fertility, is the town of Zuéela, in which the remnants of antient
buildings, the number and size of the cisterns, and the construction
of the vaulted caves, intended perhaps as repositories for corn,
exhibit such vestiges of antient splendour, as will probably attract,
and may highly reward the attention of the future Traveller.
To the South of Zuéela, and nearly at the same distance from the
capital, is the town of Jermah, which, like Zuéela, is distinguished
by the numerous herds, especially of sheep and goats, that are seen
around it; by the various and abundant produce of its adjacent fields;
and by numerous and majestic ruins, that exhibit to the ignorant
inhabitants of its clay-built cottages inscriptions of which they
know not the meaning, and vestiges of greatness to which they are
perfectly indifferent.
Tessouwa, a considerable town, is also situated to the Eastward of
the capital; but seems to have no claim to particular attention. Near
this town, a river which the Shereef describes as overwhelmed in
the moving sands, but which he remembers a deep and rapid stream,
had formerly its course.
More remote from Mourzouk, being distant from it in a N.E. direction,
about 120 miles, is the large town of Temmissa. Here the caravan of
Pilgrims from Bornou and Nigritia, which takes its departure from
Mourzouk, and travels by the way of Cairo to Mecca, usually provides
the stores of corn and dates, and dried meat, that are requisite
for its dreary passage.
S.E. from the capital, and distant from it about sixty miles, is the
small town of Kattrón, which seems to be remarkable for nothing
but the quantity which it breeds of the common fowl, and for the
abundant crops of Indian corn which the neighbouring lands afford.
Very differently distinguished is the town, or rather the province,
of Mendrah, for though much of its land is a continued level of hard
and barren soil, the quantity of _Trona_, a species of fossil alkali
that floats on the surface, or settles on the banks of its numerous
smoaking lakes, has given it a higher importance than that of the
most fertile districts.
Of this valuable produce great quantities are annually brought by the
Merchants of Fezzan to Tripoli, from whence it is shipped for Turkey
and Tunis, and the dominions of the Emperor of Morocco. The people of
the latter employ it as an ingredient in the red dye of the leather,
for which they are famous, and in that of the woollen caps that are
worn by the Arabs and the Moors as the basis of their turbans.
The situation of Mendrah is nearly South from the capital, and is
distant from it about sixty miles.
To the account which has been given of the principal towns of Fezzan,
that of Tegérhy alone remains to be added. It is but a small town,
is situated S.W. of the capital, about eighty miles, and collects from
its lands but little other produce than dates and Indian corn. The
territory of Fezzan, to the Westward of the capital, appears to extend
but a little way; for on that side, the sullen barrenness of the
Desart, more effectually than the strongest human power, prescribes
a limit to the pursuits of Avarice and to the efforts of Ambition.
Of the smaller towns of Fezzan, and of its scattered villages,
the number of which, including that of the towns, is said to be
little less than one hundred, the Shereef has given no particular
description.
The towns themselves appear to be chiefly inhabited by husbandmen
and shepherds; for, though they also contain the Merchants, the
Artificers, the Ministers of Religion, and the Officers of the
Executive Government; yet, the business of agriculture and pasturage
seems to be the principal occupation of the natives of Fezzan.
In every town a market for butcher’s meat, and corn, and fruit,
and garden vegetables, is regularly held. Mutton and goats flesh
are sold by the quarter, without being weighed; the usual price
of a quarter of a goat or sheep is from thirty-two to forty grains
of gold dust, or from four to five shillings of English money. The
flesh of the camel, which is much more highly valued, is commonly
sold at a dearer rate, and is divided into smaller lots.
The houses, like those of the little villages in the neighbourhood of
Tripoli, are built of clay, and are covered with a flat roof, that is
composed of the boughs and branches of trees, on which a quantity of
earth is laid. Inartificial and defective as this covering appears,
it is suited to the climate: for as rain is never known in Fezzan,
the principal requisites of a roof are shelter from the dews, and
protection from the sun.
The heats of the Summer, which begins in April and continues till
November, are so intense, that, from nine in the morning till sun-set,
the streets are frequented only by the labouring people, and even
in the houses respiration would be difficult, if the expedient of
wetting the apartments did not furnish its salutary aid. Of this
torrid clime the fierceness is chiefly felt from the month of May
to the latter end of August; during which period, the course of the
wind is usually from the E. the S.E. the S. or the S.W. and though
from the two latter points it blows with violence, the heat is often
such as to threaten instant suffocation; but if it happens to change,
as, for a few days, it sometimes does, to the W. or N.W. a reviving
freshness immediately succeeds.
The dress of the inhabitants of Fezzan is similar to that of the Moors
of Barbary. The immediate covering of the body consists of a pair
of large trowsers, of linen or cloth, which descends to the small of
the leg, and of a shirt, which is wide in the sleeves, but close at
the breast, and the skirts of which hang over and conceal the upper
part of the trowsers. Next to the shirt is worn a kind of waistcoat,
which in shape resembles the shirt, except that it has no sleeves,
and that it reaches no lower than the waist; and to the waistcoat is
superadded a jacket, with tight sleeves which extend to the wrist,
but which are left unbuttoned and open from the wrist almost to the
elbow. Thus far their dress may be said to be similar to that of a
British seaman, its colour excepted, and except too, that the shirt
is not open at the breast, that the waistcoat is not fastened with
buttons, but is put on like the shirt, and that the bottom of the
shirt hangs down on the outside of the trowsers.
Over the jacket is worn a loose robe, which reaches below the knee,
and the sleeves of which, though wider than those of the jacket,
are made in the same form, and, like them, are left open at the wrist.
A girdle of crimson silk binds the robe to the waist; and a long
cloth (called a barakan or alhaique) of the shape of a Highlander’s
plaid, and worn in the same way, is thrown over the whole. The legs,
as far as the calves, to which the trowsers descend, are covered with
a kind of short stockings, which are made of leather, and are laced
like the half boot of an Englishman. The feet are accommodated with
slippers; and the head is protected by a red woollen cap, which is
incircled by the folds of a silk or muslin turban.
Ample as this cloathing may appear, the further provision of a long
cloak with a large hood is often considered as requisite. It is called
a burnoose, and in fine weather is usually carried on the shoulder.
Such, when complete, is the dress of the inhabitants of Fezzan. But in
the Summer months the common people have no other covering than the
drawers, which decency requires; and the caps, which protect their
heads from the immediate action of the sun, for in other respects
their bodies are compleatly naked.
Nature and custom have formed their constitutions to such high
degrees of heat, that any approach to the common temperament of Europe
entirely destroys their comfort; for Mr. LUCAS often observed, in his
journey to Mesurata, that when the scorching heat of the noon-day
beams had compelled him to seek the shade, his fellow-travellers,
especially if the wind was in the North, laid themselves down,
upon the sand in the open sun, in order to receive a double portion
of his warmth; and when, as their custom was, they enquired after
his health, they, almost always, concluded with the expression,
“_Heack m’andick berd_,” we hope you are not cold.
The Diseases that are most frequent in Fezzan are those of the
inflammatory, and those of the putrid kind.
The small-pox is common among the inhabitants; violent head-achs
attack them in the Summer; and they are often afflicted with
rheumatic pains.
Their old women are their principal physicians. For pains in the head
they prescribe cupping and bleeding; for pains in the limbs they send
their patients to bathe in the hot lakes, which produce the trona;
and for obstinate achs and strains, and long continued stiffness in
the muscles, they have recourse, like the horse-doctors of Europe
and the physicians of Barbary, to the application of a burning iron.
The use of the strongest oils, and of the most powerful herbs,
is also frequent among them.
To the nature of their climate the greatest part of their diseases
is probably owing; and to this cause they are certainly indebted
for the extraordinary multitude of noxious and of loathsome animals
that infest their country. Adders, snakes, scorpions, and toads,
are the constant inhabitants of their fields, their gardens, and
their houses. The air is crowded with mosquitos; and persons of every
rank are over-run with all the different kinds of vermin that attack
the beggars of Europe; and though in the Summer the fleas entirely
disappear, the inhabitants are scarcely sensible of relief.
In their persons, the natives of Fezzan incline to the Negro much
more than to the Arab cast. Those who travelled with Mr. LUCAS from
Tripoli to Mesurata, and who were fourteen in number, had short
curly black hair, thick lips, flat broad noses, and a dark[5] skin,
which, either from their habitual nastiness, the vermin with which
they are covered, or the natural rankness of their perspiration,
emits the most nauseous and fetid effluvia. They are tall, but not
strong; well shaped, yet indolent, inactive, and weak; and though
the Shereef Fouwad is described as majestic in his appearance, yet
his countrymen, in general, are considered at Tripoli as a people
of remarkable ugliness.
In their common intercourse with each other all distinctions of rank
appear to be forgotten; for the Shereef and the lowest plebeian,
the rich and the poor, the master and the man, converse familiarly,
and eat and drink together. Generous and eminently hospitable,
the Fezzanner, let his fare be scanty or abundant, is ever desirous
that others should partake of his meal; and if twenty people should
unexpectedly visit his dwelling, they must all participate as far
as it will go.
