In the wantonness of cruelty, it was a common practice with the Fantees

to attack the canoes of white men, drag them on shore, make them carry

the great drum on the tops of their heads, flog them, compel them to pay

ransom, &c. Mr. Swanzy himself, if his own confession may be entitled to

credit, has had the honour, in common with others, of undergoing one or

both operations.[152]

And what are the people of the sea coast, now. I have sat in council at

Cape Coast Castle to arbitrate upon a business relating to Mr.

Blinkarn[153], or Blenkairn, the governor of Apollonia fort, and the

insignificant king of that country; wherein his black majesty, by

threats and insults the most alarming, the most aggravating, extorted

from that gentleman gold and merchandize, exceeding I believe the value

of thirty or forty ounces? And what redress did he obtain? What were the

steps taken to vindicate the honour and inviolability of the British

flag? and lastly, what expedient was resorted to, to check the cupidity

of the petty tyrant on future occasions, and secure the person and

property of this officer from fresh indignities, or the outrages

resistance might bring on his head? These are questions which I, of

course, must answer; _None_[154]! No, not a shadow even of consolation;

but on the contrary, the affected dignity of these legislators having,

perhaps, in contemplation that aspect which was necessary to give

currency to the pecuniary grant of the government, and carry weight in

Downing Street, at the Treasury, or before Parliament, induced its award

so far in favour of the princely robber, that it suggested the necessity

of _censuring the conduct of Mr. Blenkairn_ for having complied with the

demand; as if his loss and the predicament he stood in were not severe

enough, or that he durst have expostulated with the tyrant. This

gentleman made a long stay at head-quarters, and from what I could

learn, he was placed in that critical situation which created a dread at

the thought of returning to the dominions of a despot, who to renew the

expression, had as great, or a greater share in the government of a

British castle than himself, or the Company he represented. Yet it would

seem to have been instilled in the public mind, that the government

there enjoyed power and influence, and that empire belonged to us on the

shores of that continent. The _notes_ alone might suffice to prove that

a veil has hitherto concealed from public observation the actual state

of things as they lately existed. But setting those deeds aside, I

assert, in positive terms, that the Company were never entitled to any

rank as territorial rulers; for they never enjoyed jurisdiction over an

inch of ground upon the continent, if we except those inches

circumscribed by the walls of the castles; to which, as we have seen,

their titles were frequently contested by the maritime towns, and which

they at all times held in insecurity, notwithstanding they paid annual,

quarterly, or monthly tributes, or presents (call them by either term)

to purchase that respect which they were never able to command for their

sovereign’s flag; whether from incompetence or the inadequacy of the

funds at their disposal or not. If any trifling exception deserves to be

registered against this sweeping clause, it is simply this; that the

invasion of Fantee, by the king, and the extirpation or expatriation of

its tribes by the armies of Ashantee in 1807, and subsequently, opened,

as it might seem, a field for the scope of ambition, feeble and

dishonourable as it was, upon the face of the treaty, whereby the title

of the conqueror was acceded to and formally acknowledged; violated,

acknowledged again; violated during the government of Mr. Smith, and

acknowledged once more by his nephew at Coomassy, in 1817.

The political aspect of Cape Coast, after the great invasion of 1807,

and other subsequent movements, with a powerful sovereign, now the liege

monarch, in the rear, and the European castles in the van; the people

reduced, as we see, to the shadow of their former strength, in course of

time naturally threw them to a certain degree into our arms, for that

protection which they knew we could at all times _purchase_ by

negotiation: hence although tribute had been paid over and over again,

they were encouraged to resist the demand _exactly as I landed in the

country_, purposely and sinisterly, as it did appear, to prevent my

journey to court, without awakening my just suspicions; or to gain time

for the climate and disappointed hopes to work their baneful effects on

my constitution. It must be observed, however, that linked as the

interest of blacks and whites may seem to have been in political

feelings, the former, in some towns, could never be brought to forget

the sway they heretofore enjoyed over the councils of the chief

establishments; accordingly we find them, enfeebled as they were,

lording it in the town, compelling the garrison at Cape Coast to seek

safety behind their walls; where they remained shut up, upon an

insignificant quarrel about a man who refused to pay his debts. The

appeal, as usual, was to arms, and some fell in the conflict[155].

As another proof how limited this dependence was, the governors of forts

were never, at any time, able to prevent those horrid systems of murder

and sacrifice connected with the superstitious rituals of the barbarous

pagan religions. I have known many unhappy victims to water the earth

with their blood within gunshot of the walls of castles. At Accra, two

women and as many men were butchered, with every aggravating

circumstance, directly under the ramparts; and all that could be

employed, persuasion, was urged by the governor (the late Mr. Gordon) to

no purpose. At Tantum, during the government of the late Mr. Adamson,

the same class of murders were continually practised with impunity; the

same at Apollonia, Dixcove, Succondee, and Chamah. The only degree of

decency observed at Cape Coast (and that but latterly,) was to compel

the natives to practise their odious massacres at a distance from

observation. Rather than adopt a system of moral and religious policy

which might be found to interfere with long established interests;

rather than pursue maxims of humanity supported by good example; the

people have purposely, I am justified in saying, been suffered to

practise, among other vices, these diabolical tragedies in open day, and

in open spots; or in their houses, and in “the bush.” I should disgust

my readers of the tender sex were I to relate more of the depraved

propensities of these untutored people; suffice it to say generally,

that they inherit all the vice, and much of the infirmity of human

nature; all the evil affections or passions of the whites; all the

malignant and brutal inclinations of savages; and none of those

refinements which do honour to the human heart and understanding. If

this is not a fair picture, let who will contradict it. The humane, the

charitable, and religious in parliament, heretofore used their efforts,

to induce the inculcation of a system of education among the natives;

whereby these unhappy propensities might ultimately be corrected, and

the people enlightened by scriptural and other knowledge. The liberal

vote of £5,000 per annum, in addition to the former grant, was carried

in the House of Commons, expressly to promote that desirable object, in

association with the views anticipated by government when His Majesty

was graciously pleased to honour me with the appointment of consul at

the court of Ashantee.

Neither the Dutch, the Danes, nor ourselves, can claim merit for having

ameliorated the heart of the Gold Coast African, or even softened the

barbarous asperity of his nature. But, as may regard recent improvements

in the morals of men, in that country, during the administration of his

excellency, the late Sir Charles M‘Carthy, they are out of the question;

for with the means at his disposal, over a people so greatly reduced in

strength, and as regards the serious interest taken by government in

promoting knowledge, spreading civilization along the coast, and in

short encouraging the prosperity of those colonies by means, which to

them seemed reasonable, advantageous, and promising; there can be no

doubt that some, perhaps many, of the evils I have described to have

existed in my time, were rooted out; for power must exact obedience, and

as a tribute to the memory of Sir Charles, I will say, that few men knew

better than he did how to regulate it, and fewer possessed more ability

or inclination to temper it with indulgence towards the feelings and

interests of those who were dependent upon him.

The Dutch have suffered from the villainous disposition of the people,

both in former and recent years; perhaps, in some instances,

proportionately with ourselves. It is but a short period back, when the

natives of El Mina rose upon their chief governor Hogenboom, (I think

the name was) the predecessor of President Oldenburgh; chased him into

his garden, on the banks of the Salt River, and there murdered him in a

barbarous manner. At Eguira, many years back, it is true, they and their

fort were blown up together into the air. In the Anteese country, at

Adoom, Abocroe, Axim, Accoda, Boutry, Shamah, and other lands in the

west, they have occasionally borne their share of the calamities;

whether they originated in their own mismanagement, or from the natural

fraud, turbulence, and ferocity of the tribes of those parts.

At Succondee, where we are still established, the Anteese negroes, in

former times, burnt our fort, massacred the governor and his garrison,

and plundered the Company’s warehouses, private property and all.

See what Bosman relates of the Adomese negroes, and others inhabiting

the banks of the Praâ or Chamah River, at its outlet in the gulf; for it

is a fair specimen of what they would be, in common with the Ashantees,

and Dahomans at least, if they had the same power as those nations.

“Anqua, the king,” he says, “having, in an engagement, taken five of his

principal Anteese enemies prisoners, he wounded them all over, after

which, with a more than brutal fury, he satiated, though not tired

himself, by sucking their blood at their gaping wounds; but bearing a

more than ordinary grudge against one of them, he caused him to be laid

bound at his feet, and his body to be pierced with hot irons, gathering

the blood that issued from him in a vessel, one half of which he drank

and offered up the rest unto his God.” On another occasion he put to

death one of his wives and a slave, drinking their blood also, as was

his usual practice with his enemies.

