_ACROSS THE SENEGAL BASIN._
The further Park proceeded east the drier and purer became the climate,
and the more interesting the landscape. In Kajaaga, lying between the
Falemé and the Senegal, he found a country everywhere interspersed
with a pleasing variety of hills and valleys, to which the serpentine
windings of the Senegal descending from the rocky heights gave both
picturesqueness and beauty. The inhabitants, unlike the Fulahs, were
jet black in complexion, resembling in this respect the Joloffs nearer
the coast.
The people of Kajaaga are known as Serawulies, and are noted for their
keen trading propensities--at this time chiefly directed towards
supplying slaves to the British factories on the Gambia.
On the 24th December Park entered Joag, the western frontier town, and
was there hospitably received by the chief man of the place, officially
known as Dooty or Duté. The town was surrounded by a high mud wall, as
was also every individual private establishment. Though the headman and
the principal inhabitants were Mohammedans, it appeared that the great
mass of the people were still Pagans, as was sufficiently shown by
the nature of their wild night revelries--“the ladies in their dances
vying with each other in displaying the most voluptuous movements
imaginable.”
Park’s trials were now about to commence. During the night a number
of horsemen arrived, and after talking with the host, took up their
quarters in the Palaver House beside the traveller himself. Thinking
the latter was asleep, one of them attempted to steal his gun, but
finding he could not effect his purpose undiscovered, he desisted from
the attempt. This, however, was but a foretaste of coming trouble. It
was easy to see that Johnson was growing very uneasy at the aspect of
affairs; not without cause either, as very soon became evident. Two of
Park’s companions, who had been at a dance in a neighbouring village,
came in with the news that a party of the king’s horsemen had been
heard inquiring if the white man had passed, and on being told that he
was at Joag, had immediately galloped off in that direction.
Even while they were speaking the horsemen arrived, and next moment
Park found himself surrounded by some twenty soldiers, each carrying a
musket. Resistance was useless; he could only wait in much anxiety to
hear his fate.
At length, after a brief interval, a member of the party, who was
loaded with an enormous number of charms to ward off all forms of evil,
opened their business in a long harangue. The white man, they said,
had violated the laws of the country by entering it without paying
the customary duties, and had accordingly forfeited everything he
possessed. The soldiers had orders to take him to the king by force if
necessary.
Conceive the position Park was now in. Utter ruin stared him in the
face, and the collapse of all his cherished schemes. To fight was out
of the question. All he could do was to try to gain a little time to
think matters out, and seek the advice of his companions and host.
They were unanimous in declaring that it would be disastrous to him to
accompany the horsemen. A long argument with the spokesman ensued, by
dint of which, and the present of Almami’s five drachms of gold, the
messenger became somewhat mollified.
They demanded, however, to be shown the baggage, from which they
helped themselves to whatever they happened to fancy; and having thus
despoiled their victim of half his goods, they left him to his gloomy
reflections and an indifferent supper after a day of fast.
Thus reduced in his already scanty resources, and his power to travel
correspondingly limited, Park found but Job’s comforters in his
companions. One and all they urged him to turn back from his hopeless
task. Johnson, especially, laughed at the very idea of proceeding
further, miserably provided as they were. But the spirit of the
leader rose superior to his misfortunes, and he never for a moment
admitted the idea of retreat. While strength remained there could be no
flinching from his task. Yet his thoughts were gloomy enough that night
as he sat reviewing his situation through the hours of darkness by
the side of a smouldering fire. Morning brought no improvement to his
position. The scanty supper was followed by no breakfast.
What few articles still remained dared not be produced, lest they
too should be plundered. It was resolved, therefore, to pass the day
without food, trusting to Providence for a stray meal sooner or later.
As the day wore on the pangs of hunger began to make themselves felt.
To allay this in some measure the unfortunate travellers chewed straws,
a make-believe yielding as scant comfort as it did sustenance. But
Park’s faith in God was not belied. Towards evening an old female slave
passed by with a basket on her head, and struck by his woe-begone,
famished look, she asked him if he had had his dinner. Thinking she
spoke in jest, he did not reply. Not so his boy Demba, who volubly, and
with the eloquence of suffering, told the story of their misfortunes
and their needs. In a moment the old woman had her basket on the
ground, and a plentiful supply of ground-nuts was placed in their
hands, the donor thereafter marching away without waiting for a word of
thanks.
Further good fortune was now in store for them. It happened that Demba
Sego Jalla, the Mandingo king of Kasson further east, had sent his
nephew to the King of Kajaaga to try to arrange some disputes which
were threatening to lead to war. The embassy, however, had met with no
success. Returning homeward, the king’s nephew had heard of there being
a white man at Joag who was desirous of visiting Kasson, and curiosity
brought him to see the stranger. On hearing Park’s story, the young
noble offered him his protection all the way--an offer that was eagerly
and gratefully accepted.
