_I.--From Paris to the Niger_
Felix Dubois has a considerable reputation in France and
on the European Continent generally as an African
explorer. His sphere of travel has been confined to the
Dark Continent north of the Equator. He first published in
1894 "Life on the Black Continent," but his reputation
rests mainly on "Timbuctoo the Mysterious," issued in
1897, of which two English translations have appeared.
Dubois' style is vivacious and picturesque, with a vein of
poetic feeling in some passages. His "Early History of
Northern Africa and Timbuctoo," of the architecture of
which he has made a special study, is lucid; but in
discussing the extension of the British and French spheres
of influence and protectorates during the past century he
betrays a certain measure of Gallic Anglophobia.
Having fallen asleep in a railway carriage on your departure from Paris,
you awake six weeks later on a canoe-barge upon the Niger. The steamer
lands you at the entrance to the Senegal, in a country which has
belonged to France for centuries. The port of Senegal is Dakar, the
finest harbour on the west coast of Africa, and from thence there is a
railway to St. Louis. For eight days you travel up the Senegal river in
a steamer to Kayes, the port and actual capital of the Sudan; and a
narrow-gauge railway carries you from the Senegal to the Niger at
Dioubaba.
This town is situated in the heart of lovely mountain and river scenery.
The Bakoy river here breaks into a rocky waterfall, some hundreds of
yards in length, full of rapids and foaming currents. The horizon is
bordered by mountain-tops, and the river banks are covered by gigantic
trees festooned with garlands of long creepers. The road from Dioubaba
to Bammaku cuts, from east to west, the massive Foota Jallon range that
separates the basin of the Senegal from that of the Niger, and is so
abundantly watered that you fall asleep every night to the sound of some
gurgling cascade.
It was not without a certain amount of emotion that I approached the
great Niger. After days and days of travel a narrow path widens
suddenly, and its rocky sides fall right and left, like the leaves of a
door. A vast horizon lies at my feet, bathed in the splendours of a
tropical sunset; and down there, in a plain of gold and green and red,
shines a silver trail bordered by a line of darkness.
The Niger, with its vast and misty horizons, is more like an inland
ocean than a river. I engaged for my voyage up-stream a boat which was a
whimsical mixture of a European barge and an aboriginal canoe, in which
a thatched hollow served me amidships as bedroom, dining-room, study,
and dressing-room. A small folding bedstead was the only piece of
furniture. The crew consisted of Bosos, the true sailors of the Niger,
of whose skill, patient endurance, and loyalty I had full experience.
Alone among them, travelling through an imperfectly conquered, sometimes
openly hostile country, never once did I feel that my safety was in any
way threatened.
Coming to Lake Debo, a fief of the Niger, we enter a sea of grass.
Paddling being no longer possible, my Bosos crew, leaning heavily upon
bamboo poles, push the boat vigorously through the grass, which, parting
in front, closes together behind us with loud rustling and crackling. We
are no longer upon the water, but seem to be sliding under a tropical
sun over grassy steppes streaked with watery paths. These Bosos, living
at a distance of nearly 900 miles from the coast, possess no idea of the
sea, and the question of what becomes of the mighty Niger beyond the
regions they know troubles them very little. One unusually intelligent
Bosos, when asked what became of the river beyond the towns which he
knew, or had heard of, down the Niger, said, "Beyond them? Oh, beyond
them the fishes swallow it."
_II.--The Valley of the Niger_
The country lying to the south of Timbuctoo, which is on the threshold
of the great Sahara desert, is the Sudan, otherwise called the Valley
and the Buckler of the Niger. It is a vast region traversed to an extent
of nearly 2,500 miles by one of the largest rivers in the world. This
river rises in the Kouranko chain of mountains, and is really formed by
two streams, the Paliko and the Tembi, which unite at a place called
Laya. The more important of these is the Tembi, and the wood from which
it springs is reputed sacred, and is the subject of innumerable legends
and superstitions. Access to it is denied to the profane by the high
priests and lesser priests, who represent the diety to mortals. The
neighbouring kinglets refer to them before undertaking a war, or other
act of importance, and the common herd consult them on all occasions of
weight. The spirit of the spring, being eminently practical, will only
condescend to attend to them through the medium of sacrifice, but the
ceremonies are not very ferocious, merely oxen being offered, and not
human victims, as in the neighbouring Dahomey.
