Circus, Minories, June 21. 1815.
Sir,
I request you will contradict in your next publication the
assertion of my _decease_, which is calculated to injure
considerably my interests abroad as a merchant. (Vide your Review
of Parke's Travels, page 377.) In answer to this unfounded
information, which has been propagated in your review of last
month, I have to acquaint you that I am not only in the land of the
living, but in excellent health, and waiting to hear the testimony
434 of some stranger or European traveller (since the Africans are not
to be relied on), who shall establish the fact of _the junction of
the Nile of Sudan with that of Egypt; or at least, the
approximation of these two mighty streams_. And notwithstanding
_the_ insidious reflections and censures passed on the native
Africans, from whom I gathered much of the information communicated
to the public in my account of Marocco, it must be allowed by all
liberal-minded men, that a native is more likely to give an
accurate account of his country than a foreigner; and a residence
of sixteen years in a country may be allowed to give a man of
common observation experience enough to select judiciously such
intelligence as might be relied on; and I have no hesitation in
declaring it to be my unalterable opinion, that _so soon as a
traveller shall have returned from the interior of Africa, many of
my assertions respecting those regions will be confirmed_, and that
information founded on the testimony of unprejudiced and
disinterested Africans, will be found not so contemptible as some
learned persons have imagined.
JAMES G. JACKSON.
435
_Critical Observations on Abstracts from the Travels of Ali Bey,
and Robert Adams, in the Quarterly Journal of Literature, Science,
and the Arts, edited at the Royal Institution of Great Britain,
Vol. I. No. II. page 264_.
London, Dec. 19. 1817.
In the discussion on Aly Bey's Travels, in the Journal of Science
and the Arts, above mentioned, p. 270. are the following words:--
"Aly Bey has added, in a separate chapter, all the information he
received, respecting a mediterranean sea, from a merchant of
Marocco, of the name of Sidi Matte Buhlal, who had resided many
years at Timbuctoo, and in other countries of Sudan or Nigritia,
the most material of which was, that Tombut is a large town, very
trading, and inhabited by Moors and Negroes, and was at the same
distance from the Nile Abid, (or Nile of the Negroes, or Niger,) as
Fez is from Wed Sebu, that is to say, _about three hundred English
miles_."
As this passage is quoted from Aly Bey, by the first literary
society of Great Britain, and is, therefore, calculated to create a
doubt of the accuracy of what I have said, respecting the distance
of the Nile El Abeed from Timbuctoo, in the enlarged editions of my
account of Marocco, &c. page 297. I consider it a duty which I owe
436 to my country and to myself, not to let this sentence pass through
the press without submitting to the public my observations on the
subject.
Sidi Matte Buhlal is a native of Fas: the name is properly Sidi El
Mattie Bû Hellal. This gentleman is one out of twenty authorities
from whom I derived the information recorded in my account of
Marocco, respecting Timbuctoo and the interior of Africa; his whole
family, which is respectable and numerous, are among the first
Timbuctoo merchants that have their establishments at Fas. I
should, however, add, that among the many authorities from whom I
derived my information relative to Timbuctoo, there were two
muselmen in particular,--merchants of respectability and
intelligence, who came from Timbuctoo to Santa Cruz, soon after _I
opened that port to Dutch commerce, in the capacity of agent of
Holland, by order of the then Emperor of Marocco, Muley Yezzid_,
brother and predecessor of the present Emperor Soliman. These two
gentlemen had resided at Timbuctoo, and in other parts of Sudan,
fifteen years, trading during the whole of that period with
Darbeyta, on the coast of the Red Sea, with Jinnie, Housa, Wangara,
Cashna, and other countries of the interior, from whom, and from
others, equally intelligent and credible, I procured my information
respecting the _mediterranean sea in the interior of Africa, called
El Bahar Assudan, i.e. the Sea of Sudan_, situated fifteen days'
437 journey east of Timbuctoo. These two muselmen merchants had amassed
considerable fortunes at Timbuctoo, and were on their journey to
Fas, their native place; but in consequence of a civil war at that
time raging throughout West Barbary, particularly in the province
of Haha, through which it was indispensable that they should pass,
on their way to Fas, they sojourned with me two months; after which
they departed for Fas with a caravan.