At Commenda itself, now the dirty little mass of fishermen’s huts, where

originated (through the insolence of the inhabitants) the existing

quarrel with the king of Ashantee, the people formerly were as turbulent

as they are still, (or were in my time) insolent and despicable: the

Dutch themselves can bear testimony to it. In the early days of which I

speak, and since also, they attacked the fort of that nation from the

tops of their houses, as Cape Coast itself was insulted by them of late

years. The action, on one occasion, lasted five hours during the night,

and although they failed in their object, yet they succeeded in

intercepting a reinforcement, as they landed on the beach, and cut their

throats. The treacherous chief gunner, in the service of the Dutch,

while the massacre was taking place within reach of the cannon, had

nailed up the touch-holes of the pieces, and thereby prevented them

giving any assistance to their comrades, whose slaughter they were

compelled to witness in silence.

Coming eastward to the Fantee country, the same writer says, and he

truly says it, that the English were so horribly plagued by these

people, that they were sometimes confined to their fort and not

permitted to stir out. And if the negroes disliked the governor of the

fort, they made no more to do, than send him packing back to Cape Coast

in a canoe, in contempt; and which, so far from being able to resent, we

were compelled to make peace by a present.

Christiansburg itself, the chief settlement of the Danes, and one of the

best fortifications on the Guinea coast, was once actually taken from

them by the negroes of the leeward coast; and they entirely gutted it of

its stores and property; nor was the castle again restored until the

Danes condescended to send a handsome present to the king of Aquamboe.

In later days the disorders have raged in a moderate equal proportion:

many instances could be deduced to prove, that those tribes from whom we

might have had reason to hope for a greater degree of friendship, and in

whom from local interests, we had a right to expect a greater share of

honesty and attachment, have been the very parties who have wantonly

triumphed in sedition, insult, and knavery.

But, our relations on the Guinea Coast, I am inclined to think, have

never been properly understood; and yet Meredith, a servant of the

company, and who is comparatively a very modern author, has in some way

been suffered to betray the secret: he says, “It may be necessary to

remark that we appear to claim no _right_ of conquest in Africa, as far

as it respects the natives; the company pay _ground rent_ and _water

custom_ at most of their settlements. The people are regulated by their

own laws and customs and will not submit to ours. When they agree to any

laws, between the whites and themselves, they generally break them, if

they operate against the interest of the blacks. The forts have been

maintained for the purposes of trade only; and to enforce laws is

attended with much difficulty, expense, and risk, consequently it is

prudent to avoid hostilities, if they can any way decently be avoided.”

What can be clearer than this? If it is now the object of the

legislature to establish a sovereign controul on the Gold Coast, it

would probably be adviseable in the first instance, to purchase the

Dutch and Danish settlements; then, by a very _different_ kind of

alliance than that which was effected, carry the war to the

neighbourhood of the metropolis.

The connection existing, in my time, between the whites and the natives

of the maritime towns, but chiefly Cape Coast Castle, was indeed in all

matters concerning the inland people, a pure and intimate association of

interest with those of the Coast; having for its object, as Mr. Bowdich

justly remarked, an united effort to profit by the ignorance of the

unsuspecting trader of the interior. I have conversed with several of

the Company’s servants, upon the impolicy, as well as injustice of such

a system; and the usual reply was, “the Governor conducts his trade upon

the same principle as we do, for it has existed time out of memory, and

were we to set our faces against it our goods might remain on hand for

ever, as the town brokers, upon whom we depend to bring us trade, would

give the preference to another, who would comply with established

regulations.” Our neighbours, the Dutch, wisely protect the interest of

the foreign trader, and thereby guarantee their own; the consequence is,

that they enjoy a proportionate mercantile, as well as political

confidence at Coomassy; and the commerce of the interior, for those

reasons chiefly, may be carried to El Mina, in preference to any other

town upon the line of coast, or any other European establishment.

There is no slander, then, in saying, as not only Sir James Yeo, and Mr.

Bowdich, but many others besides have said, that the British and the

blacks were, however compulsively on the part of the former, leagued

together for the purpose of defrauding those Ashantees who might place

some faith in a white countenance; nor those alone, but strangers of all

colours. It has been stated, that the grievances and disorders of this

and other complexions were imaginary and unfounded. Let us see if the

defence will bear the test of investigation; and, in doing so, I shall

commence with the remarks made by Bosman, pages 12 and 13, of the nature

of African commerce in his days.

“At Dikjeschoftt (Dixcove) properly called Infuma, the English built a

small fort, anno 1691. I have often heard the English themselves

complain of this place; for, besides that it is not a place of good

trade, the negroes thereabouts are so intractable, fraudulent,

villainous, and obstinate, that the English cannot deal with them; for

if they have recourse to violence in order to bring them to reason, they

are also opposed by force; and that so warmly, that these five years

past they adventured to besiege them in their fortress, and were very

near taking it; at last, they obliged the English to their terms without

allowing them to exercise any power over them; and hence proceeded an

alliance so strict betwixt them, that they jointly cheated all the

_ships_ that came to trade there, by putting sophisticated gold upon

them, a fraud which they have frequently practised, as they did about

three months past, upon two small English ships (one of which was laden

to the value of £1,700 sterling) for all which the master received only

false gold; so that he lost his whole voyage at once; nor did his

companion suffer much less: and what mostly surprised them was, that

they received it as well from the whites as the negroes. They applied

themselves to the English chief governor on the coast, desiring they

might have their goods returned, or good gold exchanged for the false:

but, to complain to him, was to go to the devil to be confessed; for he,

participating in the fraud, would by no means help them. This cheat has

become so common that it daily happens; but that the whites have

_always_ a hand in it, is what I dare not affirm; however, I am very

sure that this place deserves the name of the false mint of Guinea, of

which every trader who comes to the coast ought to be warned; for the

making of false gold is here so common that it is publickly sold, and

become a perfect trade; the price current being in my time about a

_crown_ in good gold for two pounds sterling of false.”[156]

The Fantees, the natives of Cape Coast, and in general those of the

other maritime towns, enrich themselves by these very means, coupled

with the impositions they practise upon the inland people, as well as

upon us. In reference more particularly to the gold frauds, it may be

observed, that it is usual for the towns-men to call themselves brokers,

because the Ashantees, Dinkrans, Wassaws, Akims, Assins, and others from

the inland parts, on their arrival at the settlements, in times of

intercourse, are in the practice of putting up at the houses of one or

other of the natives who speak a little English, and are in the service

and pay of the whites; and these men receive it pure and unadulterated,

as it passes current in the interior. Before they accompany the trader

to the house of the white merchant, they endeavour, either during the

hours of repose, or as a fit occasion may present itself, to change the

gold, or reduce its value, by the intermixture of what is no other than

coloured brass filings; or if the guest is too much on the alert, they

contrive to do it in the merchant’s apartment, before the face of patron

and guest,—unknown, of course, to the latter, but oftentimes with the

knowledge of the former, who dare not resist the fraud, as they confess,

and as I have repeatedly witnessed myself. Nay, these conscientious

brokers themselves, when taxed with their impositions, will say, “How

can I afford to keep the traders in my house, unless I make a profit by

them?—innocently, as it would seem, imagining that they are entitled to

pay upon two, or perhaps as many more brokerage commissions as they can

secure to themselves. Thus, the emoluments these people were in the

habit of reaping, through their agency, in commerce, amounted, upon an

averaged estimate I made, at 12 or 15 per cent. reduction of the value

of gold, and 10 per cent. at least for frauds,[157] and pay they were in

the habit of exacting from the merchant, making together, at the very

lowest estimate, 20 per cent. reduction from the profits due to the

toils, and upon the property of the British trader, to the detriment of

local and commercial interests in general. Instead, however, of 20 per

cent., they have even been known to cheat and plunder all parties, to

the amount of 50 per cent. and more; but this extensive villainy usually

happens from accidental opportunities, or when the confiding master

trusts his servant to inspect and pack his gold for the London market,

from whence he gains his earliest knowledge of the fraud, by letters

from his correspondent.

Such sentiments as integrity, honour, and even honesty, would inspire,

are wholly unknown or disregarded by these people, be their relations to

the white man intimate and confidential as they may; for the truth of

the matter is, they are strictly and almost exclusively engrossed with

plans and plots, which have no other object than their own proper

interests and feelings. I believe, indeed, that there is no criterion to

judge when the broker would pause in his career of chicanery, as long as

he imagines he is secure from detection; but whether the whites first

set them the example, or that the latter only conformed to established

orders of trade, is what I cannot answer.

