FRENCH INQUIRIES AND D’ANVILLE’S MAPS
Towards the close of the seventeenth century Louis XIV. of France
had begun to make the influence of his country widely felt in the
Mediterranean, though before his time Richelieu had cast an eye over
the Levant with the idea of supporting French commerce. Louis XIV.
even entered into an alliance with Turkey, in which he cut rather a
foolish figure, but which at any rate enabled him to send Frenchmen to
report on the trade of Egypt. It is stated that the result of these
inquiries was a scheme for the conquering and colonising of Egypt
which was laid before that monarch and remained in the archives of the
French government until it caught the attention of Napoleon Bonaparte
when he rose to power. Louis XIV. either did not notice the project
or put it aside; but nevertheless, during half of the seventeenth
and the whole of the eighteenth century Frenchmen were beginning to
interest themselves in the exploration of Egypt, Abyssinia, and the
Nile. When the Portuguese missionaries were irrevocably expelled from
Abyssinia, or were slaughtered in that country by Abyssinians, or died
under the hands of the Turks of Masawa or Suakin, it was suggested to
the Pope that perhaps French missionaries might prove more acceptable
to Ethiopia. Not a few Roman Catholic Abyssinians found their way
to Rome during the seventeenth century, where, as we know, they
imparted very valuable information to the learned Saxon philologist
Ludolf. These Ethiopians seem to have conveyed the idea to the Papal
Court that it was not so much Roman Christianity that was objected
to as the political ambitions of the Portuguese. But later on in the
seventeenth century _any_ missionaries teaching the Latin rite had
become unacceptable to the Abyssinians, and the project of sending
French Capuchins to take the place of the Portuguese Jesuits came to
nothing. But the Emperor of Abyssinia had one reason for regretting
the expulsion of the Jesuits,--an expulsion to which he personally
was less favourable than were his powerful vassal chiefs of Tigre and
Amhara,--he had relied on the Portuguese Jesuits for medical treatment.
At the close of the seventeenth century an agent of the then ruler of
Abyssinia was suffering from stone, and stood in urgent need of a good
surgeon. His agent in Egypt (Haji Ali) was instructed to inquire for
the services of a European who could operate, and at first endeavoured
to find one amongst the Franciscan missionaries, who were Italians.
But the Consul of France at Alexandria, hearing of this, resolved to
obtain the post for a French physician, and eventually Jacques Charles
Poncet, a surgeon from the Franche Comté, was engaged, and it was
decided that he should journey to Abyssinia accompanied by Father
Brèvedent, a French Jesuit. They reached the country of Sennar in
1699. Soon afterwards Father Brèvedent died, but Poncet succeeded in
reaching Abyssinia, and afforded medical assistance to the Emperor.
But his arrival in the country, together with the rumour that he was
being followed by French Jesuit priests (who as a matter of fact were
massacred in Egypt), so aroused the animosities of the Abyssinian
clerics that he was hurried out of the country, and returned to Europe
(Rome) in 1700. Notwithstanding his experiences, he mixed himself up
with the intrigues of an Abyssinian agent and a priest at Rome for the
despatch of French missionaries to Abyssinia. The Pope was prudent in
the matter, and determined to find out the truth by a Maronite priest,
Gabriel, whom he despatched from Cairo. Poncet, however, returned to
Egypt in 1703, was joined by a Jesuit, and set out for Jidda in Arabia,
but the mission came to grief. He quarrelled with the Abyssinian envoy,
Murat, whose pretensions to represent the Abyssinian government were
probably mythical, but who had accompanied Poncet to Italy. Poncet
never succeeded in returning to Abyssinia, but instead drifted away to
Persia and died at Ispahan.
Louis XIV. now took the matter up, urged to interference in the
affairs of Abyssinia by the French Consul at Alexandria. He decided
to despatch a mission to Ethiopia to open up diplomatic relations
with the Christian Emperor. Janus de Noir, le Sieur du Roule, was
appointed envoy and placed at the head of this mission. The consent
of the Turkish government was given to the passage through Egypt.
The expedition left France at the end of 1703, and after a stormy
voyage of four months (!) landed at Alexandria. Thence it pursued its
way to Cairo, and so on up the Nile and the Blue Nile to the country
of Sennar, a region at that time to a great extent under Abyssinian
political influence. Here the cupidity and suspicion of the local
chieftain were aroused. The mission was attacked, and M. du Roule was
massacred. The Emperor of Abyssinia expressed perfunctory regrets, and
then, to use a modern phrase, “the incident was closed,” Abyssinia
being in such an unattackable position as to make any French reprisals
impossible.