The region of the source of the Niger is the land of heavy rainfall, and
the slopes of the mountain ranges are channelled by innumerable
cascades, rivulets, brooks, and rivers that carry off the heavenly
overflow. These countries of the Upper Niger are radiant. Tropical
vegetation spreads over them with the utmost prodigality. The river
flings itself headlong over the entire low-lying region between
Biafaraba and Timbuctoo, covering it and swamping it, until a steppe of
barren sand becomes one of the most fertile spots in the universe. The
Niger is to the Sudan what the Nile is to Egypt; but we find there not
one delta, as in Egypt, but three. Thus a most complete system of
irrigation is formed, and fertility is spread over thousands of square
miles. The rise and fall of the waters is as regular as that of the
Nile, and an infinitely greater distance is covered.
Bammaku is an important strategic centre, from which it is easy to send
reinforcements to any part of the Sudan that may be momentarily
threatened. This precaution is wise, for we do not really know how far
we are masters of this splendid country, which is many times larger than
France, and contains from ten to fifteen millions of people. There are
only 600 Europeans, including officers and other officials, and 4,000
negroes are enrolled as foot-soldiers, cavalry, and transport bearers,
while it requires an army of 40,000 men to maintain order in Algeria,
about a fourth of the size of the Sudan.
Apart from the fertility of the soil for cereal crops, there are three
kinds of trees which grow abundantly everywhere. The most interesting is
the karita, or butter-tree, from the nuts of which a vegetable butter is
extracted with all the delectable flavour of chocolate. Throughout the
whole of the Sudan no other fatty substance is used. The second tree is
the flour tree. The flour is enclosed in large pods, is of a yellow
colour, rich in sugar, and is used in the manufacture of pastry and
confectionery. The third is the cheese-tree, called _baga_ by the
natives, from the capsules of which a fine and brilliant vegetable silk
is yielded. The principal articles of commerce sent by Bammaku to
Timbuctoo are the products of these trees, gold, and kola-nuts.
In the voyage up the river beyond Bammaku we passed the districts in
which the principal towns are Nyamina, Sansanding, and Segu, in which
are the large cotton-fields, from the produce of which the beautiful
fabrics known as _pagnes de Segu_ are made, which are in great request
in Senegal and the markets of Timbuctoo. Near Segu is an establishment
known as the School of Hostages, instituted by the explorer Faidherbe
for the education of the sons of kings and chiefs of Senegambia, to
enable them to take part in home government, or to enter the civil and
military services of Senegal and Sudan.
_III.--The Jewel of the Niger Valley_
Jenne is the jewel of the valley of the Niger. A vast plain, infinitely
flat. In the midst of this a circle of water, and within it reared a
long mass of high and regular walls, erected on mounds as high, and
nearly as steep, as themselves. When I climbed the banks from my boat
and entered the walls, I was completely bewildered by the novelty and
strangeness of the town's interior. Regular streets; wide, straight
roads; well-built houses of two stories instantly arrested the eye. But
the buildings had nothing in common with Arabic architecture. The style
was not Byzantine, Roman, or Greek; still less was it Gothic or Western.
It was in the ruins of the lifeless towns of ancient Egypt, in the
valley of the Nile, that I had witnessed this art before. Arrived at
Jenne, the traveller finds himself face to face with an entirely new
ethnographical entity--_viz._, the Songhois.
They themselves invariably told me that they came originally from the
Yemen to Egypt on the invitation of a Pharaoh, and settled at Kokia, in
the valley of the Nile, whence they spread westward to the Niger in the
middle of the seventh century. They built Jenne in 765, made it the
market of their country, and founded the Songhois Empire, which, under
three distinct dynasties, lasted for a thousand years.
In the sixteenth century a marvellous civilisation appeared in the very
heart of the Black Continent. The prosperity of the Sudan, and its
wealth and commerce, were known far and wide. Caravans returning to the
coast proclaimed its splendours in their camel-loads of gold, ivory,
hides, musk, and the spoils of the ostrich. So many attractions did not
fail to rouse the cupidity of neighbouring territories, chief among them
being Morocco. El Mansour, sultan of Morocco, invaded the Sudan in 1590,
and in a few years the fall of the Songhois Empire was complete. Two
elements of confusion established themselves, and augmented the general
anarchy--_viz._, the Touaregs and the Foulbes, the former coming from
the great desert of Sahara, and the latter from the west. Both were
pastoral nomads. A petty Foulbe chief, of the country of Noukouna, named
Ahmadou, spread a report that he was of the family of the Prophet, and
for the next eighty years the Sudan was given over to fire and sword by
a succession of rulers who massacred and pillaged in the name of God.
Jenne happily escaped serious ruin, because of its situation on an
island at the junction of two tributaries of the Niger.