When they settle their money transactions, they squat down upon the
ground, and having levelled a spot with their hands, make dots as
they reckon; and if they find themselves wrong, they smooth the spot
again, and repeat the calculation. All this time the by-standers,
though they have nothing to do with the business, are as eager to
put in their word, and to correct mistakes, as if the affair was
their own. Even in common conversation, if they sit without doors,
they level the sand in order to go on with their discourse, and at
every sentence mark it with their fingers.
An extensive plain, encompassed by mountains, the irregular circle
of which is interrupted on the West, where it seems to communicate
with the Desart, composes the Kingdom of Fezzan. To the influence of
the neighbouring heights it may possibly be owing, that in Fezzan,
as in the Upper Egypt, the situation of which is extremely similar,
no rain is ever known to fall.
A light sand constitutes the general soil; and sand hills of various
forms are seen in particular districts; but though the character of
the surface and the dryness of the Heavens may seem to announce an
eternal sterility, yet the springs are so abundant, and so ample a
store of subterraneous water is supplied by the adjacent heights, that
few regions in the North of Africa exhibit a richer vegetation. From
wells of eight or ten feet deep, with several of which every garden
and every field are furnished, the husbandman waters, at sun-rise,
the natural or artificial productions of his land. Of these the
principal are,
The Talk, a tree that in size resembles the small Olive. It flowers
in yellow sprigs, and supplies the hard and lemon-coloured wood,
from which the handles and frames of the Fezzanner’s instruments
of husbandry are made:
The White Thorn:
A kind of brushwood that resembles the Spanish broom:
The Date tree, which is common:
The Olive and the Lime, which are described as scarce; the Apricot,
the Pomegranate, and the Fig:
Indian corn and barley, the two favourite objects of the Fezzanner’s
cultivation:
Wheat, of which but little is raised:
Pompions or calabash, carrots, cucumbers, onions, and garlick.
Of the _tame_ animals that are raised in Fezzan, the Shereef
enumerates,
The Sheep, which is described as of a light brown colour; as having
a broad tail, and as cloathed with a species of hair rather than
of wool:
The Cow, which does not seem to be common, except in a few districts
in which the pasture is excellent:
The Goat, and the Camel:
A species of the domestic fowl of Europe.
The _wild_ animals of the country are,
The Ostrich:
Antelopes of various kinds, one of which is called the Huaddee, and
is celebrated for the singular address with which, when chased by
the hunter amidst its craggy heights, it plunges from the precipice,
and lighting on its hams without danger of pursuit, continues till
evening in the vale below:
A species of deer of a smaller size than the common park deer of
England. Its head, neck, and back, are of a brownish red; and a pale
streak of the same colour, running on a white ground, is continued
on each side from the haunch to the hoof: the rest of the body is
of a clear and delicate white. Such, if the Fezanners are to be
credited, is the cleanliness of its temper, or such, more probably,
is its dislike to the chill of a watery soil, that during the autumnal
rains, which fall in the Desarts of Zahara, where it chiefly inhabits,
no traces of its lying down have ever yet been seen. In the stillness
of the night it often ventures to the corn fields of Fezzan, where,
in traps prepared for the purpose, it is sometimes taken.
The _food_ of the lower classes of the people consists of the flour of
Indian corn, seasoned with oil; of dates, apricots, and pomegranates,
and of calabashes, cucumbers, and garden roots.
Persons of a superior rank are also supplied with wheat bread, which
is baked in their own houses; with mutton, goats flesh, the flesh
of the camel, and that of the antelope; and with a great variety of
fruits, and of garden vegetables.
Fezzan produces a sufficiency of salt for the consumption of its
own inhabitants.
The water in general has a mineral taste; yet some of the springs
are pure; but the favourite beverage consists of a liquor which the
date tree, like the palm, affords. At first it possesses the mild
flavour and cooling quality of orgeat; but acquires, when fermented,
an acescent taste and intoxicating strength that are still more
highly valued.
To the palm the loss of so large a proportion of its sap is generally
fatal; but the hardier date tree recovers from its wound, and in
the course of two or three years regains its former health.
In their _Religion_ the people of Fezzan are rigid Mahometans; not
intolerant to the opinions of others, but strict and superstitious
in the observance of their own.
The _Government_ of Fezzan is purely monarchical; but its powers,
which seem to be restricted by the influence of opinion, are
administered with such paternal regard to the happiness of the people,
the rights of property are so much revered, the taxes are so moderate,
and the course of justice is directed by so firm, and yet so temperate
a hand, that the inhabitants of Fezzan (as far as a judgment can
be formed from the feelings of those who travelled with Mr. LUCAS)
are affectionately and ardently attached to their Sovereign.[6]
The present King, Mohammed Ben Mohammed, is descended from one of
the Shereefs of Tafilet, in the kingdom of Morrocco, who was related
to the Regal Family of that empire, and who, about 400 years since,
obtained possession of the Crown of Fezzan.
From that period to the middle of the present century, the kingdom
maintained its Independence; but at the latter æra, the Bashaw of
Tripoli invaded it with a powerful force, laid siege to the capital,
defeated, and took captive the King, and carried him a prisoner
to Tripoli. For two years the unfortunate Monarch was detained in
bondage, but at the end of that period, on the condition of an
annual tribute of fifty slaves and ten pounds of gold dust, the
Bashaw restored him to his Crown.
Till the accession of the present King of Fezzan, this tribute was
faithfully transmitted; but the reigning Sovereign, conscious of
the declining power of Tripoli, and of the internal strength which
the affection and confidence of his people had given to his Kingdom,
has gradually diminished the amount, and altered the nature of the
acknowledgement; for it now consists in an occasional present of a
few slaves, and of a pound or two of gold dust, and is rather the
compliment of a trading State to the Kingdom in which its principal
commodities are sold, than a proof of political dependence. Still,
however, the expression of _my_ Kingdom of Fezzan is in frequent
use with the reigning Bashaw of Tripoli, who is the grandson of the
Conqueror; nor has the dependence of the former State on the latter
been ever directly renounced.[7]
In Fezzan, as in all the Countries in which the Mahometan Faith
is established, the descendants of the Prophet are considered as
a distinct and highly privileged order. Their property is sacred;
their persons are inviolable; and while the colour of their turbans,
and the revered title of Shereef, announce to the people the august
dignity which they bear, they derive from the hereditary nature of
their privileges a high degree of permanent influence, and sometimes
of dangerous power.[8]
Among the privileges of their rank may be numbered an exemption from
certain punishments, and that sort of general indulgence which the
prevalent dread of shedding the blood of the Prophet unavoidably
creates.
To these circumstances of distinction it is owing that, like the
Nobility of other States, they are sometimes subjected to, and feel
a particular apprehension of the penalty of dishonour, especially
of that of having dust thrown upon their heads.
But great as the privileges of this high order unquestionably are,
the individuals who compose it have no union or general concert with
each other; for neither in contests for power, nor in resistance to
oppression, do they ever act as a body.
Some of the class are devoted to the indolence of a religious life;
but a larger proportion is engaged in the active concerns and
progressive pursuits of commerce: for, in general, the descendants
of Mahomet, following the example of their great ancestor, are either
Princes or Merchants.
The _Revenue_ of Fezzan is composed of a variety of branches, the
principal of which are,
1st, A tax on towns and villages, at the rate of from 100 to 500
mitkals each. The number of towns and villages is estimated at
100; and the value of a mitkal at about ten shillings English:
consequently, the tax on each town and village is from 50l. to
250l. sterling.
2d, A tax on every camel’s load of goods (provisions for the market
excepted) which enters the capital. The rate of this impost is one
mitkal, or ten shillings English, per load.
3d, The fines that are inflicted as a punishment for offences.
4th, The produce of such lands as on the death of the possessors,
without heirs, escheat to the Crown.
5th, A small tax on all gardens and date trees.
To these several branches of revenue may be added, as another source
of considerable income, the commerce in which the King is engaged;
for he seems, especially in the articles of trona and senna, to be
the principal Merchant in his kingdom.
Gold dust constitutes among the people of Fezzan the chief medium
of payment; and value in that medium is always expressed by weight.
Their common measures of weight, and consequently of value, are,
The xarobe (or harrobe) the weight of which is four grains, and
which expresses the value of thirty-three piastres of Tripoli,
or 6d. sterling.
The mitkal, the weight of which is eighty-one grains, and which
expresses the value of 668¼ Tripoli piastres, or 10s. 1½d.
A single grain therefore is equal in value to 1½d.
In the choice of the first of these measures, the xarobe, they seem
to have been influenced by the discovery, 1st, That four grains is
the usual weight of a hard and durable berry,[9] which is called
habbat ell goreth; and 2dly, That half that weight, two grains,
is the weight of another and very beautiful berry, which is brought
from Nigritia, and to which, from its scarlet colour, and the black
stroke that ornaments one of its ends, they have given the name of
eyne-deeka, or the cock’s eye. These berries are therefore employed
as the common weights for gold dust in Fezzan; for the xarobe and
the mitkal have only an ideal existence.