Here perhaps may be mentioned a curious attempt at Nile exploration
which in an indirect way was connected with French enterprise at this
period. The failure of M. du Roule to reach Abyssinia made a great
impression on the mind of a Frenchman named Joseph le Roux, Count of
Desneval. This nobleman had been in the Danish navy for many years,
leaving that service in 1739 with the rank of Rear Admiral. All this
time he had been giving his attention with laborious stupidity to
the Nile problem, and was convinced that he “had found the proper
key to enter these regions,” by studying in Denmark the reports of
unsuccessful travellers. Accordingly, in 1739, he started with his wife
for Cairo, accompanied by Lieutenant Norden, a Dane. None of the party
knew a word of Arabic. The expedition first got into trouble at Cairo
through the haughty manners of the Countess, who, becoming involved
in a street row, slashed at the people right and left with a pair of
scissors. Count Desneval penetrated some distance into Nubia, and his
lieutenant, Norden, went as far (possibly) as Berber, which he mentions
under its older name of Ibrim. But the Count was obliged to turn back,
and Norden was imprisoned by the Turkish Governor, and barely escaped
to Egypt with his life. The Count then resolved on an extraordinary
expedition. He decided to obtain a commission from Spain and start with
a fleet of ships to circumnavigate Africa, enter the Red Sea, and so
proceed to Abyssinia. But becoming involved in the war which was then
raging between Spain and England, his ship was captured by the British,
and he was sent as a prisoner of war to Lisbon, where his projects of
Nile exploration came to an end.
The Dutch in the seventeenth century, and some of the Rhenish
geographers of western Germany, had published remarkable maps of
Africa, but with the exception of the west and south, these maps, in
so far as the Nile basin was concerned, were based on the information
presented to the world by the Portuguese Jesuits Alvarez, Paez, and
Lobo, and on the interesting information concerning the geography of
Abyssinia collected by the Saxon philologist Ludolf when communing in
Italy with the Abyssinian envoys. These maps, as already related, did
injustice to the Portuguese by enormously exaggerating the area of
Abyssinia. In fact, Abyssinian geography was extended by these Dutch
interpreters of Portuguese travel notes far into the south and west of
Africa, so that Abyssinian place names such as Gojam, Kaffa, Enarea,
and the lakes and rivers of Abyssinia were pushed down to the vicinity
of the Zambezi, and right across the Congo basin. These maps, however,
continued to maintain European interest in African exploration, while
the French consuls in Egypt and early British travellers in that
country began to transmit information (derived for the most part from
Copts and Circassians) regarding the main course of the Nile.
In 1772 a French cartographer of a much higher order than had hitherto
appeared--D’Anville--published a notable map of Africa, in which
he cleared away much of the fantastic geography which the Dutch
and Germans had developed from the explorations of the Portuguese.
D’Anville’s map of Africa marks an important stage in the exploration
of the Nile basin, as it approaches the maps of to-day much more
than any previous chart. The outline of the African coast is given
more correctly than heretofore, while D’Anville brushes away the
exaggerations of Dutch and Portuguese cartographers, who had gradually
extended the geography of Abyssinia till they had connected with the
Nile all the main rivers of Africa in an absurd system of natural
canalisation.
[Illustration: D’ANVILLE’S MAP OF THE NILE BASIN.
(Published 1729; Revised 1772.)]
Jean Baptiste Bourguignon d’Anville was born at Paris in 1697. From
his boyhood he devoted himself to the study of geography, and met with
considerable encouragement from the learned societies of Paris and from
the Court. D’Anville’s geography of Abyssinia was mainly based on the
information collected by the Portuguese missionaries and by Ludolf.
The result is so strikingly like the map subsequently constructed by
Bruce as the result of his explorations, that it shows how very much
information had already been collected by the Portuguese. The last
edition of this map bears the date 1772, a date which is one year
before Bruce could make the result of his explorations known. Were
these dates not certain, it would almost have seemed as if D’Anville
had obtained access to Bruce’s information and used it in his geography
of Abyssinia. A great mistake in D’Anville’s map, however, is made in
the delineation of the course of the Nile in its great Dongola bend.
Here the Nile is made to approach the Red Sea at least a hundred miles
nearer than is the case. There is a fairly correct suggestion of the
Bahr-al-Ghazal (which is named) and the Bahr-al-Arab. The White Nile
above the confluence of the Bahr-al-Ghazal is indicated more timidly.
Its course passes through a somewhat vague lake, which may be due to a
rumour of Lake Albert. Beyond this lake the sources of the White Nile
are divided, and made to flow from two lakelets ten degrees north of
the equator. To the south of these ultimate sources is the range of the
Mountains of the Moon.
On D’Anville’s map may be seen for the first time several modern place
and river names connected with the Nile, such as Shendi (spelled
Shanedi) and Bahr-al-Ghazal. Such other terms as Sennar, the Boran
Gala tribe, and the Shankala Negroes are also given; but these were
first mentioned by the Portuguese and by the Abyssinian teachers of
Ludolf one hundred years earlier. There is also a hint at the Unyamwezi
country south of the Victoria Nyanza under the name of Moenemuji,
though this also was first mentioned by the Portuguese.
D’Anville, who followed to some extent the Sicilian maps of the
eleventh century in his delineation of the Nile and inner Africa, made
the opposite mistake to Ptolemy and the Portuguese. They carried the
main Nile and the geography of Abyssinia many degrees too far to the
south. D’Anville placed the sources of the Nile and the Bahr-al-Ghazal
something like ten degrees too far to the north. At the same time his
map marked a considerable advance in the correct delineation of Nile
geography as well as in that of the Niger and the Zambezi.