoni, Warrington struck his consular flag. He refused to communicate further with the Castle, effectively breaking diplomatic relations between England and Tripolitania.* He made arrangements for the Dutch consul to carry on all official business for the British with the bashaw. Warrington himself left town, retiring to his country villa in the menshia.

  This development truly dismayed Yusuf Bashaw Karamanli. From his agents in Cairo, he had learned that the French were planning to invade Algeria (which they did, in 1830), and were proposing to the ruler of Egypt, Muhammad Ali Pasha, that he occupy the bashaw’s throne. Loss of Great Britain’s support at thi
s critical time might be fatal to his dynasty. He sent Warrington a note declaring that he would rather “sacrifice his son … than go to war with England.”

  Meanwhile, Baron Rousseau was growing tired of what he construed to be British slander. On June 17, he wrote a furious letter to Warrington saying that he had learned “by the public voice” that Warrington had named him “more than once in the affair” of Laing’s papers, and that Warrington had alleged a conspiracy between himself and foreign minister Hassuna D’Ghies. He demanded an explanation, and he ended: “Have the goodness to answer me in Italian; for I repeat what I have so often told you: I have no one about me who knows enough English to translate to me your letters; whilst amongst those employed in the British consulate several are to be found [he probably meant Rossoni] who talk and write fluently the first of those languages and even the French.”

  Warrington replied the same day that he did not feel called upon, in his official capacity, to “give the slightest information or to accede to the Baron’s request,” as probably that might defeat his goal, namely, the recovery of the journal and manuscripts belonging to the missing English explorer. “Permit me to say,” he concluded caustically, “that I shall still assume the privilege of writing in my native language.”

  The situation was now ripe for the sort of conspiracy that came so naturally to Tripoli’s steamy climate. Warrington regularly met in secret at the English Garden with messengers carrying news to and from Tripoli, some inspired by the Castle and repeated in the bazaars; it was one of many ways he kept his finger on the pulse of the country. It seemed to him that the bashaw, at last, had discovered the truth about Laing’s murder and would be forced to reveal it. By now, Warrington had concluded that both Laing’s death and the theft of his journal had been plotted in Tripoli, with the dire possibility that the bashaw himself had served as an accessory to Rousseau and Hassuna D’Ghies.

  Supporting this hypothesis, on July 27 a sheikh “came to the English Garden and told Warrington that ‘the Pacha [the bashaw] had given orders to the Head of a Tribe of Arabs to murder Major Laing on his road from Tripoli to Ghedamis’—that ‘Alkhedir brought the papers down to Tripoli, and gave them to H. D’Ghies’—that ‘they would not let Alkhedir deliver them to the Consul’—and that ‘he learned all this from a Relation of Alkhedir who slept in his tents when the papers were brought down.’” Warrington faithfully recorded these tales, and forwarded them to London.

  On August 5, 1829, nearly three years after Laing’s death, Dr. John Dickson,* surgeon, Royal Navy, who was medical adviser to the bashaw, paid the ruler his customary annual visit to examine him. According to a report filed by Warrington, “after desiring Dr. Dickson to be seated, His Highness said: ‘What I am going to say to you, you must consider as confidential and not to be repeated elsewhere.’ Dr. Dickson agreed and His Highness continued: ‘In two or three days the people of Ghadames, who are expected, will be down. If they declare that the papers of Major Laing were given to Sidi Hassuna and the French Consul, will the English Consul or Government have anything further to demand of me?’ “

  Dr. Dickson replied that he believed that if the papers were found and accounted for satisfactorily, that would make an end of “the differences existing between His Highness and the British Government, and he had no doubt that the flag would be immediately hoisted.” But he added, in an interesting twist, “I cannot credit that the French Consul has done what Your Highness imputes to him with regard to the papers.”

  “By Allah, he has done it!” rejoined the bashaw. “And you will see it as I now tell you when these people come from Ghadames.”

  Dickson, perhaps just as the bashaw intended, immediately carried this news to Warrington.

  This was indeed a sensational development. If true, it meant that the bashaw had turned against Rousseau and Hassuna D’Ghies, and that the way was now open for a rapprochement between the British consul and the Karamanlis, the possible recovery of Laing’s papers, and the public humiliation of the French—a jolly prospect indeed. Warrington’s hatred of Rousseau was far too rancorous for him to fail to embrace Dickson’s story. He did not consider what, with hindsight, seems far more likely: that the bashaw was just up to his old trick, playing France against England while he stood aside, so that attention shifted from him. He had a favorite saying at the Castle: “When elephants choose to dance, it is the wise man who gets out of the way.”

  The bashaw hinted to Dr. Dickson that Hassuna might well seek asylum in the French or American consulate. In this, he was right. Hassuna persuaded Coxe to apply for a license to grant him the protection of the United States government. On the night of August 8, Hassuna was smuggled on board an American corvette dressed as an American sailor. The vessel sailed the next morning. When he learned of this, Warrington dashed off a note to Robert Hay: “I am apprehensive Mr. Rousseau will fly to America also, as soon as he hears his Infamous Villainy is detected.”