But for the greater convenience of exchange, the Merchants of Fezzan
are generally furnished with small papers of gold dust, of different
values, from that of two xarobes, or one shilling, to such an amount
as their business is likely to require.
If the value of the article to be purchased is less than two xarobes,
the payment is generally made in corn or flour. Thus the smaller
articles of provisions, as eggs, onions, &c. are generally purchased
by a proportionable value in corn.
~_TABLE._~
{ 8¼ piastres of Tripoli,
One grain (in weight) of gold is equal to {
{ 1½d. sterling.
{ 1 xarobe of Fezzan,
{
Four grains ditto are equal to { 33 piastres of Tripoli,
{
{ 6d. sterling.
{ 2 xarobes of Fezzan,
{
Eight grains ditto are equal to { 66 piastres of Tripoli,
{
{ 1s. sterling.
{[10]1 mitkal (an imaginary
{ coin of Fezzan)
Twenty xarobes, } {
or } are equal to { 660 piastres of Tripoli,
Eighty grains, } {
{ 10s. sterling.
In this view of the currency of Fezzan, the small fractions that
would be requisite to render it perfectly accurate are omitted.
A mitkal is 675 piastres of Tripoli, or a fraction more than
10s. 1½d. sterling, and consequently it exceeds, by a fraction,
the amount of 20 xarobes.
The grains of Fezzan are of the same[11] weight as in England, but
the okea, or ounce of Fezzan, is very different, for it contains
640 grains; whereas the English ounce contains but 480, which is a
fourth less.
A Fezzan ounce of gold therefore, or 640 grains, at 1½d. per grain,
must be worth in Fezzan 4l.
And an English ounce of gold, or 480 grains, at 1½d. per grain,
must be worth in Fezzan 3l.
Among the circumstances for which the natives of Fezzan, who travelled
with Mr. LUCAS, considered their Sovereign as eminently distinguished,
they often mentioned his just and impartial, but severe and determined
administration of justice; and as a proof of the ascendancy which,
in this respect, he has acquired over the minds of his subjects,
they described the following custom:—If any man has injured
another, and refuses to go with him to the Judge, the complainant,
drawing a circle round the oppressor, solemnly charges him, in the
King’s name, not to leave the place till the Officers of Justice,
in search of whom he is going, shall arrive: and such (if they are to
be credited) is, on the one hand, his fear of the punishment which is
inflicted on those who disobey the injunction, and so great, on the
other, is his dread of the perpetual banishment which, if he seeks his
safety by withdrawing from the kingdom, must be his inevitable lot,
that this imaginary prison operates as a real confinement, and the
offender submissively waits the arrival of the Officers of the Judge.
Small offences are punished by the bastinado: but those of a
greater magnitude subject the convict, according to the different
degrees of guilt, to the penalty of a fine, of imprisonment, or of
death.—Shereefs, like the Nobility of other States, are sometimes
punished, as was mentioned before, by the pain of dishonour; in which
class of punishments, the most dreaded, because the most reproachful,
is the indignity of having dust heaped upon their heads.
To their insulated and remote situation, and to their natural
barrier of desolate mountains and dreary wastes of sand, much more
than to military strength, the people of Fezzan are indebted for
their security.
Trusting to this natural defence, their towns are without guards, and,
their capital excepted, are also without walls; nor have they any
regular standing force: yet the Shereef conceives that 15 or 20,000
troops might, upon an emergency, be raised. The only expedition
of a military nature that has happened within his remembrance,
was undertaken on the following account:—
South-East of the capital, at the distance of 150 miles, is a wide
and sandy desart, entirely barren, and oppressed with a suffocating
heat. Immediately beyond this desart, the width of which is about 200
miles, the mountains of Tibesti, inhabited by a wild and savage people
of that name, begin to take their rise. Ferocious in their manners,
free-booters in their principles, and secure, as they thought, in the
natural defences of their situation, these independent mountaineers
became the terror of the caravans which traded from Fezzan to
Bornou, and which are obliged to pass the Western extremity of the
Desart. But at length, having plundered a caravan which belonged
to the King himself, and having killed about twenty of his people,
their conduct provoked his resentment, and determined him to revenge
the insult. With this view he immediately raised a small army of from
3 to 4,000 men, the command of which he gave to an able and active
_Magistrate_, announcing, by that appointment, that he sent them,
not to subdue a respectable enemy, but to punish an assemblage of
plunderers and assassins. Having compleated the difficult passage
of the desart, and having gained the first ascent of the mountains,
they proceeded without opposition, till at length the natives, who
waited in ambush, rushed upon them, and with the bows and arrows,
and lances, with which they were armed, began a furious assault: but
the instant that the foremost of the soldiers had given their fire,
the mountaineers, more alarmed at the dreadful sounds which they
heard, and at the imagined lightning which they saw, than terrified
with the slaughter that was made, threw down their arms, and flying
with great precipitation, abandoned, to the mercy of the victors,
their houses and their helpless inhabitants. The next morning, a
deputation, from the natives, of their principal people arrived at
the camp, with humble intreaties that their wives and children might
be spared, and an offer, on that condition, to submit to any terms
which the Alcaid should desire to impose. The Alcaid accordingly
demanded, and received, as hostages for their future conduct, twenty
of their principal people, with whom, and with all the plunder which
the country afforded, he returned in triumph to Fezzan. There the King
entertained them with kindness, and under a promise that their nation
should acknowledge him as their _Sovereign_, and should annually pay
to him a tribute of twenty camel loads of senna, made them valuable
presents; and with strong impressions on their minds, of the generous
treatment which they had received, sent them back to Tibesti.
From that period no attempt to molest his caravans has been made
by the mountaineers; and though they neither acknowledge the King
of Fezzan for their Sovereign, nor pay him any tribute, yet they
bring the whole of their senna to Mourzouk for sale, where it is
purchased to great advantage by the King, and is afterwards sold,
on his account, at the market of Tripoli.
An occasional visit to the Court of Fezzan is paid by their Chief,
who is always received with great hospitality, and after a residence
of a few weeks, is dismissed, with a present of a long robe.
The vales of Tibesti are fertile in corn, and pasturage for cattle,
of which they have numerous herds, and are particularly celebrated
for their breed of camels, which are esteemed the best in Africa. For
this fertility they are indebted to the water of the innumerable
springs that amply compensate for the want of rain, which seldom,
if ever, falls within the limits of Tibesti.
Huts of the simplest construction (for they are formed of stakes
driven into the ground in a circular arrangement, and covered with
the branches of trees and brushwood intermixed) compose the dwellings
of the people.
In return for the senna and the camels which they sell in Fezzan,
they bring back coral, alhaiks, or barakans, Imperial dollars,
and brass, from the two last of which articles they manufacture the
rings and bracelets which are worn by their women.
Among the natives of Tibesti different religions are professed;
for some of them are Mahometans, and others continue attached to
their antient system of Idolatry.
~CHAPTER V.~
_Mode of Travelling in Africa._
* * * * *
The mode of travelling in Africa is so connected with the commerce,
and therefore with the manners of its principal nations, that without
some knowledge of the _former_, a description of the two _latter_
cannot be clearly understood.
[Sidenote: The shereef Imhammed.]
[Sidenote: Ben Alli.]
[Sidenote: Lucas.]
In that division of Africa which lies to the North of the Niger, the
season for travelling begins with the month of October, and terminates
with the month of March. During this period, the temperature of
the air, though strongly affected by the degree of latitude, the
elevation of the land, the distance of the sea, and the direction
of the wind, is comparatively cool; and in some places, as in the
neighbourhood of Mount Atlas, and on the Coasts of the Mediterranean,
occasionally exhibits the phenomena of an European Winter. At Tripoli,
the Thermometer is sometimes seen at the 40th degree of Farenheit’s
scale, and on the 31st of December, in the year 1788, was observed,
at nine in the morning, to have fallen within four degrees of the
freezing point; a coldness that was followed by a light shower
of snow.
In all countries, the animals which Nature and the attention of
man have provided for the conveyance of the Traveller, and for the
transit of his merchandize, are suited to the character of [Sidenote:
Imhammed and Ben Alli.]the soil, and to the smoothness or inequality
of its surface. Of the soil of Africa, to the North of the Niger,
the prevailing character is sand; and though in the neighbourhood of
rivers, and in all those districts which receive from the adjacent
mountains, the advantage of numerous springs, the sand is blended with
a vegetable mould, yet the ground, in general, is remarkably soft
and dry. In general, too, the surface of the land, though in some
places broken by naked rocks, and swelling, in others, to mountains
of considerable magnitude, may be regarded as comparatively level.
To such a country the camel is peculiarly suited; for his broad and
tender foot, which slides on a wet surface, and is injured by the
resistance of stones, is observed to tread with perfect security
and ease on the dry and yielding sand: and while, from the same
circumstances in its structure, his hoof is incapable of fastening,
with any strength, on the ground of a steep ascent, and furnishes,
in a shelving declivity, no solid or sufficient support, his movement
on a smooth and level surface is singularly firm and safe.