An unfortunate French vessel, in 1819, scarcely experienced any better

treatment at Cape Coast Castle itself, than did those English ships

recorded by Bosman. The captain shewed me some of his “brass pan” trash,

mixed with good gold; and I believe he weighed anchor from the Cape

earlier on that account. Some English captains have also been duped by

the same artifice, in my time; and I am justified in saying, that some

of the whites are in the practice of procuring sophisticated metal from

the natives, which they mix with current gold dust already alloyed, and

pass off upon strangers and foreigners, as occasion may offer. Indeed,

those who were the least implicated in the fraud, perhaps, had boxes

containing two separate qualities of metal, the one (designed for the

London market) sifted, or blown, as it is called, out of the other,

which is reserved for the unwary and unsuspecting. Indeed I had a

practical knowledge of these truths, for I suffered a loss of four

ounces of gold, shortly after landing, by the same deception. The term

fraud, in application to the latter instance, may perhaps sound harsh;

for certainly there is a great distinction in the nature of the two

offences, where one man makes a secret trade of the commodity, and the

other merely gets rid of an article to the best profit, which may have

come into his possession in a fair course of trade.

What is no less obnoxious to the true interests of Great Britain, and of

course equally detrimental to the mercantile interests of individuals,

they practise, besides gold frauds, others, such as watering the rum,

and then restoring its pungency with Mallaguetta, Chili, and other

peppers; pulverizing charcoal, and sifting the granulated particles,

which they intermix with the gunpowder; and various tricks besides, in

which, it is degrading to confess, they were not only countenanced, but

imitated by the whites. The king (of Ashantee) is no stranger to these

peculating intrigues, for he assured me that his own purchases, coming

from the governor’s store-room, were alike adulterated; but he

innocently attributed the whole of the cheat to the people of Cape

Coast.

The French nation, enterprizing and renowned in its commercial relations

with the colonies of the East and West Indies, and with Africa itself,

as regards the reigning dynasty, I am inclined to believe reaps as much

or more solid benefit from its system of intercourse with strangers,

than any other European nation, however commercial, speculative, and

enterprizing. The acknowledged vivacity and courtesy of this renowned

and gallant people may in some degree contribute to banish scruples, and

establish the necessary confidence; but those qualifications alone would

certainly be insufficient to promote their relations, to the extent at

which they have been seen to flourish. Looking to Africa only, it will

be apparent, that at Senegal, which is of little local value, as

compared with a station on the gold coast, they have pushed their trade

to a far greater distance inland, than any other European power, not

exempting even the Portuguese in the southern hemisphere; and they

journey by land to their factory at Galam, on the river, with as much

safety, probably, as they would travel from Marseilles to Paris; for the

native kings and princes of those parts are either strictly in alliance

with them, upon terms of mutual interest, or they are bound down by

treaties which they rarely violate; for their interests are, moreover,

consulted, in the payment of annual presents, consisting of the

manufactured goods of France, such as cutlery, cloth, powder, &c. all

which are stipulated for in these covenants, and written down in the

Arabic language.

Thus, moreover, they are permitted to count on the defensive alliance of

the Trassart, Braknart, and other Arab tribes who inhabit that part of

the desert between the Senegal river and Portendic, as also occasionally

in the south, in the kingdom of Cayor, and the tribes adjacent, as far,

may be, as within a few journies of the Gambia.

Fairs or markets might be established on the Gold Coast, upon the

prevailing principle of trade throughout Africa. It is not for us to

change long established maxims, commercial confidences, and rooted

prejudices of such notoriety, but to conform to the customs of the

countries in which we live, (surely as long as they have a tendency to

promote our interest,) and reconcile ourselves to those reasonable

systems of traffic upon which the native reposes his faith, either in

the shape of barter, as the Arabs and Africans of the Desert, of

Numidia, and even of many parts of Mauritania itself conduct it, or in

gold and cowries, as the natives of Wangara are in the practice of

dealing. A weekly, or perhaps monthly fair of this description, at the

settlements, would have no tendency to interrupt the course of trade at

other intervals; and it could not fail, when known and confided in at

Coomassy, if properly conducted, supported, and persevered in, to be

made known to the inland nations, as far as the Koara at least; and the

natives of those parts, if we were upon terms of friendship with the

king of Ashantee, would, it is probable, be permitted to resort to the

sea coast, to purchase of every commodity, save and except guns and

powder; or if that were not permitted, (as I entertain little doubt it

would) the Ashantees themselves would take the same commodities, and

dispose of them again at their own markets, to the traders who come from

Salgha, Yandy, Daboya, and other parts of the north and east.

I have hitherto suggested nothing for the more orderly and more

profitable regulation of trade; for I have hitherto been scrupulous

about intruding my conceptions upon the province of the legislature. I

cannot avoid thinking, that by the practice of a judicious system, such

as the French adopted when Canada belonged to that nation, it would

conduce to establish the fundamental principle of all fellowship and

intercourse—confidence. That once accomplished, would render all the

attempts of the maritime natives to defraud, nugatory; for instead of

placing the broker paramount, it would reduce him to his natural level,

as an auxiliary, and not a dictatorial dependent. The commerce of

Barbary is regulated by daily or weekly markets;—for instance, Morocco,

Fez, Algiers, and Tunis. Eastward of those places, as far as the Persian

Gulf, the practice is the same. In the deserts, and upon the shores of

the Niger; in Dagomba, Killinga, Haoussa, and Marroa, &c. the natives,

whether Arabs or Ethiopians, know no other medium of intercourse, or

they give their confidence to no other. The whites, however, must first

set the example of probity, then rigorously enforce it, as their

influence may admit; and in lieu of suffering the inland trader to take

up his abode at the broker’s house, his independence ought to be

provided for by a public bazaar or inn, free of cost, and adequate to

shelter him and his effects, during his stay upon the coast. The Dutch

come nigher to the feelings of the inland natives than ourselves, but

they might find room for improving their system of commerce also.

[Illustration: A Man & Woman of Banna.]

[Footnote 123: As prejudices may have been excited against the negro

professors of the Moslem faith, by a former publication on Ashantee, and

as their testimony is appealed to in the following pages, the author

claims indulgence for a few preliminary observations intended to rescue

their characters from calumny and misrepresentation.]

[Footnote 124: These notes, and the Arabic manuscripts, I have submitted

together, exactly as they are written, and without regard to the

orthographical errors they contain. In the translations, however, which

are according to our own reading and interpretation, I have judged

proper, for the reader’s convenience, to adhere to the idiom of our

language, by substituting the implied sentiments of the authors, for a

rigid and literal translation of words.]

[Footnote 125: Mr. Bowdich, it seems, must have been unaccountably

deficient in a knowledge of the usages of courts, and the decorum to be

observed towards a crowned head, although that head might be a black

one, else how could he presume, in the face of the world, to avow having

threatened the king with tearing to pieces a treaty of peace and

commerce which had just been ratified and exchanged with a “respectable”

native power, in the names of two sovereigns (of whom one claimed the

tribute of his allegiance); not to enumerate the trading company he

contrived to represent, and whose property in the country might have

warranted the conciliatory steps that were taken for its security at

that time.

Many instances, indeed, occurred, wherein the author’s conduct involved

him in disgraces; and well might the Cape Coast messengers declare

before the king’s ministers, “that his uncle (Mr. Smith) had sent them

as a check upon him, and that he was not doing right in talking so to

the king, but should wait his pleasure in quitting the capital,” &c.

(page 138). In truth, these unlettered children were better informed

than their educated master, of what was due to royalty in any court in

the universe; and Mr. Bowdich ought to have known, that even under

republican forms of government, an envoy does not take what is vulgarly

termed French leave, but waits for passports and a congé.]

[Footnote 126: The manuscripts to which I refer are submitted in the

Appendix, together with their translations, agreeably to my own reading

and the knowledge I derived from the natives.]

[Footnote 127: It is said that Yamina received its name from a prince of

the Ismaelian dynasty, who, by his ambassadors, prevailed upon one of

the early sovereigns to abjure the Pagan rites, and embrace Islam; which

being acceded to, and confirmed by oath, the Sheriffe, as an honourable

epithet, bestowed upon the city the name of يمينا, (from امين, an oath,)

implying it was a city sworn into confederation in defence of the

Koran.]