These intelligent Moors gave me much information respecting
Timbuctoo, and the interior countries where they had resided; they
sold me many articles of Sudanic manufacture, among which were
three pieces of fine cotton cloth, manufactured at Timbuctoo, and
some ornaments of pure gold _in or molu_, of exquisite workmanship,
of the manufacture of Jinnie; one of these pieces of Timbuctoo
manufacture, of cotton interwoven with silk, of a square
blue-and-white pattern, dyed with _indigo of Timbuctoo_, I had the
honour to present to the British Museum, in April, 1796[239], where
it is now deposited.
[Footnote 239: This piece of cloth, about two yards wide and
five long, I had the honour of offering to Sir Joseph Banks,
who declined receiving it; but at the same time suggested that
it was a manufacture deserving public notice, and would be
considered an acceptable present by the British Museum.]
I have been led into this digression from certain insinuations that
have been[240] insidiously propagated, reflecting on the accuracy
438 of my statements respecting the interior of Africa; and I must add,
that I always have felt, and still feel confident, that in
proportion as we shall become more acquainted with the interior of
this unexplored continent, my account will be so much the more
authenticated: my confidence in this opinion, (however dogmatical
it may appear,) is founded on the original and intelligent sources
of my information; on a long residence and general acquaintance
with all the principal inhabitants of West Barbary, whose
connections lay in Sudan, and at Timbuctoo; in a competent
knowledge and practical acquaintance with the languages of North
Africa, and a consequent ability to discriminate the accuracy of
the sources of my intelligence.
[Footnote 240: See my letter to the editor of the Monthly
Magazine, for March, 1817; page 125.]
This being premised, I now proceed to offer to the public my
animadversions on the above quotation from the Journal of Science
and the Arts.
I have actually crossed the Wed Sebu, or the River Sebu, alluded to
in the above quotation, which passes through the Berebber Kabyl of
Zimure Shelleh; I have crossed the same river several times at the
city of Mequinez, and also at Meheduma, where it enters the
Atlantic Ocean, in lat. 34° 15' north, and from this experimental
knowledge of the course of that river, I can affirm, with
confidence, that it is not inaccurately laid down in my map of West
Barbary[241], and that it is not three hundred English miles from
439 Fas, but only six English miles from that city. I can also assert,
from incontestable testimony, that Tombut, or Timbuctoo, is[242]
not three hundred miles from the Nile El Abeed, but only about
twelve English miles from that stream, the latter being south of
the town.
[Footnote 241: For which see page 55.]
[Footnote 242: Vide Jackson's enlarged Account of Marocco, &c.
p. 297.]
Respecting the following passage in the above quoted Journal of
Science and the Arts, p. 272, "This river contains the fierce
animals called _Tzemsah_, which devour men," I shall only observe,
that _Tzemsah_ is the word in Arabic which denominates the
_crocodile_. Farther on, in the same page, we have the words,--"We
must suppose that the Joliba makes at this spot a strange winding,
which gives to the inhabitants of Marocco the opinion they
express." This supposed winding is actually asserted to exist, and
is denominated by the Arabs[243] _El Kose Nile_, i.e. the arch or
curve of the Nile, and is situated between the cities of Timbuctoo
and Jinnie.
[Footnote 243: Idem, note, p. 305.]
I should here adduce some further testimony respecting the course
of the Nile El Abeed; but as the quotation from Aly Bey in the
above Journal of Sciences and the Arts, page 271. asserts it to be
towards the east, and again, in page 272. declares it to be towards
the west, such incoherence, I presume, requires no confutation. I
consider that it originates from Moorish inaccuracy.
440
The _La Mar Zarak_ of Adams, if any such river exists, may be a
corruption of _Sagea el Humra_, i.e. the Red Stream, a river in the
southern confines of Sahara, nearly in the same longitude with
Timbuctoo. This river the late Emperor of Marocco, Muley Yezzid,
announced as the southern boundary of his dominions; but from the
accounts which I have had of it, it was not of that magnitude which
Adams ascribes to the Mar Zarak, nor was it precisely in the
neighbourhood of Timbuctoo, when I was a resident in South Barbary:
rivers, however, _which pass through sandy or desert districts_,
often change their courses in the space of twenty-four hours, by
the drifting of the moving sands impelled by the wind; instances of
which I have myself often witnessed.
If this river proceeded from the Desert, it might have had the name
of _El Bahar Sahara_, i.e. the River of Sahara; the word _La Mar_
is a lingua franca, or corrupt Spanish word, signifying the sea,
and might have been used to this poor sailor by a native to make it
the more intelligible to him. Many Spanish words having crept into
the Arabic vocabulary, and are occasionally used by those Africans
who have had intercourse with Europeans.