[Sidenote: Imhammed.]
So remarkably exemplified in Africa is that rule in the œconomy of
Nature which suits the beast of burthen to the land which it inhabits,
that in the country which lies to the South-West of the Niger, where
the surface is mountainous, and the ground is as stony in some places,
as it is wet and muddy in others, no camels are found. Their place
is supplied by small horses, asses, and mules.
[Sidenote: Lucas.]
The proper burthen for a camel varies with its strength, which is
very different in different species of the animal. In the dominions
of Tripoli, a common load is from three to four hundred weight;
and the medium expence of the conveyance for each hundred appears
to be one farthing per mile.
[Sidenote: Lucas.]
[Sidenote: Imhammed.]
The usual rate of travelling is three miles in the hour, and the
number of hours that are actually employed on the rout, exclusive of
those which are allotted to refreshment, is seldom more than seven
or eight in a day. Of the number of days which are consumed on a
long journey, many are devoted to the purpose of occasional trade,
to that of recruiting the strength of the camels, and to that of
procuring additional stores of provisions and of water; for in all
such places as are able to furnish a supply of provisions (which
are generally places of considerable population, and therefore of
some traffic) the stay of the caravan is seldom less than two days,
and is often prolonged to more.
[Sidenote: Ben Alli.]
The general food of the camels is such only as their nightly pasture
affords; and is often confined to the hard and thorny shrubs of the
Desart, where a sullen vegetation is created by the rains of the
Winter, and upheld by the dews that descend in copious abundance
through all the remainder of the year.
[Sidenote: Imhammed.]
Of the drivers and servants of the caravan, the customary food
consists of the milk of the camel, with a few dates, together with
the meal of barley or of Indian corn, which is sometimes seasoned
with oil, while the Merchant superadds, for his own use, the dried
flesh of the camel, or of sheep, and concludes his repast with coffee.
[Sidenote: Imhammed and Ben Alli.]
Water is drawn from the wells in leather buckets, that form a part
of the travelling equipage of the caravan, and is carried in the
skins of goats, through which, however, though tarred both within
and without, it is often exhaled by the heat of the noon-day sun.
[Sidenote: Ben Alli.]
A particular mode of easy conveyance is provided for the women and
children, and for persons oppressed with infirmity or illness: six
or eight camels are yoked together in a row, and a number of tent
poles are placed in parallel lines upon their backs: these are covered
with carpets, and bags of corn are superadded to bring the floor to a
level, as well as to soften the harshness of the camel’s movement;
other carpets are then spread, and the traveller sits or lies down,
with as much convenience as if he rested on a couch.
The Desart (a term of the same meaning with its Arabic name of Zahara)
may be said, like the ocean, to connect the very nations which it
seems to separate; for, in comparison with the woods and morasses of
America, it furnishes the Merchant with an easy and convenient road.
[Sidenote: Ben Alli.]
A sandy heath of various levels, in some places naked and bare, but
much more frequently covered with an odoriferous plant, which the
Arabs call the Shé, and which, though far superior in fragrance,
has at least a remote resemblance to the wild thyme of Europe,
constitutes the general appearance of the Desart. The exceptions,
however, are interesting and important: for besides the diversity that
arises from the different shrubs, which are often scantily intermixed
with the Shé, and of which the thorny plant that forms the harsh food
of the camel appears to be the most common, an essential variation is
furnished by the comparative fertility of some particular districts,
and by the total barrenness of others.
[Sidenote: Imhammed and Ben Alli.]
In some portions of the general wilderness, thousands of sheep,
and goats, and cows, are seen to pasture; while in others nothing
is presented to the eye but desolate hills of shifting sand.
[Sidenote: Imhammed.]
To the last of these the name of _Desarts without Water_ is
emphatically given; a name that conveys to an Arab ear the fearful
idea of an intense and suffocating heat, of the total absence of
vegetable life, and of the hazard of a dreadful death. For though the
movement of the shifting sands is not so rapid as to endanger the
safety of the caravan, yet as the scorching heat of the sun-beams,
confined and reflected by the hills of sand, hourly diminishes the
store of water, and as the breadth of several of those desarts is
that of a ten days journey, the hazard of perishing with thirst is
sometimes fatally experienced.
[Sidenote: Imhammed.]
All means of ascertaining the rout by land-marks, the usual guides in
other parts of the wilderness, are here destroyed by the varying forms
and shifting position of the hills; but from anxious observation and
continued practice, the camel-drivers acquire a sufficient knowledge
of the bearings of the sun and stars to direct them in their way.
Such are the expedients by which the difficulties of the Desart
are in general overcome: those which are presented by the broad
current of the impetuous Niger, though much more easily, are not so
frequently surmounted.
[Sidenote: Imhammed.]
[Sidenote: Imhammed and Ben Alli.]
[Sidenote: Imhammed.]
[Sidenote: Imhammed.]
Of this river, which in Arabic is sometimes called Neel il Kibeer,
or the Great Nile, and at others, Neel il Abeed, or the Nile of the
Negros, the rise and termination are unknown, but the course is from
East to West. So great is the rapidity with which it traverses the
Empire of Cashna, that no vessel can ascend its stream; and such
is the want of skill, or such the absence of commercial inducements
among the inhabitants of its borders, that even _with_ the current,
neither vessels nor boats are seen to navigate. In one place, indeed,
the Traveller finds accommodations for the passage of himself and
of his goods; but even there, though the ferrymen, by the indulgence
of the Sultan of Cashna, are exempted from all taxes, the boat which
conveys the merchandize is nothing more than an ill-constructed raft;
for the planks are fastened to the timbers with ropes, and the seams
are closed both within and without, by a plaister of tough clay,
of which a large provision is always carried on the raft for the
purpose of excluding the stream wherever its entrance is observed.
[Sidenote: Imhammed.]
The depth of the river at the place of passage, which is more than
a hundred miles to the South of the City of Cashna, the capital of
the empire of that name, is estimated at twenty-three or twenty-four
feet English.[12]
[Sidenote: Imhammed.]
[Sidenote: Ben Alli.]
Its width is such that even at the Island of Gongoo, where the
ferrymen reside, the sound of the loudest voice from the northern
shore is scarcely heard; and at Tombuctou, where the name of Gnewa,
or black, is given to the stream, the width is described as being
that of the Thames at Westminster. In the rainy season it swells
above its banks, and not only floods the adjacent lands, but often
sweeps before it the cattle and cottages of the short-sighted or
too confident inhabitants.
[Sidenote: Imhammed and Ben Alli.]
That the people who live in the neighbourhood of the Niger should
refuse to profit by its navigation, may justly surprise the
Traveller; but much greater is his astonishment, when he finds
that even the food which the bounty of the stream would give, is
uselessly offered to their acceptance; for such is the want of skill,
or such the settled dislike of the people to this sort of provision,
that the fish with which the river abounds are left in undisturbed
possession of its waters.
[Sidenote: Imhammed.]
[Sidenote: Imhammed.]
Having passed the stream, the face of the country, and with it the
mode of travelling, are changed. High mountains and narrow valleys,
extensive woods and miry roads, succeed to the vast plains and sandy
soil of the Zahara and its neighbouring kingdoms. Water is no longer
refused or scantily given to the parched lips of the Traveller;
but while the abundance of this refreshment, and of the vast variety
both of vegetable and animal food that is offered in profusion for
his support, diminish the hardships and remove the principal hazards
of his journey, the raging heat of the Torrid Clime increases as he
proceeds. Wet cloths applied to the mouth are sometimes requisite,
and especially in the woods, to allay, for the purpose of respiration,
the violence of the burning air; and the journey, which the fierceness
of the sun suspends, is often renewed amidst the dews and comparative
darkness of the night.
[Sidenote: Imhammed.]
From the want of camels, which are seldom seen to the South of Cashna,
nor even to the West, except in higher latitudes, the conveyance
of the Merchant and his goods is committed to the mules, and small
horses and asses of the country. Of the first, the usual burthen is
200lbs. of the second, 150lbs. and of the last, 100lbs.
Travelling through all this part of Africa is considered as so
secure, that the Shereef Imhammed, with the utmost chearfulness and
confidence of safety, proposed to accompany and conduct Mr. LUCAS,
by the way of Fezzan and Cashna, across the Niger, to Assenté,
which borders on the Coast of the Christians.
~CHAPTER VI.~
_General Remarks on the Empires of Bornou and Cashna. — Rout from
Mourzouk to Bornou — Climate of Bornou — Complexion, Dress,
and Food of the Inhabitants — Their Mode of Building — Their
Language — Government — Military Force — Manners — and Trade._
* * * * *
To the South of the kingdom of Fezzan, in that vast region which
spreads itself from the river of the Antelopes westward for 1200
miles, and includes a considerable part of the Niger’s course, two
great empires, those of Bornou and those of Cashna, are established.