[Footnote 128: These watches divide the twenty-four hours into nine

parts. The first, at sun-set, is called المغرب, Mogharb; the second,

العشا, Lâshâ; the third, الشفق, Shafak; the fourth, نسف الليل, Nosaf

Leil, (midnight;) the fifth, الفجر, Al Figer, (day-break;) the sixth,

السبح, Sabah, (sun-rise;) the seventh, الغدا, Al Ghadà; the eighth,

الظهر, Dohor, (noon;) the ninth, العسر, Al Aser. Some, however, reckon

no more than five watches, which are necessarily four hours forty-eight

minutes apart. These are Mogharb, Nosaf Leil, Al Figer, Dohor, and Al

Aser. This division of time denotes likewise the hours of prayer, when

it is incumbent on true believers to assemble in the Mosques, or to

congregate in devotional exercises in the field, or in the house.]

[Footnote 129: It is true I have travelled that space in four days, but

I have no room to be vain of the feat, for a gentleman who is now in

England accomplished the same distance in three days, and his horse,

although greatly jaded, survived the fatigue.]

[Footnote 130: No. XLIV. March 1820, p. 292.]

[Footnote 131: Since these sheets were written, accounts have been

transmitted to England of the death of Mr. Bowdich upon the Gambia. As

an author, it is for the public to determine how his untimely end may

affect the world of African literature. As a private man, and a laudable

adventurer in the pestilential climates of that continent, all men of

feeling will deplore a loss that adds another name of some little

distinction to the already inflated list of travellers, whose existence

is now only to be found in the pages of history. I too can mourn,

because there are few to be found possessing as much zeal, enterprize,

and literary talent as Mr. Bowdich was qualified with, notwithstanding

the blunders I lay to his charge in the volume he wrote on Ashantee, or

the revolting egotism and misrepresentation with which it abounds. While

I disclaim the influence of prejudice in regard to this unfortunate

gentleman, I am free to declare that I look to his publication only, the

false colouring it has given to matters of importance, and the

consequent false impression it is calculated to make on the

understanding of the reader; and whether its author be living or not, I

conceive my duty is the same. I will venture to assert, that had he been

still in existence, it would have been impossible, by any effort of the

pen, to have extricated his name, with satisfaction, from the obloquy

associated with my charges. As he is dead, no degree of censure can

affect him. Let him slumber, therefore, in a peaceful distant grave; but

let me undeceive the world in matters connected with a public interest.]

[Footnote 132: When Mr. Bowdich arrived in England, Mr. Cock applied to

me to translate his Arabic manuscripts. I took some pains in doing so,

and those papers which came under my observation did not support the

speculations he subsequently launched into, for they were in a limited

degree supplementary, as his book was already written, with the

reservation, perhaps, of his geographical section.]

[Footnote 133: As it was the universal impression, that all public

disputes ceased with the ratification of the treaty, I did hot hesitate

to urge the necessity of forming a broad open path down to our chief

settlement, offering, as my instructions authorized me, the loan of

tools for that purpose. The king, in reply, said, “I know the white king

is a true friend now, and he can only tell you to ask me that for my

good; but then he lives a long way off, and does not hear what insolent

people the blacks are, when they think the white king is their friend,

and will help them to fight. Now, as soon as my nephew comes back, I

shall make a proper road, that the trade may go to the English.” The

Moslems subsequently corroborated this intention.]

[Footnote 134: Mr. Bowdich has erroneously spelt it Dwabin; the natives

pronounce it as I have written, and the Moslems spell it جوابن which is

the same.]

[Footnote 135: Two of these unhappy men, whom I had an opportunity of

conversing with, assured me, that between Fantees and Assins together,

their numbers now approached to twenty-five thousand, and that above

four times that number had perished, either on the altars of the

metropolis, or by famine, misery, and the cruelty of their masters.]

[Footnote 136: Mr. Bowdich says, that on the route to Accra, the river

Boosempra is crossed on the sixth day, by a tree laid over the stream;

but this is contradicted by general testimony. A messenger who came to

me from Accra travelled to the capital by this route, and he declared

the breadth of the river to be great, adding, “That it was not always

fordable, and that no such thing as a bridge existed there or elsewhere

on that route.” The Birrum river is about ten yards wide at Monosi.]

[Footnote 137: Bussem is the native word for Fetische.]

[Footnote 138: Notwithstanding the Moslems who inhabit the capital are

necessarily induced to espouse the court politics in public life, they

are secretly averse from coalescing with the army, for two simple

reasons; the first is religion, which forbids that the lives and

liberties of “true believers” should be sacrificed to the caprice, or in

the avaricious wars of heathen monarchs; the second is an innate

repugnance to contribute to the aggrandizement of a power that is

already dreaded by the Moslems in general.]

[Footnote 139: There is, as Mr. Bowdich relates, a popular superstition

that the Europeans will cut a water communication from the sea to the

Echouy, the guardian God of the metropolis; but that the Moslems nourish

the legend, I cannot believe; although I do not say they may be unmoved

by a rumour which would flatter their hopes of emancipation from the

yoke of heathen vassalage, mild as it is in respect to them, and place

them in a situation from whence they might draw the same mercantile

resources, as do now the Ashantees, who, by means of powder and shot

alone, support that great political influence. Absurd as the tradition

certainly is, if the Moslems are at all affected by it, it can only be

with a friendly anxiety for its completion.]

[Footnote 140: One of these lances and some darts which I gave to the

late Sir George Collier, were tolerably ingenious specimens of

workmanship. The former was covered alternately with silk, pieces of red

cloth, and tiger’s skin, ornamented with tassels and amulets neatly

cased: the handle was covered with the skin of a snake.]

[Footnote 141: The territory of Ashantee is particularly ill adapted to

surveys upon any trigonometrical principles, or even the application of

astronomical instruments. Choice of stations can never avail in the

country; and accident alone must guide the footsteps of the traveller to

a spot where he can obtain a partial glimpse of the firmament, of scope

sufficient to enable him to make use of an artificial horizon: for where

vegetation, such as I have described its character, does not grow,

houses stand, the former being removed to give place to the latter in

the stations of crooms, or in the land that may have been cleared for

the reception of grain and yams.

A pocket sextant, a compass, a thermometer, and an horizon, were all the

instruments I could procure at Cape Coast antecedently to the journey;

for, on my application to the governor and council for the use of others

(which, it is true, belonged to them privately) I was assured that none

could be procured; or that there were none. To add to my misfortunes,

the sextant was so much disorganized, that after repeated trials, I was

compelled to lay it aside, and the thermometer got broken in Coomassy.]

[Footnote 142: The population of Dahomy, notwithstanding, is infinitely

greater than that of Ashantee properly so called, with the provinces of

Akim, Assin, Fantee, Dinkra, &c. included. It is greater in proportion

to extent of territory, although the character of its wars, as described

in Mr. Dalzel’s history of that kingdom and the conquests of Ardrah,

Whydah, and Popo, is precisely the same as in Ashantee. The most

populous provinces and principalities of Ashantee lie to the northward

of the seventh degree of latitude. That of Bouromy alone can raise

10,000 men, and Coransah, about half that force; Quaho six thousand,

Amanaha, and Aowin (termed the kingdom of Apollonia,) three thousand;

and the great provinces of Soko and Takima twenty thousand. These troops

are to be considered independent of the actual armies of Ashantee, as

also of the auxiliary forces of Banna, of Gaman of the upper provinces

on the banks of the Aswada, and the alliances with the sultan of Yandy,

or the tributaries eastward of that river.]

[Footnote 143: See those very interesting reports in the Quarterly

Review of 1820, No. XLV. Art. “Course of the Niger,” founded upon the

intelligence obtained by the late Mr. Ritchie, a gentleman who sailed

for Tripoli about the same time that I embarked for Guinea, and whose

hopes, as he assured me in England, embraced not only the survey of the

Niger westerly from Bornou, but also the prospect of joining me at

Coomassy, on his anticipated route homeward by the way of Cape Coast.

Mohammed, a native of Timbuctoo, with whom Mr. Ritchie became

acquainted, furnished him with the information his reports convey,

substantiated, as he describes them to be, by the testimony of “Sidi

Hamet Tooghar, the Cadi of Tripoli, who resided many years in the

interior, and by Sidi Mahommed Dghies, late Prime Minister,” &c.

Of Wangara, a place but vaguely known to the northern Moslems, it is a

remarkable coincidence, that one of these reports should actually

corroborate my own information on that point, as the following extract

will shew:—“From Timbuctoo to Wangara is about _twenty-five days’

journey_; the inhabitants bring _gold dust_ to Timbuctoo.” He (Mohammed)

had not been there, but understood it to be in a _southerly_ direction.