Thus guided and protected, Park set out for Kasson on the 27th. Some
distance on the way Johnson, in spite of his life in Jamaica and his
seven years’ residence in England, showed that he still was saturated
with the superstitious ideas of his youth by producing a white chicken
and tying it by the leg to a particular tree as an offering to the
spirits of the woods. The same belief in nature spirits has already
been alluded to in a previous chapter. Anthropologists tell us that it
must at one time have been universal, and evidences of it are found
not only in the charming legends of the Greeks, with their nymphs of
meadow, grove, and spring, and dryads growing with the oaks and pines,
but also in our own Anglo-Saxon words.
In the evening the party safely arrived at Sami, on the banks of the
Senegal. Park describes the sister river to the Gambia as being at this
point a beautiful but shallow stream, flowing slowly over a bed of
sand and gravel. The banks are high and covered with verdure, and are
backed by an open cultivated country, the distant hills of Felow and
Bambuk adding an additional beauty to the landscape. A few miles below
Sami was the former French trading station of St. Joseph, founded by
Sieur Brue, but abandoned in the time of Park. Next morning the party
proceeded a little further up the river to Kayi, where they crossed
with no small difficulty and danger, the animals being swum over, and
the baggage conveyed in a miserable canoe.
While Park was crossing by the same means the canoe was capsized by an
injudicious movement on the part of his protector, but being near the
bank, no harm came of it, and a second attempt landed him safely in the
country of Kasson.
The young noble, having once brought the white traveller into his
own country, soon showed that no generous motives had prompted his
assistance. Unhesitatingly he demanded a handsome present. Park, seeing
that it was useless either to upbraid or to complain, with a heavy
heart made the necessary selection from his scanty stock of goods, and
presented the offering forthwith.
On the evening of the 29th the party reached Tisi, where Park was
lodged with his protector’s father, Tiggity Sego, the head man of the
place. Next morning a slave having run away, the use of Park’s horse
was asked for the chase, to which he “readily consented, and in about
an hour they all returned with the slave, who was severely flogged, and
afterwards put in irons.”
Park was detained for several days at Tisi, while his horse was further
used by his host on a more extended mission. During his enforced
detention our traveller had an opportunity of seeing a somewhat more
drastic method of propagating Islam than any he had yet witnessed. An
embassy of ten persons arrived from the King of Futa Larra, a country
to the west of Bondou, and announced to the assembled inhabitants that
unless all the people of Kasson embraced the Mohammedan religion, and
evinced their conversion by saying solemn public prayers, he, the King
of Futa Larra, would certainly join his arms to those of Kajaaga.
Such a coalition would have been disastrous to Kasson, and without a
moment’s hesitation the conversion was agreed to. Accordingly, one and
all did as was desired, offering up solemn prayers in token that they
were no longer Pagans, but followers of Mohammed.
It was not till the 8th of January 1796 that Demba Sego, the young
noble, returned with the traveller’s horse, whereupon Park, impatient
at the delay, declared that he could spend no more time at Tisi, and
must proceed to the capital. He was informed he could not do so until
he had paid the customary trading duties. Some amber and tobacco were
offered, but they were laid aside as totally inadequate for a present
to a man of Tiggity Sego’s importance. Once more Park had to submit to
seeing his baggage ransacked. One-half he had already lost at Joag, and
now half of what remained had to be similarly sacrificed to satisfy
the rapacity of his tormentors.
Thus despoiled, Park was permitted to depart next morning. His course,
which so far had been E.N.E., was now E.S.E. In the afternoon the party
arrived at the village of Jumbo, the birthplace of the blacksmith who
had faithfully accompanied Park from Pisania. The entire population
turned out to welcome back their townsman with dance and songs.
The poor fellow’s meeting with his blind mother was most touching.
Unable to see him, she stretched out her arms to welcome him, and
after eagerly satisfying herself by touch of face and hands that it
was indeed her son who had returned, she gave wild expression to her
delight. From which Park concludes, “that whatever differences there
are between the Negro and the European in the conformation of the nose
and the colour of the skin, there is none in the genuine sympathies and
characteristic feelings of our common nature.”
This affectionate welcome over, the villagers had time to turn their
attention to the white man. At first they looked or affected to look
upon him as a being dropped from the clouds, the women and children
shrinking from him half in fear, half in awe. On being assured by their
countryman that he was a good-tempered and inoffensive creature, they
gradually laid aside their misgivings, and began to feel the texture of
his clothes, and assure themselves that he was indeed cast in much the
same mould as themselves. Still his slightest movement was sufficient
to arouse their tremors and make them scamper off like a flock of sheep
which had valorously marched up to view a sleeping dog.
Next day Park continued his journey to a place called Sulu, where he
had an order from Dr. Laidley on a slatee for the value of five slaves.