The circumstances of soil and climate, and those also which constitute
political character, are nearly the same in both: for their prevailing
winds are the same; their rains, which are periodical in each,
though much more profuse in Bornou, begin at the same season; the
same grains are cultivated; the same fruits (generally speaking)
are produced; and except that no camels are bred to the westward
of the City of Cashna, the capital of the empire, the same animals
are reared. In both, the complexion of the inhabitants is black;
their mode of building too is similar, and their manners, though in
some respects more civilized in Bornou, have a general resemblance.
Each of the two empires is formed by the subjection of different
tribes or nations to the dominion of one ruling people. The nature
of the Government, and the laws which regulate its succession, are
the same in both. In both, the ruling people are Mahometans; in both,
the dependent nations are composed of converts to the Musselman faith,
and of adherents to the antient worship; and though at present their
languages are different, the conquerors in both had probably the
same original.
Of these empires, Cashna, till of late, was esteemed the first in
power; but though a thousand villages and towns are still included
in her vast domains, she is now considered as much inferior to Bornou.
* * * * *
_ROUT FROM MOURZOUK TO BORNOU._
* * * * *
FROM Mourzouk in Fezzan to Bornou, the capital of the empire from
which it takes its name, the Fezzanners, whose commercial spirit
no distance can discourage, are conducted by a rout of more than a
thousand miles. Temmissa, the first town at which they arrive, and
the last which they see in Fezzan, they reach on the seventh day;
and in three days more they enter the territories of Bornou. Several
villages, inhabited by Blacks, whose persons, their waists excepted,
are entirely naked, whose meagre limbs and famished looks announce
their extreme of misery, and whose idolatrous religion neither excites
the resentment nor restrains the charity of the benevolent Fezzanners,
mark the northern frontier of the empire.
On the day following their departure from these melancholy hamlets,
they begin the ascent of a hilly uninhabited desart of sand, where
a few bushes of penurious vegetation point out the successive wells
that are found in these barren heights, and diminish the fatigues
of a three days passage. At the close of the fourth day they enter
a plain that is inhabited by Mahometans, where, in addition to a
plentiful supply of excellent water, they are cheared with the sight
of date trees, and of Indian corn.
From this plain, which lies to the West of the Desart of Tibesti, and
the end of which they reach on the second day, a part of the Tibesti
mountains take their rise. These vast hills, the range of which
is very extensive, are variously peopled; but such of them as are
crossed on the rout from Fezzan to the City of Bornou, are inhabited
by a mixture of Musselmen and Idolaters, who employ themselves in
breeding camels and asses, and other cattle, particularly horses of
a small size.
Exclusively of the two days that are requisite for the passage of
the mountains, an allowance of twice that time is generally given
to refreshment and repose; soon after which a fertile and beautiful
country, as richly diversified as numerously peopled, opens to their
view. Its inhabitants are herdsmen, and with the exception of a
few Pagans who are intermixed among them, are Musselmen in their
faith. Their dwellings are in tents which are composed of hides,
and their wealth consists in the multitude of their cows and sheep.
Four days are employed in crossing these fortunate districts: the
sixth conducts the caravan to the entrance of the vast and burning
Desart of Bilma. Surrounded by this dreary solitude, the Traveller
sees with a dejected eye the dead bodies of the birds that the
violence of the wind has brought from happier regions; and as he
ruminates on the fearful length of his remaining passage, listens
with horror to the voice of the driving blast, the only sound that
interrupts the awful repose of the Desart.
On the eleventh day from their entrance on these scorching sands,
the caravan arrives in the fertile plains that encompass the Town of
Domboo, the approach to which is enlivened by the frequent appearance
of the majestic Ostrich, and of the gay but fearful Antelope.
From thence, in about five days, they reach the City of Kánem, the
capital of an extensive and fertile province, of which it bears the
name, and in which the inhabitants, who are composed of Musselmen
and Pagans, breed multitudes of cattle, and raise innumerable horses
for the service of the King.
A journey of ten days more concludes their labour, and brings them
to the imperial City of Bornou.[13]
_Bornou_, the name which the natives give to the country, is
distinguished in Arabic by the appellation of Bernou or Bernoa, a
word that signifies the land of Noah, for the Arabs conceive that,
on the first retiring of the deluge, its mountains received the Ark.
The _Climate_, as may naturally be expected in a kingdom which seems
to be bounded by the 16th and the 26th parallels of latitude, is
characterized by excessive, though not by uniform heat. Two seasons,
the one commencing soon after the middle of April, the other at the
same period of October, may be said to divide the year. The _first_
is introduced by violent winds that bring with them, from the South
East and South, an intense heat, with a deluge of sultry rain,
and such tempests of thunder and lightning as destroy multitudes
of the cattle, and many of the people. During the rainy period
(the continuance of which is from three to nine successive days,
with short intervals from the occasional changes of the wind to the
North or West) the inhabitants confine themselves closely to their
dwellings; but the rest of the first season, however sultry and
however occasionally wet, is not incompatible with the necessary
labours of the husbandman and the shepherd.
At the commencement of the _second_ season in the latter part of
October, the ardent heat subsides; the air becomes soft and mild;
the weather continues perfectly serene; and as the year declines,
an unwelcome coolness precedes the rising of the sun.
The inhabitants, though consisting of such a multitude of nations
that thirty languages are said to be spoken in the empire, are alike
in their _Complexion_, which is entirely black, but are not of the
Negro cast.
In a climate so warm, the chief recommendations of _Dress_ are decency
and ornament: among the poorest, therefore, by whom the first only
is regarded, a kind of girdle for the waist is sometimes the only
covering; but in general a turban, consisting, as in Barbary, of
a red woollen cap, surrounded by folds of cotton, together with a
loose robe of coloured cotton of a coarser kind, are also worn.[14]
The _Grain_ that constitutes the principal object of culture in Bornou
is Indian corn, of two different kinds, which are distinguished in
the country by the names of the gassób, and the gamphúly.
The gassób, which in its general shape resembles the common reed,
is of two species; the first grows with a long stalk that bears an
ear, which in length is from eight to twelve inches, and contains,
in little husks or cavities, from three to five hundred grains,
of the size of small pease. The second species, which is common in
Tripoli, differs no otherwise from the first than in the shorter
size of the ear.
The gamphúly is distinguished from the gassób, by the bulk of
the stalk, for that of the gamphúly is much thicker, by the number
of its ears, for it has several on the same reed, and by the size
of the grain, which is considerably larger. This kind of corn is
frequently seen in Spain, and is there called Maize.
Wheat and barley are not raised in Bornou; but the horse-bean of
Europe and the common kidney-bean are cultivated with great assiduity,
as they are used for food, both by the slaves and by the cattle.[15]
In the culture of these different grains, the hoe alone is employed,
as the use of the plough is still unknown to the people. The women
divide with the men the labours of their husbandry; for while the
latter, with their hoes, open the ground, and form the trenches in
straight lines parallel to each other, the women follow and throw in
the seed: nor is this the only part which they take in the business
of the field; for to them, as soon as the weeds begin to rise on
the ridges of the lines in which the grain is sowed, the hoe is
constantly transferred.
The sowing season commences at the end of the periodical rains of
April; and such in that climate is the rapid vegetation, that on
the 9th of July the gassób is reaped; but the gamphúly, a grain
of slower growth, is seldom cut till the month of August or September.
Such are the several species of corn that, among the people of Bornou,
supply the place of the wheat, the barley, and the oats of Europe. Two
species of roots are also used as wholesome and substantial food:
the one, which is called the Dondoo, produces a low plant, with
branches that spread four or five feet upon the ground, and leaves
that resemble those of the garden-bean. At the end of five months,
from the time of its being planted, the leaves fall off, and the
root is taken from the ground, and being cut into small pieces, is
dried in the sun, in which state it may be kept for two years. Its
further preparation consists in reducing it to a fine powder, and
mixing it with palm oil till it assumes the consistency of paste.
The other root is that of a tree, of which the name had escaped
the Shereef’s recollection: boiling is the only process that is
requisite in preparing it for use.
The same character of sufficiency which marks the catalogue of the
different kinds of grain in Bornou, belongs also to the list of its
various _Fruits_; for though neither olives nor oranges are seen
in the empire, and even figs are rare, and though the apples and
plumbs of its growth deserve no commendation, and the dates are
as indifferent as they are scarce, yet grapes, and apricots, and
pomegranates, together with lemons and limes, and the two species of
melons, the water and the musk, are produced in large abundance.[16]
But one of the most valuable of its vegetable stores, is a tree which
is called Kedéynah, that in form and height resembles the olive,
is like the lemon in its leaf, and bears a nut, of which the kernel
and the shell are both in great estimation, the first as a fruit,
the last on account of the oil which it furnishes when bruised, and
which supplies the lamps of the people of Bornou with a substitute
for the oil of olives.