Diffident as I may be in obtruding my own opinions on the world, or

biassing the reader’s judgment, I cannot in this instance refrain from

stating my entire conviction of the identity of Ashantee, Gaman, &c. &c.

with the true and only Wangara known to the nations of North Africa;

wonderful as it may seem, that we should have actually colonized the

country for many ages past, without ever having known it even by name.]

[Footnote 144: And by some ونكرا or, adopting the Persian ڭ. ونڭرا]

[Footnote 145: لا ريب فيه وان الله علم “There is no doubt about it,” was

the expression used by the Moslems, “and God knows it is true.”]

[Footnote 146: The Guinea Moslems, in speaking of rivers, invariably

called them seas; بحر their characteristic name of running water, salt

or fresh, to which they subjoin large or small. The terms Wad, Wadai, or

Wadan, properly signifying river, which the Arabs and Northern Africans

commonly use, were not in use among the Wangara Moslems.]

[Footnote 147: I scarcely need observe, that Solomon’s _Wangara_ was on

the eastern shores.]

[Footnote 148: This river is called by the natives of Dagomba, Ghulby

Kanbaja, and by the Haoussa Moslems, Shaderbah. It is remarkable, that

there is a city in the kingdom of Maury, near the Lake Noufy, which is

also called Kanbaja.]

[Footnote 149: I have been at the Dodo, and have seen many of the rivers

between the Formosa and Callebar, and such I know to be the aspect of

the country.]

[Footnote 150: Although Quaho, Akim, and some other parts of the empire

bordering the Volta, formerly yielded much gold, yet, at present, there

are few, if any, pits in those provinces, which pay the working, unless

it should be imagined that the inhabitants have purposely neglected them

of late years, perhaps to avoid the evils they might anticipate from the

cupidity of their conquerors the Ashantees. To the westward of Cape

Coast, in the little district called Adoom, which is one journey inland

of Poho, or three short ones from the sea; and in the neighbourhood of

Taccorary, the natives have many rich mines or pits, where they dig out

the ore and grind it between rubbing stones to separate the metal from

the quartz pebble.]

[Footnote 151: Meredith, in characterizing the natives of the Coast,

says, “They are too well acquainted with our weak condition,” &c. “They

know we are only formidable when surrounded with walls and guns. It was

a most fortunate circumstance for the British character in this country,

that the Ashantees made a trial of their courage and strength against

Annamaboe. If they had attacked any other fort, under similar

circumstances, _they most probably would have succeeded_,” &c. “We hear

of contributions being imposed on our neighbours, forts pillaged,

governors threatened with torture or beheading, others actually

murdered, one gentleman surprized, and now a prisoner,” &c. “Neither

have the British been permitted to enjoy perfect tranquillity. The

governor of this fort (himself at Winnebah) was seriously threatened

twice, by Attah, the late king of Akim. He sent a peremptory message,

demanding a quantity of powder, lead, and guns, accompanied with

threatening language, calculated to excite terror,” &c. “This demand was

not complied with, _but a present was sent to him, as a token of

friendship_,” &c. In a second demand, according to this author, he met a

_polite refusal_, which so irritated him, that he says, we believe, “he

would wish to be revenged,” &c. In consequence, the governor is obliged

to keep within certain limits; and prudence restrains him from walking

any distance from the fort, for fear of being surprized. Again he says,

“Two instances _he is obliged by candour to state_, have come to our

knowledge, of _two governors having been literally flogged_, &c.; one

captain of a ship nearly flogged to death, and another _almost

murdered_, besides other cruelties and indignities too painful to

relate.” Might it not be reasonably asked, if these are the people, as

the Committee would insinuate, for whom we should risk the honour of the

flag so precariously insulated, our property, and our lives, against a

friendly power, who claims their allegiance by right of conquest and

cession, and who, at the same time, meets our overtures with open arms,

and hails our footsteps in the capital, as the treading of demigods? The

Committee are bound to answer the question to their country!]

[Footnote 152: The Fantees, Mr. Meredith writes, “demanded of the Dutch

government forty ounces of gold, under a threat of destroying their fort

at Cormantine, (originally built by ourselves) if the sum should be

denied them. The Dutch government would not comply with their demand; in

consequence of which the Annamaboes marched out, headed by their king;

and as the fort was incapable of making resistance, it was pillaged, the

guns rendered useless, part of the walls levelled, and the artificers

attached to it made prisoners.”]

[Footnote 153: This is the same Captain Blenkairn, who, it seems, has

the command of one division of the forces raised for the defence of the

British settlements on the Gold Coast, and which was too far distant to

share in the action wherein Sir Charles M‘Carthy, and the troops under

his immediate command, sustained that terrible defeat.]

[Footnote 154: Indeed, it must be confessed, that if the united British

garrisons had been conveyed to Apollonia with intent to revenge the

affront, the chances are, that few would have returned to report the

issue of the campaign. This does not argue, however, against the

adoption of a course of policy adequate to the emergency of the

business.]

[Footnote 155: The king once observed to me, that he knew the nations of

Cape Coast were a saucy turbulent people, and that they cheated the

English as much as they did the Ashantees, bidding defiance to the

authority of governors, and treating white men, in common, with

brutality. “If you,” said the monarch, “tell me my master (the king of

England) is agreeable to it, I will bring them all to Coomassy and send

another tribe to live among the whites; I will not kill them, but will

give them land, and a good governor to make them obedient, and if the

people I send should become saucy I will remove them also, or authorize

the whites to cut off their heads.”]

[Footnote 156: As Bosman then wrote upon the subject of sophisticated

gold, and the manner in which it is palmed upon the whites; so I may now

write of what came under my observation; for the same system prevailed

generally, and even the established white merchants were victims to it;

as they took the gold knowing it sometimes to be a fabricated mixture.]

[Footnote 157: One description of fraud or extortion was conducted in

this manner:—An Ashantee would have occasion, let it be supposed, for

guns. The broker would enquire of his employer, _in English_, how much

he would sell for. If the fixed price was seven ackeys a gun, he would

tell the trader nine, and pocket the other two himself, with the

knowledge and consent of his master, who, as I have said before, dare

not resist the imposition, for fear of losing the broker’s services and

connexion. Hence the natives are so anxious to place their children

under the whites, as servants, to learn, as they call it, _proper

sense_; for when once they have a smattering of English, their fortunes

are made, as brokers and rogues.]

CHAPTER IX.

SOUDAN.

ANCIENT AFRICA — DERIVATION OF THE NAME — THE GHARB — SOUDAN —

TRADITIONS — INROADS OF THE OCEAN — NAMES GIVEN BY THE ARABS — ANCIENT

POPULATION — IGNORANCE AND INDIFFERENCE OF THE PAGANS — GREAT DIVISIONS

OF AFRICA, SOUTH OF THE DESERT — GHUNJA — SAREM — DAGOMBA — GANOWA —

BAMBARA — FILLANY — MARROA — KILLINGA — HAOUSSA — YARRABA — THE NIGER —

SHARY — GHULBY — CAPTAIN LAING’S OBSERVATIONS — DESCRIPTION OF ROUTES

MARKED ON THE MAP — JEWS OF SOUDAN — TRAVELS OF THE ASHANTEES —

PRIVILEGES OF MOSLEM TRAVELLERS — CURRENT COIN — WEIGHTS AND MEASURES.