The houses of Jenne are built on the simple lines of Egyptian
architecture, with splendid bricks made from clay procured near the
town. The grand mosque was long famous in the valley of the Niger, and
was considered more beautiful than the Kaabah of Mecca itself. It lasted
eighteen centuries, and would have lasted many centuries longer if
Ahmadou, the Foulbe conquerer, had not commanded its destruction in
1830. Jenne in the middle ages not only ranked above Timbuctoo as a
city, but took a place among the great commercial centres of Islam.
Jenne taught the Sudanese the art of commercial navigation, and her
fleets penetrated beyond Timbuctoo and the Kong country. Regular lines
of flyboats even now carry merchandise and passengers at a fixed tariff,
and for a consideration of two and a half francs you can go to
Timbuctoo, a twenty days' journey, and for three francs can send thither
a hundredweight of goods. The characteristics of the people are
sympathy, kindness, and generosity.
Here trades are specialised. Conformably with, and contrary to, Arab
usage, it is the men who weave the textiles, and not the women. The
latter do the spinning and the dyeing. Masonry is man's work--in negro
countries it is the women who build the houses--and in the blacksmith's
and other trades the craft descends from father to son.
_IV.--Timbuctoo, Queen of the Sudan_
The day of my departure from Jenne was occupied in receiving farewell
visits from scores of friends, who first believed me a harmless lunatic
as "the man with the questions," and then received me with affection.
From Jenne to Timbuctoo we journeyed by boat for 311 miles in a
labyrinth of meandering tributaries, creeks, and channels along the
course of the Niger, and reached at last the Pool of Dai, whose waters
appear under the walls of Timbuctoo itself; and then, a few miles
further on, we arrived at Kabara, the landing-place and port of
Timbuctoo.
Two things arrest attention on disembarking--the sand and the Touaregs.
The sand, because you have no sooner set your foot on shore than you
flounder about in it as if it were a mire; and it pursues you
everywhere--in the country, in the streets, and in the houses. The
Touaregs are impressed on you because, though you never see them,
everything recalls them. The town is in ruins, but its wretchedness is
overpowered by life and movement. The quays are astir with lively
bustle, and encumbered with bales, jars, and sacks in the process of
unloading. To travel from Kabara to Timbuctoo, only five miles distant,
there is a daily convoy--medley of people, donkeys and camels, attended
by twenty _tirailleurs_ with rifles on their shoulders.
An immense and vivid sky, and an immense and brilliant stretch of land,
with the grand outlines of a town uniting the two. A dark silhouette,
large and long, an image of grandness in immensity--thus appeared the
Queen of the Sudan. She is indeed the city of imagination, the Timbuctoo
of legends. Her sandy approaches are strewn with bones and carcasses
that have been disinterred by wild beasts, the remains of the camels and
other animals that have fallen and died in the last stages of the
journey.
The illusion of walls, produced by the distinctness with which the town
stands out from the white sand, disappears, and three towers at regular
intervals dominate the mass. The terraces of square houses are now
distinguishable, renewing the first impression of grandeur in immensity.
We enter the town, and behold! all the grandeur has suddenly
disappeared, though the scene is equally impressive on account of its
tragic character rather than its beauty. And this is the great
Timbuctoo, the metropolis of the Sudan and the Sahara, with its boasted
wealth and commerce! This is Timbuctoo the holy, the learned, that life
of the Niger, of which it was written, "We shall one day correct the
texts of our Greek and Latin classics by the manuscripts which are
preserved there." These ruins, this rubbish, this wreck of a town, is
this the secret of Timbuctoo the Mysterious? It is a city of
deliquescence.
Jenne had the vein of Egyptian civilisation; the origin of Timbuctoo has
to be sought in a different direction, for her past is connected with
the Arabian civilisation of Northern Africa--the world of the Berbers
and all those white people whom we have known under the name of Touaregs
in the Sahara, Kabyles in Algeria, Moors in Morocco and Senegal, and
Foulbes in their infiltrations into the Sudan, who had been crowded back
into the interior by the invasions of Phoenician and Roman colonists. So
also, when the Moors were driven out of Spain back to Morocco, to find
their ancient patrimony in the hands of Arabs, they were forced to
prolong their exodus into the south, and became nomads about the great
lakes on the left bank of the Niger, in the neighbourhood of Oualata and
Timbuctoo, carrying with them the name of Andalusians, which they bear
to the present day.
Touareg is a generic name for a large number of tribes descended from
the Berbers. Being driven into the desert, to the terrible glare of
which they were not accustomed, nor their lungs to its sandstorms, they
adopted the head-dress of two veils. Being perpetually kept on the
march, every social and political organisation disappeared, and they
gradually lost all notion of law and order. Like the Jews, and all other
people thrown out of their natural paths, their souls and brains became
steeped in vice. Their nomadic life reduced them to the level of
vagabonds, thieves, and brigands, and the only law they recognised was
the right of the strongest. Travellers and merchants were their
principal victims, and when these failed, they robbed and killed each
other.