  The bashaw was silent when Warrington asked why he had not arrested Hassuna before he could escape. The plain implication, in Warrington’s mind, was “that His Highness was too deeply involved.” Yet Yusuf Bashaw was prepared to throw a bone England’s way: Hassuna’s brother, Mohammed D’Ghies, was soon arrested. After a stretch in the Castle’s dungeons, Mohammed made a confession declaring that Laing’s papers were brought to Tripoli and given to Hassuna, who then sold them to Rousseau.

  To Warrington, this seemed conclusive proof of the collusion of Rousseau and Hassuna D’Ghies in the theft of the journals. The bashaw, sick of the whole affair and skittish about British hostility and the possibility of English warships in his harbor, decided to settle it the only way a Karamanli understood. With a well-armed vessel of His Britannic Majesty’s Royal Navy anchored not a thousand yards from his throne room, he threw Hassuna and Mohammed D’Ghies to the wolves.

  The bashaw sent for Warrington, the Dutch consul, de Breughel, and Warrington’s vice-consul, Giacomo Rossoni. Summoning Mohammed D’Ghies, the elder brother of Hassuna and himself a former cabinet minister, Yusuf Bashaw drew his scimitar and in a melodramatic scene threatened the old man with decapitation on the spot if he did not confess to Hassuna’s guilt. Thus threatened, Mohammed, who was aware that his brother was safe with the Americans, confessed to the crime. The bashaw could now sheathe his sword and wash his hands of the whole matter. Which he did.

  The consuls drew up a document stating: “We, the Undersigned, declare that when, in the presence of His Highness, this 12th day of August 1829, His Highness said: ‘Now I think that Hassuna D’Ghies and the French consul were the cause of the murder of Major Laing.’ “

  The next week, the bashaw made the document public. He recited Mohammed’s confession and stated as fact that in exchange for Laing’s papers the French consul had allowed 40 percent to be deducted from a large financial claim he had on Hassuna.

  Vindicated, Warrington rehoisted the Union Jack and sent the warship back to Malta. Though there was little reason to accept Mohammed’s confession as the truth, Warrington declared himself satisfied. The bashaw hailed Great Britain from the Castle with a thirty-three-gun salute. Normal diplomatic relations between Tripolitania and Great Britain resumed.

  With Mohammed’s confession in hand, Warrington took the logical next step, addressing a formal demand to the French consul in September for the restitution of Laing’s journals. The Dutch consul, together with the Danish and Swedish and Sardinian consuls, paid a visit to Rousseau with Warrington’s letter. Baron Rousseau replied that he was amazed that Warrington could accuse him of “receiving” Laing’s papers. He denied having them, adding that he intended to prosecute Warrington before a French court for slandering him.

  The consuls returned to the French consulate to confront Mohammed, who felt safer with Rousseau than in his own palatial villa, with his confession, which was written in Arabic. Mohammed now alleged that neither the writing nor the signature was his. With the consuls still present, he called for pen and paper a
nd wrote a letter to the bashaw’s son, Ali Bey, which he asserted would exonerate him, but which he refused to show to the assembled diplomats.

  The next day, the consuls called on the bashaw en banc and announced to him that Mohammed now maintained his confession to be a forgery. The bashaw, experienced practioner of political magic, speedily produced a letter that his son Ali Bey had momentarily received from Mohammed D’Ghies. In it, Mohammed claimed that when Baron Rousseau gave him sanctuary, he had made him promise to deny his confession as the price for his safety. Mohammed had been afraid, apparently, to make this assertion while in the French consul’s house, and so resorted to the contrivance of a letter to the Castle to reveal “the truth.”

  Another day passed, and the already convoluted story took another bizarre twist. The consuls, now enlarged by the representatives of Spain, The Two Sicilies, Tuscany, and Portugal, paid a third visit to the bashaw, who laid before them yet another document signed by Mohammed D’Ghies, which read: “I hereby attest that the papers brought down by the people of Ghadames to my brother were those of the Major [Laing] and that he (my brother) told me he gave them to the French Consul.” The bashaw then ordered the flag of the French consulate hauled down by his palace guard, thus breaking diplomatic relations with France.

  Baron Rousseau, lurking behind the walls of his consulate, soon had a copy of the bashaw’s declaration concerning Laing’s murder. He was now entangled in a web of misunderstanding and intrigue from which it would be well-nigh impossible to extricate himself. Hassuna D’Ghies, his alleged coconspirator, was long gone, having fled the country (to Paris) with all the appearance of guilt. Though Rousseau was still the accredited French consular representative in Tripoli and entitled to all the courtesies and protection of his office, he had lived too long among Oriental potentates to feel secure. Reports of a French plan for the conquest of Algiers left Rousseau intensely anxious. The bashaw in his present mood might do anything to please the British. Consular immunity might provide little protection.