Of all the various names given by the ancients to that vast continent we

now call Africa, those of Lybia and Ethiopia appear to have been the

most generally adopted; and, perhaps, the most comprehensive in relation

to the whole peninsula, as far as actual knowledge, or imagination

prescribed its limits: for it is not to be supposed that Africa beyond

the equator was ever known either to the Carthaginians, Romans, Greeks,

or Vandals, except from vague reports; circulated for the most part

through the channels of upper Egypt, Judea, and the districts of Hejaz

and Yaman, in Arabia, nighest to the opposite shores of the sister

continent. This, at least, may be inferred from the want of records to

prove a contrary fact, in regard, specifically, to the distant inland

parts, and the mode of traversing those regions, as practised by the

Arabs and Moslem Africans of the present age. It is a truth not

unprofitable to pause at here, that the religion propagated by Mohammed

is, of all other doctrines ancient or modern, sacred or profane, the

only one which insures safety to its votaries among the savage hords of

Lybia; and therefore, it would seem, that the ancients, for opposite

reasons, never could traverse even the deserts with that security which

their posterity enjoy. We are told, that so early as six hundred or six

hundred and four years before the birth of Christ, the limits of the

continent were, in some rude degree, known to the Egyptians, from an

actual voyage of circumnavigation, performed in the reign, and by order

of Pharoah Necho, monarch of Egypt; that these ships, we may suppose a

fleet, departed from the Red Sea, (perhaps the port of Suez) doubled the

Cape of Good Hope, the westernmost projections of the land in the north

Atlantic Ocean, and Cape Spartel, at the mouth of the Straits, returning

to the shores of the Nile, by the way of the Mediterranean sea. The

respectable authority from whence this has emanated, scarcely leaves

room to hazard a doubt upon the subject; yet many may, notwithstanding,

feel inclined to disbelieve it; according to the various objections that

might be urged in refutation of the probability, that such frail barks

as were constructed by the ancients should be adequate to a voyage of

that magnitude in unknown seas, and in comparatively high southern

latitude; where the turbulent character of the elements so rigorously

beset the Portuguese in after ages, that in commemoration of their

sufferings, the headland, now the Cape of Good Hope, was anathematized

by the appellation of Stormy, or the Cape of Storms. But admitting that

the same class of vessels, which were capable of navigating all parts of

the Mediterranean and Red Seas, were alike calculated to navigate the

ocean, still there would be room for doubts connected with the manner in

which these mariners supported life; for they could hardly have carried

with them preserved flesh, corn, or dates sufficient to last them out

the voyage; and if the old Africans were disposed as the moderns are,

and have been for generations past, these voyagers could not presume to

effect a landing unless their numbers were sufficient to preserve them

from becoming the slaves of the natives.

Dismissing the train of unavailing conjectures this might lead to, it

may not be amiss to notice what the Arabs say in relation to the

etymology of the word Africa; for they pretend to give a clear explicit

account of its derivation. In the first place it is a term acknowledged

to be of Arabian extraction, as indeed its sound implies; although its

etymology has been, by many, so vaguely handled. The most important in

the list of European reasonings, and one which, in fact, conveys an air

of some plausibility, is, that it derived its name from a certain

Arabian King called Ifraki or Ifriki, who fled before an Assyrian army

into Egypt, and from thence into the deserts of Barca; but finding no

sustenance for his followers, and their herds of cattle, he sent out

scouts westward towards the Cyrenaica, or perhaps the Tripolitana, who

shortly afterwards returned with the joyful tidings of land fit for

pasture and tillage. This tradition, which I must confess I never heard

of, is intended to combine, jointly, not only the derivation of the word

Africa, but of Barbary also, notwithstanding its actual distance from

these Lybian deserts, or from the ancient Syrtis, now called the Gulf of

Sidra, which separates the Tripolitana from the Cyrenaica. To this

effect, it is added, that when the fertile districts were discovered,

the scouts impatiently rushed into the presence of their sovereign,

crying out _ber ber_, signifying in Arabic, land, land; and from that it

derived a name, which, by the Romans, when they became acquainted with

the country, was softened down with a Latin termination to their own

liking, into the word Berberia, or something resembling the sound of

that combination; and which we, claiming, naturally, the same privilege,

have again corrupted to Barbary.

If it be inquired of a modern Arab by what name he distinguishes the

continent of Africa, he will perhaps say there is no specific name for

it, by reason that there are many regions in the southern hemisphere,

which are entirely unknown to us; but that since his countrymen became

masters of the land now enjoyed by their posterity, those great

districts have been jointly distinguished by the appellation of Al

Gharb, or Maghariba, signifying the western land, in relation to its

bearing from Arabia and Syria, the focus of empire under the primitive

Khalifs, whose arms were so ably carried to the margin of the Atlantic

Ocean; the waters of the setting sun. Gharb (which is comparatively a

modern name) he would again subdivide for the different sections,

calling the land and deserts westward of the Nile, comprehending the

whole Cyrenaica and the Lybian desert down to the ancient Syrtis and

southward as far as the present kingdom of Fezzan, Magharib Mokribi, or

the _First Division West_. This is perhaps a more explicit name than

Afrikia (from Mafroka), but both are well understood as relating to this

great tract. The westernmost boundary of the old Tripolitana, properly

so called, and the old Carthageniensis, including the present Bashalics

of Tunis and Algier, and the vice-regency of Tenez, embracing also part

of Telmsen on the line of coast, and south as far perhaps as the old

Roman garrisons of Tuggert, or Worgala, in or on the desert confines,

would be distinguished as Maghareb al Wasat, (al Ouast) or the

_Middlemost, or Central West_; and Moghareb al Woasa, the _Furthermost

West_, if he were a native of the western Mauritania, would be the name

by which he would describe his own country.

The deserts, also, are divided simply in this manner, for the word

Sahara, which is desert, does not imply any particular district, and is

equally applicable to any sterile spot in Arabia, or elsewhere.

Soudan from اسود Aswad, (black) is a general and vague appellation in

use among the Arabs and northern African tribes, as relating

particularly to those nations which border the left bank of the Niger,

although not exclusively so, for they as frequently apply the term in a

far more comprehensive sense, whereby they include the whole of tropical

Africa known to them; and it may consequently be translated with the

greatest propriety _the Land of Negroes_, or _Black People_, for that is

simply the meaning, and no other[158]. Like the word Caffreria, which is

a corruption of the Arabic Kauferau, a term in use among the Arabs of

the sixth and seventh centuries, it is (although not of the reproachful

character of the latter, which implies “the land of infidels”) somewhat

contemptuous in signification, as it then stigmatized the southern

tribes indiscriminately as an inferior order of the creation, of whom

many about that period, and since the wars of the Arabs upon the “Bahar

Soudan” Niger, have embraced the Korannic faith and incorporated

themselves with their conquerors.

The Moslems of Haoussa, Killinga, and Dagomba, however, as also some of

the desert tribes in the west, use Soudan as a generic and proper name,

by which they describe certain very extensive tracts inland. The name,

according to the signification given by the Arabs, is perfectly familiar

to them, and in conversation with foreigners they use it, by adoption;

but still they reject it in their geography, as a term of a vague and

indefinite importance, which is truly the case. Soudan is the name given

by the Wangara Moslems in general, and particularly by those of

Ashantee, to that great strip of land stretching away east and west

along the parallels of the desert, and the great central rivers and

waters from Bambarra in the west to Bornou in the east. These regions

they again subdivide into two parts, calling the first Kably or Soudan;

Kably in reference to its greater approximation to the Kabla of the city

of Mecca (the east) and the latter Gharby, or Soudan Gharby, from its

bearing west, towards the regions of the setting sun. Some also make a

third division of Soudan, “beyond the waters,” and this they call

Wastany Wasat, or Soudan al Wastany, signifying simply Middlemost

Soudan.

Beside these principal divisions, they allow of another Soudan in the

more central parts of the continent, below the southernmost provinces

and kingdoms of the Bornou empire, on the south bank of the Shady; and

this they call Soudan Dakhlata; a term which they admit to be vague, and

which I conceive to be synonimous with interior Ethiopia, for its

meaning is strictly interior Soudan.

Africa, according to traditions I have oftentimes heard repeated by

Arabs (for the Berrebers, or mountain Africans, know little of the

matter), is the old name, somewhat corrupted, by which the land beyond

Nile westwards was called by their ancestors, many ages before the birth

of Christ, and probably long before they had any practical knowledge of

its internal features. This original name, as they pronounce it, was Al

Mafroka, the disunited, or divided land; implying as the general opinion

goes, that it was cut off from the continent of Asia by the course of

the Nile from south to north; for the eastern geographers, it is well

known, included all that tract of land bounded on the east by the

Arabian gulf, and on the west by the river Nile, under the head of Asia.

Another tradition, which however is not so popular, gives it the name

ascribed to it, not from the separation of the land by the course of the

Nile; but from the division caused by the Red Sea; from whence, they

say, the ancient Arabs named the opposite shore Mafroka, the disjointed

or broken land, because they believed the waters to have concentrated

there after the deluge subsided; or that they preserved the tradition of

a subsequent rush of the Indian ocean, whereby the Almighty inflicted a

heavy chastisement for the transgressions of certain tribes in the

Hajaz, or stony Arabia, whose loss may be found on record in the Koran

itself.