They adopted a vague form of Islamism which they reduced to a belief in
talismans, and the Sudanese bestowed upon them three epithets which
epitomise their psychology--"Thieves, Hyenas, and the Abandoned of God."
Yet it was to these people that Timbuctoo owed its origin, for it was
there that they established a permanent camp. It was under the dominion
of Askia the Great, who drove the Touaregs out of the city, that
Timbuctoo became the great and learned city whose fame spread even to
Europe, and its apogee was reached in 1494-1591.
The decadence of the city began with the Moorish conquest in the latter
year, and it became the scene of repeated incursions by various
tribes--Touaregs, Foulbes, Roumas. Under the hands of a thousand tyrants
the inhabitants were robbed, ill-treated, and killed on the least
provocation. To avoid being pillaged in the open street, and seeing
their houses despoiled, they adopted a new manner of living. They
transformed their garments and dwellings, and ceasing to be Timbuctoo
the Great, they became Timbuctoo the Mysterious. By these means the town
acquired a tumble-down and battered appearance. Timbuctoo is the meeting
place, says an old Sudanese chronicle, of all who travel by camel or
canoe. The camel represents the commerce of Sahara and the whole of
Northern Africa, while the canoe represents the trade of the Sudan and
Nigeria.
A great part of the trade is in rock-salt, derived from the mines of
Taoudenni, near Timbuctoo. Large caravans from Morocco, Algeria, Tunis,
and Tripoli, numbering from 600 to 1,000 camels, and from three to five
hundred men, arrive from December to January, and from July to August.
Their freight represents from six hundred thousand to a million francs'
worth of goods. Smaller caravans of sixty or a hundred camels arrive all
the year round, and between fifty and sixty thousand camels encamp
annually in the caravan suburb before the northern walls of the city.
The city is simply a temporary depot, and the permanent population are
merely brokers and contractors, or landlords of houses which are let to
travelling merchants. The chief manufacturing industry of the city is
exquisite embroidered robes, which cost from three to four thousand
francs each, and are principally exported to Morocco.
An ancient Sudanese proverb says, "Salt comes from the north, gold from
the south, and silver from the country of the white men, but the word of
God and the treasures of wisdom are only to be found in Timbuctoo." It
would be an exaggeration to put the university in the mosque of Sankoré
on a level with those of Egypt, Morocco, or Syria, but it was the great
intellectual nucleus of the Sudan, and also one of the great scientific
centres of Islam itself. Her collection of ancient manuscripts leaves us
in no doubt upon the point. There is an entire class of the population
devoted to the study of letters. They are called Marabuts, or Sheikhs,
and from them doctors, priests, schoolmasters, and jurists are drawn.
_V.--The Romance of the Modern Conquest_
The prosperity of the French Sudan is so closely connected with that of
its principal market that if the general anarchy had been prolonged in
Timbuctoo all the sacrifices of human life and money France had made on
her threshold would have remained sterile. The French Government decided
that the sooner an end was put to the ruinous dominion of the Touaregs
the better it would be. Up to the last moment England endeavoured to put
her hand upon the commerce of Timbuctoo. Failing in her efforts from
Tripoli and the Niger's mouth, she attempted to secure a footing by way
of Morocco, and was installed towards 1890 at Cape Juby. It was then too
late. French columns and posts had been slowly advanced by the Senegal
route, and in 1893 Jenne was captured.
In the following year a flotilla of gunboats was dispatched while two
columns of troops followed up to anticipate any concentration of nomad
Touaregs, which might prevent the occupation of the Mysterious City.
From the flotilla a detachment of nineteen men was landed. Of these only
seven were Europeans, the remainder being Senegalese negroes. They had
two machine guns with them, and, under the command of a naval
lieutenant, Boiteux by name, they marched to the walls of Timbuctoo, and
demanded that the rulers of the city should surrender it, and that they
should sign a treaty of peace placing the country under the protectorate
of France. The city was occupied, temporary fortlets were run up, and
the nineteen mariners held them till January 10, 1894, when the first of
the two of the French columns entered the town. Twenty-five days later
the second column arrived.
The French occupation of Timbuctoo the Mysterious was complete, and Cape
Juby was evacuated by England. Two large forts have now replaced the
improvised fortifications, and their guns command every side of the
town. Under their protection the inhabitants are reviving. The long
nightmare of the Touaregs is being slowly dispelled. Houses are being
repaired and rebuilt; the occupants leave their doors ajar, and resume
their beautifully embroidered robes; and one can picture the city
becoming a centre of European civilisation and science as it was
formerly of Mussulman culture.