To this competent provision of such vegetables as are requisite to
the support, or grateful to the appetite of man, must be added a much
more ample and more varied supply, of _Animal Food_. Innumerable
flocks of sheep, and herds of goats and cows, (for there are no
oxen) together with multitudes of horses, buffaloes, and camels,
(the flesh of which is in high estimation) cover the vales or pasture
on the mountains of Bornou.[17]
The common, though not the Guinea fowl is also reared by the
inhabitants; and their hives of bees are so extremely numerous, that
the wax is often thrown away as an article of no value in the market.
Their _game_ consists of the Huaddee, and other species of antelopes,
of the partridge, the wild duck, and the ostrich, the flesh of which
they prize above every other.
Their other wild animals are the lion, the leopard, the civet cat,
the small wolf, the fox, the wild dog, that hunts the antelope; the
elephant, which is not common, and of which they make no use; the
crocodile, the hippopotamus, which is often killed on the banks of the
river that runs from the Neel Shem, (the Nile of Egypt) to the Desart
of Bilma; and a large and singular animal, which is distinguished by
the name of Zarapah, and which is described as resembling the camel
in its head and body, as having a long and slender neck like the
ostrich, as being much taller at the shoulders than the haunches,
and as defended by so tough a skin, as to furnish the natives with
shields that no arrow or javelin can pierce.[18]
Bornou, like other countries that approach the Equinoctial, is much
infested with different kinds of dangerous or disgusting reptiles,
especially snakes and scorpions, centipedes and toads.
Of its _beasts of burthen_ the variety is as ample as the numbers
are abundant; for the camel, the horse, the ass, and the mule,
are common in the empire.
The dog, with which the inhabitants pursue their game, appears to
be their only _domestic_ animal.
In the mountains of Tibesti, and perhaps in other parts of the empire,
the herdsmen, probably for the sake of a more easy change of pasture,
prefer a residence in tents to stationary dwellings; and those,
it seems, are not manufactured, like the tents of the Zahara, from
the camel’s hair; but are composed of the hides of cows, a more
durable and impervious covering.
Through all the empire of Bornou the same mode of _building_,
and with the difference of a greater or a smaller scale, the same
form in the plan of the houses universally prevails.—Four walls,
inclosing a square, are erected; within those walls, and parallel to
them, four other walls are also built: the ground between the walls
is then divided into different apartments, and is covered with a
roof. Thus the space within the interior walls determines the size
of the court; the space between the walls determines the width of
the apartments; and the height of the walls determines the height
of the rooms. In a large house the rooms are each about twenty feet
in length, eleven feet in height, and as many in width.
On the outside of the house, a second square or large yard, surrounded
by a wall, is usually provided for the inclosure and protection of
the cattle.[19]
Such is the general plan of a Bornou house. For the construction of
the walls the following method is constantly pursued: a trench for
the foundation being made, is filled with dry and solid materials
rammed in with force, and levelled; on these a layer of tempered
mud or clay is placed; and in this substitute for mortar a suitable
number of stones are regularly fixed. Thus with alternate layers of
clay and stones the wall proceeds; but as soon as it has reached
the height of six or seven feet, the workmen suspend its progress
for a week, that it may have time to settle, and become compact;
for which purpose they water it every day.
When the walls are finished they are neatly plaistered, both within
and without, with clay or mud, tempered with sand; for the country
furnishes no lime.
The roofs are formed of branches of the palm tree, intermixed with
brushwood; and are so constructed as at first to be waterproof;
but such is the violence of the wind and rain, that the end of the
second year is the utmost period of their brief duration.[20]
Much less attention is given to the furniture than is bestowed on
the structure of the houses; for the catalogue of the utensils is
extremely short. Among the lower classes of the inhabitants it
consists of the mats covered with a sheep-skin, upon which they
sleep; of an earthen pot; of a pan of the same materials; of two
or three wooden dishes, a couple of wooden bowls, an old carpet,
a lamp for oil, and perhaps a copper kettle.
Persons of a superior rank are also possessed of leathern cushions,
that are stuffed with wool; of several brass and copper utensils,
of a handsome carpet, and of a sort of candlesticks; for instead of
the vegetable oil which is used by the common people, they employ
the light of candles manufactured from their bees wax and the tallow
of their sheep.
Bornou is situated at the distance of a day’s journey from a river
which is called Wed-el-Gazel, from the multitude of antelopes that
feed upon its banks, and which is lost in the deep and sandy wastes
of the vast Desart of Bilma.[21]
From the symmetry of the houses, and the general resemblance which
they bear to each other, a regular arrangement of streets might,
with the utmost ease, have been given to their towns. In Bornou,
however, a different system has prevailed; for even in the capital,
the houses, straggling wide of each other, are placed without method
or rule; and the obvious propriety of giving to the principal mosque,
a central situation, exhibits the only proof of attention to general
convenience.[22]
The King’s palace, surrounded by high walls, and forming a kind
of citadel, is built, perhaps with a view to security, in a corner
of the town.[23]
Markets for the sale of provisions are opened within the city; but
for other articles, a weekly market, as in Barbary, is held without
the walls.
_£._ _s._ _d._
The common price in Bornou of a cow or a bull is
a mahaboob of Tripoli, or 0 6 0
A sheep, 0 3 0
An ostrich, 0 6 0
An antelope, 0 1 6
A camel from 6l. to 7l. 10s. or at a medium, 6 15 0
A horse from 3l. to 7l. 10s. or at a medium, 5 5 0
In general, the towns have no other defence than that which the
courage of the inhabitants affords: but the capital is surrounded
by a wall of fourteen feet in height, the foundations of which
are from eight to ten feet deep, and which seems to be built with
considerable strength. To this defence is given the additional
security of a ditch, which encompasses the whole; and care is taken,
that at sun-set the seven gates which form the communication with
the country shall be shut.[24]
The great population of Bornou is described by the indefinite and
metaphorical expression of a countless multitude.
In Fezzan the price of all things is measured by grains of gold;
and where the value is too small to be easily paid in so costly a
metal, the inhabitants have recourse to corn, as a common medium of
exchange. But in Bornou, as in Europe, the aid of inferior metals is
employed, and copper and brass (which seem to be melted together,
and to be mixed with other materials) are formed into pieces of
different weights, from an ounce to a pound, and constitute the
current species of the empire.[25]
Dominions so extensive as those of Bornou have seldom the advantage of
one uniform language; but an instance of so many different tongues,
within the limits of one empire, as are spoken in that kingdom,
and its dependencies, has still less frequently occurred, for they
are said to be more than thirty in number.
Of the language, however, which is current in the capital, and
which seems to be considered as the proper language[26] of Bornou,
the following specimen is given by the Shereef.
One is expressed by _Lakka_ Eight is expressed by _Tallóre_
Two _Endee_ Nine _L’ilkar_
Three _Nieskoo_ Ten _Meiko_
Four _Dekoo_ Eleven _Meiko Lakka_
Five _Okoo_ Twelve _Meiko Endee_
Six _Araskoo_ Thirteen _Meiko Nieskoo_
Seven _Huskoo_ Fourteen _Meiko Dekoo._
Two different _Religions_ divide the sentiments, without disturbing
the peace of the kingdom.
The ruling people profess the Mahometan faith;[27] and though the
antient Paganism of the dependent nations does not appear to subject
them to any inconvenience, a considerable part are converts to the
doctrines of the Prophet.
An elective monarchy constitutes the _Government_ of Bornou,[28] and
like the similar system of Cashna, endangers the happiness, while it
acknowledges the power of the people. On the death of the Sovereign,
the privilege of chusing among his sons, without regard to priority of
birth, a successor to his throne, is conferred by the nation on three
of the most distinguished men, whose age and character for wisdom,
are denoted by their title of Elders; and whose conduct in the State
has invested them with the public esteem. Bound by no other rule as
to their judgment or restraint, as to their will, than that which the
expressed or implied instruction of electing the most worthy may form,
they retire to the appointed place of their secret deliberation, the
avenues to which are carefully guarded by the people: and while the
contending suggestions of private interest, or a sense of the real
difficulty of chusing where judgment may easily err, and error may be
fatal to the State, keeps them in suspence, the Princes are closely
confined in separate chambers of the Palace. Their choice being made,
they proceed to the apartment of the Sovereign elect, and conduct
him, in silence, to the gloomy place in which the unburied corpse
of his father, that cannot be interred till this awful ceremony is
passed, awaits his arrival. There, the Elders point out to him the
several virtues and the several defects which marked the character
of his departed parent; and they also forcibly describe, with just
panegyric, or severe condemnation, the several measures which raised
or depressed the glory of his reign. “You see before you the end
of your _mortal_ career; the _eternal_, which succeeds to it, will
be miserable or happy in proportion as your reign shall have proved
a curse or a blessing to your people.”
From this dread scene of terrible instruction, the new Sovereign,
amidst the loud acclamations of the people, is conducted back to the
Palace, and is there invested by the electors with all the slaves,
and with two-thirds of all the lands and cattle of his father;
the remaining third being always detained as a provision for the
other children of the deceased Monarch. No sooner is the Sovereign
invested with the ensigns of Royalty, than such of his brothers as
have reached the age of manhood prostrate themselves at his feet,
and in rising press his hands to their lips—the two ceremonies
that constitute the declaration of allegiance.