Although, as I before remarked, the Berreber tribes know so little of

these traditions, it is a singular truth that they are firmly persuaded

that the African continent originally joined that of Europe in the west,

where the Herculean pillars now stand; and also, that in the same early

age, the land of Mauritania projected a considerable number of leagues

more in the Atlantic Ocean than it now does. No one presumes, however,

to account for the age it happened in; except as they vaguely narrate,

that since the universal deluge the sea broke in upon the land where the

straits of Gibraltar now exist, and spread its waves around to the

extent it now does; sweeping into the abyss myriads of human beings,

with their cattle, and habitations; burying all but the summits of the

highest land, which, together with the tops of mountains, are still to

be seen under the semblance of islands scattered over the surface of the

water. The Arabs and Asiatics in general shew no great respect to this

mountain tale; yet it is worthy of remark, that when the early Moslem

tribes carried their victorious arms to that part of the Spanish coast

opposite the Tingitana[159], the fortunate generals, in pursuing the

system of naming the conquered territory, as caprice or accident might

dictate, without respect to the names by which the Spaniards themselves

called them, any more than they had heretofore respected the old African

names of places (excepting, however, where the Atlas, and other

mountainous ridges bid defiance to their encroachment,) adopted the

African legend, as it agrees with several capes and head-lands, as

Trafalgar and Algezeiras, called by those people Terf al Gharb, and Al

Zeira, or Jazeira, implying part of the Gharb, or Mauritania, and its

island, are expressive of the credit given to the tradition by the old

Africans, literally, and perhaps by the Asiatics, figuratively.

Here, indeed, the imagination might wander into a labyrinth, but which

could lead no where beyond unprofitable conjecture. That the world has

been more than once buried under water, totally or partially, the

accounts of other lands, or the geological researches in our own, might

induce some to conjecture in opposition to chronology, sacred or

profane. If we were to consider the subject of any real importance, and

that some hypothesis must necessarily be established, this great influx

of water eastward might be associated with the effect produced by the

inclination of the currents of the North Atlantic Ocean, from their

vital source of action in the Gulf or Straits of Florida. This, again,

might lead to a supposition, if any one were inclined to speculate so

far, that the New World, as it is called, (the Continent of America) has

been justly so named, or at least, that some mighty revolution in

nature, caused (if it ever was the case) the separation of the two

continents, Europe and Africa, and gave the name of Inland, or Between-

land Sea, to the water that now divides them, as its modern name implies

in the Arabic, as well as the languages of past and present times in

Europe.

It is a popular notion of the modern Africans, as well those of Barbary

as the natives of Sarem, Ghunja, and Dagombah, that the original influx

of inhabitants came from the east, some time after Misraim, the son of

Ham, founded the empire of Egypt; which event took place, according to

our own chronology, 2188 years before the birth of Christ, and 160 years

after Noah’s embarkation.

In quoting the authority of Ashantees, and other natives of Guinea, it

is invariably to be considered, as relating to African Moslems, born in

those parts; for the unlettered heathen is so decidedly ignorant and

disinterested about researches into past ages, that I will venture to

affirm, if he should pretend to describe any thing remote, it will only

be with a view to impose upon the credulity of the enquirer; for his

ordinary replies even to the most simple question regarding the custom

of a neighbouring tribe or nation, is, _How can I tell? I am not of that

country, and I never was there to see_; and so he drops a subject that

would fatigue his understanding, because it neither gives him pleasure,

nor is likely to be productive of advantage. In fact, it would almost

warrant the assertion, that the negro is qualified with knowledge only

that he exists, and that he must one day die. If questioned about his

ancestors, he can only affirm, with the same simplicity, they lived, and

they are dead. And as regards the creation of the world, its political

changes, or any of the records of sacred or profane history, if it did

not put the muscles of his face in motion, to be asked such a question

by a white man, he would at least mildly say, _Enquire of the Moslems,

who pray to the great God, and hold strong fetish; they know these

things, and more: they can tell you; but I am ignorant_. I speak this

upon the most satisfactory information, namely, a practical knowledge of

the habits of indolence, ignorance, and superstition by which their

faculties are obscured, and their understandings bewildered; for during

the many trials I made at Ashantee, and upon the Coast, without casting

in the scale my Barbary experience, every attempt failed me, even in the

most trivial enquiries, to elicit information from the Pagan, either

directly, or through his interpretation; for they are equally given to

misrepresent facts, if they imagine the recital will amuse; added to

which, their very limited knowledge of European dialects is another

insuperable obstacle to the attainment, through their agency, of any,

even the most superficial knowledge whatever. This truth is grafted upon

my mind so positively, that it must be confessed I have but little

respect for books whose authors have compiled them upon negro authority.

Africa south of the Desert is divided into many important sections or

districts, by which certain tracts of land are characterized and known

to the natives of remote countries, who, perhaps, never heard mention of

the kingdoms they contain. Those familiar to my informers were Ghunja,

Sarem, Dagomba, Ganowa, Bambara, Fillany, Marroa, Killinga, Haoussa, and

Yarraba.

These great sections, all within the Torrid Zone, extend east and west

from about 7° of west longitude, to 12° east, or thereabout, and from

the shores of the Gulf to the 17th or 18th parallel of north latitude.

Ghunja, collectively, contains the empires of Ashantee and Dahomy,

exclusive of Gaman in the west, and Banna in the north. The western

boundary of this section is the River Tando, and eastward it stretches

away as far as the Lagos river. Its southern base upon the line of

coast, may therefore be computed at five hundred geographic miles, in

which is included the military and commercial establishments of all the

European nations who traffic in Guinea. Upon the 8th parallel of

latitude, it is more contracted, and does not probably exceed three

hundred and eighty miles; yet here it occupies twenty days to traverse

from its eastern to its western confines, and sixteen from north to

south.

Sarem is separated from the former by the River Tando; yet its eastern

limit northward of Coransah, is the Aswadah river. It stretches away

westerly, _as far as the land that projects into the sea_, (doubtless,

Cape Palmas.) This land they call البر بحري, (Al bir Bahooree) the

maritime country, (west,) and which it is probable Mr. Bowdich mistook

for a kingdom so called, as he has assigned a position to Bahooree, (the

sea-coast) between the 8th and 9th parallels of latitude, behind Gaman.

Sarem contains the kingdoms of Gaman, the tract of land known by the

name of the Ivory Coast, Banna, Takima, Soko, Ghofan, Enkasi, and Kong.

There is no town called Sarem, but the district so named is about five

hundred and thirty or five hundred and forty miles in extent, from east

to west, and it occupies full thirty-six days to traverse from limit to

limit. From north to south it may be about three hundred and seventy

miles in extent; for it also requires twenty-four stages to traverse it

in that direction. Sarem is environed on the east by Dagomba; south, by

Ghunja; north, by the Manding country; and west, or north-west, by the

mountainous district of Ganowa.

Yarraba is the greatest in extent among these southern sections. Its

boundaries are, on the north, Killinga; on the east, unknown districts

of the Soudan, called Dakhlata; on the west, Ghunja and Dagomba; on the

south, Benin and Waree. It is said to occupy the traveller forty days,

in traversing from east to west; but its extent north and south I cannot

speak of with any certainty; however, it may possibly spread as many as

four hundred and sixty geographic miles, reckoning from the southernmost

provinces of the kingdom of Bargho, in Killinga, to the land which runs

parallel with Cape Formosa.

Killinga, which is a district of great political and natural importance

in central Africa, is not inferior in extent to any of these southern

departments, Sarem and Yarraba excepted. It has for its boundaries,

Fillany, on the north-west; the Koara, Marroa, and Haoussa, on the north

and north-east; the kingdom of Yakoo, and the Soudan Dakhlata, east;

Yarraba and Dagomba, south and south-west. The Ghulby river flows

through the heart of it; and beside the kingdom and principalities of

Kambah and Maury, it contains those of Zogho, Baman, Wawa, Kandashy, &c.

The population of Killinga is reckoned to exceed in numbers that of any

other district of an equal surface; and the inhabitants, who, for the

most part, are Moslems, are considered the most opulent people of any in

the south. It may be reckoned, indeed, that the districts of the east,

namely, Haoussa, Killinga, and Yarraba, are in a comparative state of

civilization, and that they enjoy, moreover, the metallic riches of the

earth, which the nations of the west, who in turn become masters of the

Wangara mines, pour into these countries as fast as the precious metal

can be collected, and which is only, as it would seem, held in trust for

the public good, at the expence of much blood, and a barbarous system of

rapine and extortion.

Ganowa is a district bearing north, inclining west from Sarem, which is

its boundary on the south, as is also Bambara on the north, the kingdom

of Melly, and part of Dagomba, on the east. Its surface is, for the most

part, hilly or mountainous, particularly in the west. It is a district

known only to the western Moslems, who journey from Kong, Enkasy, and

Manding, to the Jolliba at Bammakoo, to Kaarta, Woled Omar, (the Ludmar

of Park) and the Desert.