Hardly had he been hospitably received by Dr. Laidley’s client, when
messengers arrived from Kuniakary with orders that he should proceed at
once to the king. Thither accordingly he journeyed, arriving late in
the evening.
The rule of “like master, like man” did not hold good in relation to
the King of Kasson and such of his subordinates as Park so far had come
in contact with. His reception by one whose “success in war and the
mildness of his behaviour in times of peace had much endeared him to
his subjects,” was an agreeable variation to the hard fate which had
lately dogged his footsteps. The king was not only satisfied with his
visitor’s story and his poor present, but promised him every assistance
in his power. He warned him, however, that the road to Bambarra was
for the time being rendered extremely dangerous, if not altogether
impassable, by the outbreak of war between that state and the adjoining
one of Kaarta. In the hope of the arrival of more reassuring news Park
waited four days, staying the while with the Sulu slatee, from whom
he received gold dust to the value of three slaves. This transaction
coming to the ears of the king, Park was compelled to add considerably
to the value of his former present.
The country around Sulu presented an enchanting prospect of simple
rural plenty, while the scenery surpassed in richness and variety any
Park had yet seen. The density of the population was illustrated by
the fact that the King of Kasson could raise within sound of his great
war drum an army of four thousand fighting men. The one drawback to
the amenities of the place was the numerous bands of wolves and hyenas
which nightly attacked the cattle, and were only to be driven off by
organised parties of men with fires and torches.
From Sulu, Park proceeded S.E. up the rocky valley of the Kriko,
meeting everywhere swarms of people leaving the expected seat of war in
Kaarta.
On the 8th he left the charming valley of the Kriko, and travelled
over a rough stony country to the ridge of hills which forms the
boundary-line between Kasson and Kaarta. Thence his way lay down
a stony precipitous path into the dried-up bed of a stream, whose
overarching trees afforded to the wayfarer a grateful shade. Emerging
from this romantic glen, the party found itself on the level sandy
plains of Kaarta, having the hilly ranges of Fuludu on their right.
On the third day from Sulu, Park witnessed a new method of consulting
the Oracle as to the fate in store for them on the road. To his great
alarm, their guide, who was a Mohammedan in name and a Pagan at heart,
came to an abrupt standstill in a dark lonely part of a wood. Taking a
hollow piece of bamboo he whistled very loud three times. Thereafter
he dismounted, laid his spear across the pathway, and again whistled
thrice. For a short time he listened as if for an answer, and receiving
none, told Park that now they might proceed, for the way was clear of
danger.
Next day the superstitious ideas cherished by the natives were further
illustrated. Park had wandered some distance from his party, when, just
as he reached the brow of a slight eminence, a couple of negro horsemen
galloped from the bushes. Immediately on seeing each other Park and
the negroes alike came to an abrupt stop, each equally filled with
alarm. The white man was the first to regain his presence of mind, and
concluding that advance was his safer course, he moved towards them.
This was too much for the terrified natives, who thought they saw in
the strange figure before them some terrible spirit. One of them, with
a wild look of horror, turned and fled; the other, paralysed beyond
action, could only cover his eyes and mutter his prayers. In this
position he would have remained stationary, but for the instinct of his
horse, which led him to follow his companion.
On the afternoon of the 12th, Park and his party entered the capital of
Kaarta. On announcing their arrival to the king, a messenger was sent
to convey them to a hut and protect them from the inquisitive crowd. In
carrying out the latter part of his commission the messenger signally
failed, and for the rest of the afternoon our explorer remained on
exhibition, the hut being filled and emptied thirteen times by an
admiring and curious mob.
In the evening his majesty gave Park an audience, seated on a clay
divan raised a couple of feet above the floor, and covered with a
leopard’s skin, the sign of authority. The way to the throne lay
through a long lane formed by a huge crowd of fighting men on the one
side, and of women and children on the other.
The reception of the stranger was highly encouraging. He was told,
however, that he had chosen a most inopportune time to attempt to pass
into Bambarra, and he was advised to return to Kasson, and there await
the end of the war just commencing. That, however, meant the loss of
the dry season, and Park dreaded the thought of spending the rainy
season in the interior. “These considerations, and the aversion I felt
at the idea of returning without having made a greater progress in
discovery, made me determined to go forward.”
Hearing this determination, the king showed his kindly intentions
by pointing out that there was another--though a more dangerous and
circuitous route--to Bambarra, namely, that by way of Ludamar, an Arab
district to the north-west of Kaarta. At the same time he promised to
give the white man guides for this route as far as Jarra, his frontier
town. With this offer Park only too gladly closed.
Before the audience ended a horseman arrived in foaming haste to
announce that the Bambarra army had left Fuludu for Kaarta.
Next morning, after Park had sent his horse-pistols and holsters as a
present to his royal host, a large escort was provided to protect and
lead him on his way to Ludamar.