If any doubt of their sincerity suggests itself to the King or to
the Elders, death or perpetual imprisonment removes the fear; but
if no suspicion arises, an establishment of lands and cattle from
the possessions of their father, together with presents of slaves
from the reigning monarch, are liberally bestowed upon them.
Often, however, the most popular, or the most ambitious of the
rejected Princes, covering his designs with close dissimulation,
and the zeal of seeming attachment, creates a powerful party; and
assured of Foreign aid, prepares, in secret, the means of successful
revolt. But, stained with such kindred blood, the sceptre of the
victorious Rebel is not lastingly secure—one revolution invites and
facilitates another; and till the slaughter of the field, the sword
of the executioner, or the knife of the assassin has left him without
a brother, the throne of the Sovereign is seldom firmly established.
Such, in the Mahometan empires of Bornou and of Cashna, is the rule
of succession to the monarchy; but the Pagan kingdoms adjoining, with
obviously less wisdom, permit the several sons of the late Sovereign,
attended by their respective partizans, to offer themselves, in
person, to the choice of the electors, and be actually present at the
decision; an imprudence that often brings with it the interference
of other States, and unites the different calamities of foreign and
intestine war.
Those of the Royal Children of Bornou who are too young to take their
share in the reserved part of their deceased father’s possessions,
are educated in the Palace till the age of maturity arrives; at which
time their respective portions of lands and cattle are assigned them.
To the four lawful wives of the late Sovereign, a separate house,
with a suitable establishment, is granted by the reigning Monarch; and
such of his numerous concubines as were not slaves, are at liberty to
return to their several friends; and, together with leave to retain
their cloaths, and all their ornaments, which are often valuable,
have free permission to marry.
In the empire of Bornou, as in all the Mahometan States, the
administration of the provinces is committed to Governors, appointed
by the Crown; and the expences of the Sovereign are partly defrayed
by his hereditary lands, and partly by taxes levied on the people.
The present Sultan, whose name is Alli, is a man of an unostentatious
plain appearance; for he seldom wears any other dress than the
common blue shirt of cotton or of silk, and the silk or muslin
turban, which form the usual dress of the country. Such, however,
is the magnificence of his seraglio, that the ladies who inhabit it
are said to be five hundred in number; and he himself is described
as the reputed father of three hundred and fifty children, of whom
three hundred are males; a disproportion which naturally suggests
the idea that the mother, preferring to the gratification of natural
affection, the joy of seeing herself the supposed parent of a future
candidate for the empire, sometimes exchanges her female child for
the male offspring of a stranger.
Equally splendid in his stables, he is said to have 500 horses for
his own use, and for that of the numerous servants of his household.
In many of the neighbouring kingdoms, the Monarch himself is the
executioner of those criminals on whom his own voice has pronounced
the sentence of death; but the Sultan of Bornou, too polished,
or too humane, to pollute his hands with the blood of his subjects,
commits the care of the execution to the Cadi, who directs his slaves
to strike off the head of the prisoner.
The _Military_ Force of the Sultan of Bornou consists in the
multitude of his horsemen; for his foot soldiers are few in number,
and are scarcely considered as contributing to the strength of the
battle.[29] The sabre, the lance, the pike, and the bow, constitute
their weapons of offence; and a shield of hides composes their
defensive armour. Fire-arms, though not entirely unknown to them,
for those with which the Merchants of Fezzan occasionally travel,
are sufficient to give them an idea of their importance and decisive
effect, are neither used nor possessed by the people of Bornou.
When the Sovereign prepares for war, and levies an army for the
purpose, he is said to have a custom, (the result of idle vanity or
of politic ostentation) of directing a date tree to be placed as a
threshold to one of the gates of his capital, and of commanding his
horsemen to enter the town one by one, that the parting of the tree
in the middle, when worn through by the trampling of the horses,
may enable him to judge of the sufficiency of their numbers, and
operate as a signal that his levy is compleat.
In their _Manners_, the people of Bornou are singularly courteous
and humane. They will not pass a stranger on the road till they
have stopped to salute him: the most violent of their quarrels
are only contests of words; and though a part of the business of
their husbandry is assigned to the women, yet, as their employment
is confined to that of dropping the seed in the furrows, and of
removing the weeds with a hoe, it has more of the amusement of
occasional occupation, than of the harshness of continued labour.
Passionately attached to the tumultuous gratifications of play, yet
unacquainted with any game but drafts, they often sit down on the
ground, and forming holes to answer the purpose of squares, supply
the place of men with dates, or the meaner substitute of stones, or
of camel’s dung. On their skill in the management of these rude
instruments of the game, they stake their gold dust, their brass
money, and even their very cloaths; and as the bye-standers on these
occasions constantly obtrude their advice, and sometimes make the
moves for the person whose success they wish, their play is usually
accompanied by that conflict of abuse, and vehemence of scolding,
which mark and terminate the sharpest of their quarrels.
Such is the amusement of the lower classes of the people; those of a
superior rank are devoted to the more difficult and more interesting
game of chess, in which they are eminently skilled.
In countries that afford without cultivation, or that give in return
for slight exertions of labour, the principal requisites of life,
few articles of export are likely to be found. Those of the Bornou
Empire consist of—
Gold Dust,[30] Ostrich Feathers,[30]
Slaves, Salt, and
Horses, Civet.
By what means the gold dust, that appears to be a principal article
of trade, is procured by the inhabitants, whether from mines in
the country, or by purchase from other nations, the Shereef has
not explained. But of their mode of obtaining the Slaves, which
constitute another extensive branch of their commerce, he gives the
following account:
South East of Bornou, at the distance of about twenty days travelling,
and separated from it by several small desarts, is situated an
extensive kingdom of the name of Begarmee, the inhabitants of which
are rigid Mahometans, and though perfectly black in their complexions,
are not of the Negro cast. Beyond this kingdom to the East are several
tribes of Negros, idolaters in their religion, savage in their
manners, and accustomed, it is said, to feed on human flesh. They
are called the Kardee, the Serrowah, the Showva, the Battah, and the
Mulgui. These nations the Begarmeese, who fight on horseback, and
are great warriors, annually invade; and when they have taken as many
prisoners as the opportunity affords, or their purpose may require,
they drive the captives, like cattle, to Begarmee. It is said that
if any of them, weakened by age, or exhausted by fatigue, happen
to linger in their pace, one of the horsemen seizes on the oldest,
and cutting off his arm, uses it as a club to drive on the rest.
From Begarmee they are sent to Bornou,[31] where they are sold at
a low price; and from thence many of them are conveyed to Fezzan,
where they generally embrace the Musselman faith, and are afterwards
exported by the way of Tripoli to different parts of the Levant.
Such is the mode of obtaining the greatest part of the slaves who
are annually sold in Bornou; but as several of the provinces of
the empire are inhabited by Negros, their insurrections, real or
pretended, afford to the Sovereign an opportunity of increasing his
income by their sale.
A more politic and more effectual mode of aiding his finances is
fruitlessly offered by the salt lakes of the Province of Domboo:
for, as the great Empire of Cashna is entirely destitute of salt, and
none is found in the dominions of the Negros, the sole possession of
this article might insure to the King of Bornou a constant and ample
revenue of the best kind, a revenue collected from the subjects
of Foreign States; but such is the prevalence of antient custom
over the obvious suggestions of policy, that the people of Agadez,
a Province of the Cashna Empire, are annually permitted to load their
immense caravans with the salt of Bornou, and to engross the profits
of this invaluable trade. The salt is collected on the shores of the
several lakes which produce it, and the only acknowledgement that the
Merchants of Agadez give in return for the article, is the trifling
price which they pay in brass and copper (the currency of Bornou)
to the neighbouring peasants.
The civet, which forms another article of the export trade of Bornou,
and the greatest part of which is sent to the Negro States who
inhabit far to the South, is obtained from a species of wild cat
that is common in the woods of Bornou and of Cashna.
This animal is taken alive in a trap prepared for the purpose,
is placed in a cage, and is strongly irritated till a copious
perspiration is produced. Its sweat, and especially the moisture
that appears upon the tail, is then scraped off, is preserved in
a bladder, and constitutes the much valued perfume. After a short
interval the operation is renewed, and is repeated, from time to
time, till at the end of twelve or fourteen days the animal dies of
the fatigue and continual torment. The quantity obtained from one
cat is generally about half an ounce.
Of _Manufactures_, none for exportation are furnished by the people
of Bornou; but the Shereef remarks that, for their own consumption,
they fabricate from the iron ore of their country, though with little
skill, such slight tools as their husbandry requires.[32]
In return for their exports, they receive the following goods:
Copper and Brass, which are brought to them from Tripoli, by the way
of Fezzan, and which, as already mentioned, are used as the current
species of Bornou;
Imperial Dollars, which are also brought to them from Tripoli by
the Merchants of Fezzan, and are converted by their own artists into
rings and bracelets for their women;
Red Woollen Caps, which are worn under the turban;
Check Linens,
Light coarse Woollen Cloths,
Baize,
Barakans,
Small Turkey Carpets,
Plain Mesurata Carpets.
~CHAPTER VII.~
_Rout from Mourzouk to Cashna — Boundaries of the Empire — Its
Language, Currency, and Trade._
* * * * *
Equally connected by their commerce with Cashna and Bornou, the
Fezzanners dispatch to the former as well as to the latter, and always
at the same season, an annual caravan. From Mourzouk, their capital,
which they leave at the close of October, they take their course
to the South South West, and proceed to the Province of Hiatts,
the most barren, and the worst inhabited district of their country.
Five of the fourteen days which are requisite for this part of
their rout, are consumed in the passage of a sandy desart, in which
their usual expedient of covering their goat skins, both within and
without, with a resinous substance, prevents but imperfectly the
dreaded evaporation of their water.
From the Province of Hiatts they cross the low mountains of Eyré,
which separate the Kingdom of Fezzan from the vast Empire of Cashna;
and leaving to their right the small river which flows from these
hills, and is lost in the deep sands of a neighbouring desart, they
enter a wide heath, uninhabited, but not destitute of water. The
sixth day conducts them from this extended solitude to the long
desired refreshments of the Town of Ganatt, where the two next days
are devoted to repose.
From thence, by a march of nineteen days, during six of which they
are immersed in the heats of a thirsty desart, they pass on to the
Town of Assouda, which offers them equal refreshments with Ganatt,
and equally suspends their journey.
On leaving Assouda, they traverse a delightful country, as fertile as
it is numerously peopled; and while the exhilarating sight of Indian
corn and of frequent herds of cattle accompanies and chears their
passage, the eighth day introduces them to the large and populous
City of Agadez, the capital of an extensive province.
Distinguished as the most commercial of all the towns of Cashna,
and, like Assouda and Ganatt, inhabited by Mahometans alone,
Agadez naturally attracts the peculiar attention of the Merchants
of Fezzan. Many of them proceed no further; but the greatest part,
committing to their Agents the care of the slaves, cotton, and senna,
which they purchase in the course of a ten days residence, continue
their journey to the South.
In this manner, if the camels are compleatly loaded, seven and
forty days, exclusive of those which are allotted to refreshment and
necessary rest, are employed in travelling from Mourzouk to Agadez.
At the end of three days more, amidst fields that are enriched with
the luxuriant growth of Indian corn, and pastures that are covered
with multitudes of cows, and with flocks of sheep and goats, the
Traveller reaches the small Town of Begzam; from which, through
a country of herdsmen, whose dwellings are in tents of hides,
the second day conducts him to the Town of Tegomáh. There, as
he surveys the stoney, uninhabited, desolate hills that form the
chearless prospect before him, he casts a regretful eye on those
verdant scenes that surrounded him the day before. Employed for two
days in the passage of these dreary heights, he descends on the
third to a deep and scorching sand, from which he emerges at the
approach of the fifth evening, and entering a beautiful country,
as pleasingly diversified with the natural beauties of hills and
vales and woods, as with the rich rewards of the husbandman’s and
the shepherd’s toil, he arrives in seven days more at the City
of Cashna, the capital of the empire of which it bears the name,
and the usual residence of its powerful Sultan.
The country to which the Geographers of Europe have given the name of
Nigritia, is called by the Arabs Soudán, and by the natives Aafnou,
two words of similar import, that, like the European appellation,
express the land of the Blacks, and like that too, are applied
to a part only of the region to which their meaning so obviously
belongs.—Yet, even in this limited sense, the word Soudán is often
variously employed; for while some of the Africans restrict it to
the Empire of Cashna, which is situated to the North of the Niger,
others extend it, with indefinite comprehension, to the Negro States
on the South of the river, and applying it as a means of expressing
the extended rule and transcendant power of the Emperor of Cashna,
call him, with extravagant compliment, the Sultan of all Soudán.
His real sovereignty is bounded, on the North, by the mountains of
Eyré, and by one of those districts of the great Zahara, that furnish
no means of useful property or available dominion; on the South,
by the Niger; and on the East, by the Kingdom of Zamphara and the
Empire of Bornou. Its western limit is not described by the Shereef;
nor is any thing said of the Capital, except that it is situated
to the North of the Niger, at the distance of five days journey,
and that its buildings resemble those of Bornou.
The observations which introduced the account of Bornou, have already
announced the remarkable similarity, as well with respect to climate,
soil, and natural productions, as with regard to the colour, genius,
religion, and political institutions of the people, that prevails
between that powerful State and its sister Kingdom of Cashna.
The _rains_, indeed, are less violent than those of Bornou. It
exclusively furnishes the Bishnah, a species of Indian corn that
differs from the gamphúly, in the blended colours of red and white
which distinguish its grain. Its monkeys and parrots (animals but
seldom seen in Bornou) are numerous, and of various species. The
meridian of its capital is considered as a western limit, in that
parallel of latitude, to the vegetation of grapes and the breed
of camels; for between Cashna and the Atlantic few camels are
bred, and no grapes will grow. The manners of the common people
are less courteous in Cashna than in Bornou, and their games are
less expressive of reflection; for their favourite play consists
in tossing up four small sticks, and counting those that cross each
other, as so many points of the number that constitutes the game. But
the circumstances of chief discrimination between the empires are,
those of language, currency, and certain articles of commerce.
Of the difference between the _Languages_ of Bornou and of Cashna,
the following specimen is given by the Shereef.
In the Language of Bornou
1 _is expressed by_ Lakkah
2 Endee
3 Nieskoo
4 Dekoo
5 Okoo
6 Araskoo
7 Huskoo
8 Tallóre
9 L’ilkar
10 Meikoo
11 Meiko Lakkah
12 Meiko Endee
13 Meiko Nieskoo
14 Meikoo Dekoo
In the Language of Cashna
1 _is expressed by_ Deiyah
2 Beeyou
3 Okoo
4 Foodoo
5 Beát
6 Sheedah
7 Bookai
8 Tàkoos
9 Tarráh
10 Goumah
11 Goumah sha Deiyah
12 Goumah sha Beeyou
13 Goumah sha Okoo
14 Goumah sha Foodoo
The _Currency_ of Cashna, like that of the Negro States to the South
of the Niger, is composed of those small shells that are known to
Europeans and to the Blacks themselves by the name of Cowries,
and to the Arabs by the appellation of Hueddah.—Cardie, which
is another term for this species of Negro money, and the specific
meaning of which the Shereef has neglected to explain, is said to
be given to it by the idolatrous tribes alone; a circumstance that
seems to indicate superstitious attachment.—Of these shells, 2,500
are estimated in Cashna as equal in value to a mitkal of Fezzan,
which is worth about 675 piastres of Tripoli, or ten shillings and
three half-pence sterling.
Among the few circumstances which characterize the _Trade_ of Cashna,
as distinguished from that of Bornou, the most remarkable is, that
the Merchants of the _former_ kingdom are the sole carriers, to other
nations, of a scarce and most valuable commodity, which is only to be
obtained from the inhabitants of the _latter_. For though the salt of
Bornou supplies the consumption of Cashna, and of the Negro Kingdoms
to the South, yet its owners have abandoned to the commercial activity
of the Merchants of Agadez, the whole of that profitable trade.
The lakes, on the dreary shores of which this scarce article of
African luxury is found, are separated from Agadez by a march of
five and forty days, and are encompassed on all sides by the sands
of the vast Desart of Bilma, where the ardent heat of a flaming sky
is returned with double fierceness by the surface of the burning
soil. A thousand camels, bred and maintained for the purpose, are
said to compose the caravan which annually explores, in the savage
wilderness, the long line of this adventurous journey. Perilous,
however, and full of hardships as their labour is, the Merchants
find an ample recompence in the profits of their commerce; for while
the wretched villagers who inhabit the neighbourhood of the lakes,
and collect the salt that congeals upon the shores, are contented
to receive, or obliged to accept a scanty price, the value that the
Merchants obtain in the various markets of Cashna, of Tombuctou,
and of the countries to the South of the Niger, is suited to the
high estimation in which the article is held.
Attentive in this manner to the means of profiting by the produce of
a neighbouring country, the people of Agadez are equally anxious to
avail themselves of the commodities that are furnished by their own;
for knowing the superior quality of the senna which grows upon their
mountains, they demand and receive from the Merchants of Fezzan a
proportionable price.
The senna of Agadez is valued in Tripoli at fourteen or fifteen
mahaboobs, or from 4l. 4s. to 4l. 10s. per hundred weight, while
that of Tibesti is worth no more than from nine to ten mahaboobs,
or from 2l. 14s. to 3l. sterling. From Tripoli the senna is exported
to Turkey, Leghorn, and Marseilles.
Of the other articles of sale which the extensive Empire of Cashna
affords, the principal are—