The kingdom of Melly, which lies to the southward of Bambara, and

between that district and Dagomba, is also by some rated among these

sections, as one of equal celebrity, in proportion to its size, and

equally ancient as the rest, over which, however, it has the advantage

of having preserved its original political influence in those parts, and

which, consequently, still entitles it to the rank of kingdom.

Bambara is that district whose western limits the unfortunately renowned

Mungo Park traversed, in his journeys to the Niger. Its ancient

metropolis is Sego, pronounced Sago and Sagho; but it has now many

cities, as well Moslem as Heathen, of equal importance. Its boundaries

are the Great Desert, Massina, and Beroo north; Fillany, east; Dagomba,

Manding, and Melly, south; Kaarta and the Foulah country, west.

Fillany is also a district of much importance in the features of African

geography. The Niger runs through the heart of it, and it is watered by

many other large navigable streams, connected with that river, both in

the northern and southern shores. Its boundaries are Marroa on the north

east, Killinga on the south east, Magho on the south, Bambara on the

west, and the Desert on the north west. It is considered also an

extensive tract, and as my informers supposed (although erroneously) was

tributary to Ismaelia, or the empire of Morocco. That it was conquered

by the Arabian arms and colonized by those people is well authenticated

by the annals of Barbary. The Moslems of Guinea also, admit the fact;

they are aware too that the Arabs have been progressively driven

backward upon the deserts, and many of their conquests wrested from them

by the heathens (a catastrophe which they religiously deplore); yet they

persist in saying, that tribute is exacted, from the people of those

parts, in the name of the Sheriffe of Mauritania, whoever he may be.

Fillany, it is but a reasonable conjecture, derived its name from the

province of Taffilet, behind the Atlas mountains eastward, from whence

all the Mauritanian armaments issued, prior to the Mahadi dynasty, and

the building of the imperial city of Morocco in the Mauritania, properly

so called; and, indeed, where the camps and caravans yet assemble

preparatory to their departure for the east or south.

Fillany, as relating to Taffilet, is perfectly synonimous with it,

although coinciding with the African mode of assimilating the land to

the name of its tribes. Thus the tribes of Taffilet are indiscriminately

called Fillany, exactly as the other is pronounced and spelt in the

Arabic character. Concerning the tribute, which they affirm is still

collected in the name of the Sheriffe, and remitted to him by land,

across the desert, I think I may venture to affirm, that not an atom of

the money ever reaches the treasury of that prince. Perhaps, it may be

employed to subsidize some of the neighbouring Arab tribes, and for

state reasons it is still denominated _heddia_ (tribute or donation) as

heretofore, when the emperors of Morocco were powerful enough to exact

their claim by force of arms, whenever their colonists in Soudan were

remiss in their payments.

The celebrated city of Timbuctoo, or Tombuctoo as it is better known,

still enjoys a supremacy in Fillany, notwithstanding those of Taslima,

Jennie, and Wakwari, are esteemed larger, and more populous; it is

therefore called the head, or metropolis of that district.

Marroa, a district that joins Fillany in the south west, Haoussa in the

south east, the Koara south, and the desert at opposite points of the

compass, is known only to occupy a somewhat remote although central

position between Fillany and Haoussa; its limits I do not presume

otherwise to describe. The land hereabouts is deemed a sort of African

paradise, and the population is proportionably great; numerous streams

intersect the plains, some of which are of great magnitude, rolling

volumes of water southerly or easterly to the Niger.

This district, and some of the eastern provinces of Fillany, were

originally subdued by the Arabs, at a very early period. The Moslems of

Ashantee relate many traditions concerning the early wars of the

Arabians, when they turned their arms beyond the desert, the most

prominent of which relates to an invading army, sent by one of the

Viceroys of Cairowan, during the dynasty of Bani Abbas; somewhere about

the hejyran year 180, which corresponds with that of our own era 796.

These wars were of many years duration, and the “sacred” volume made an

effectual impression on this part of Soudan by the vigorous efforts of

the old Arabs, under several successive Khalifs of that dynasty, from

the magnificent Haroun al Raschid to the reign of that celebrated prince

of the dynasty called Fathemia, Moez al din Allah, who was lineally

descended from the great reformer Mahadi.

A very intelligent Moslem, a native of Nikky, named Jelelly ben Shoam,

who sometimes took a leading part in these historical conversations,

affirmed that Moez, as soon as he had seated himself upon the Egyptian

throne, directed the whole force of the Khalifat against eastern Soudan,

which he ravaged with fire and sword, extending the law (Koran) to

kingdoms of idolaters, that were hitherto unknown to the Arabs. When the

general, whom he called Abdallah ben Iyak, had effected a passage for

the army down to the Koara, he distributed his forces into several

divisions, forming them into naval armaments with which he ravaged many

of the central kingdoms, overaweing others, and inducing many powerful

sovereigns to renounce their diabolical superstitions for a religion of

“purity and peace.” This, which appears to have been the first great

effort of the Arabs beyond the Niger, succeeded beyond all human

calculation, and for many ages after, perhaps until the destruction of

the Khalifat itself, by the Tartar Holagu, tribute was punctually

remitted to the Mediterranean shores, to Cairoan, Mehedia, Cairo, or

Damascus; cities whose former renown still delights the ears and

imaginations of these Ethiopian converts, as it does those of the

present generation of Arabs.

Marroa was thus early reduced to the form of a province, dependent upon

the vice royalty of Cairoan, with which it was so far incorporated as to

be colonized by a population of Arabs, who made that district a sort of

head quarters, or rendezvous for the caravans, to and from the central

Gharb; or that tract of land comprehended between the Tingitana and the

Cyrenaica. The virtue or efficacy of camels and horses is still

venerated in proportion to the _religious_ part they bore in the wars

against their idolatrous ancestors; for both these valuable animals were

introduced by these Arabs, or at least they were not known south of the

Niger, until the Arab supremacy preponderated on that river, and their

influence extended as far as the Ghulby.

Haoussa is a district of no less importance than either Marroa or

Fillany. It is an extensive tract of land, stretching easterly from

these two districts, as far as Rakka or Kano. The Desert is its northern

boundary, and Killinga and the Koara river its southern. It is reckoned

eighteen journies, or about three hundred miles horizontal, from east to

west; and may be as many more from north to south. Youry is a powerful

kingdom of this district, together with several others of less

magnitude, as Konbash, Garanti, and Yandoto, the whole of which are

tributary to the sultan who rules in Kassina.

This district shared the fate of the others, when the Arabs lorded it

over the Niger, and it still contains a remnant of the conqueror’s

posterity, who having escaped a certain great persecution of the

believers, when the Arab garrisons were driven to the deserts, obtained

permission to establish a form of government among themselves, according

to their respective tribes and kindred. The Arab population of these

parts is now estimated at four large tribes, or about two hundred and

fifty thousand souls. Haoussa is described to be of great wealth,

luxuriant, and populous. Beside the Koara, many large navigable streams

intersect the land, and a constant and free communication, by water,

exists between its chief cities and those of Bornou, Yarraba, Benin,

Fillany and Marroa. Independent of this traffick, a more remote

intercourse by caravans is maintained, under limitations, with the

tribes or hordes of Desert Arabs, with Azben, Ferjan, (or Fezzan,) and

even with Egypt. Its boundaries, as given to me by the Bashaw of

Coomassy, are the Desert and Jekky north; the Koara south; Noufy east;

and Marroa west.

Dagomba is a district separating Ghunja from Bambara and Fillany, and

Sarem from Yarraba and Killinga. It is also highly populous, the land

mostly champaign, and well cultivated. Yandy, the chief city, is said to

be at least four times as extensive as the capital of Ashantee. The

length of this district, from north to south, is about two hundred

miles; and from east to west nearly three hundred and thirty. Yandy

enjoys great celebrity all over the African continent for its riches and

its manufactures. The natives are, moreover, highly enterprising and

commercial, and they maintain a constant communication with the

neighbouring kingdoms; but particularly so with Haoussa and Sarem, for

the conveniency of whose traffick their city becomes a depôt, and a

periodical mart, as well for their own manufactures as for those of

Fezzan, Egypt, Smyrna, &c., as also for slaves, gold, and ivory,

collected in and upon the confines of Wangara. Its distance from

Coomassy is but twenty-two days; yet the Ashantees rarely venture so far

from home, unless under the escort and protection of a Moslem.

This district, says the Bashaw, was never subject to the depredations of

the Arabs, yet in former ages, when the spirit of religious enterprise

existed in full vigour among the Moslem nations of east and west Soudan,

the powers on the Niger, and their auxiliaries ravaged many of the

eastern kingdoms; and the navigation of both the Ghulby and Koara, were

almost exclusively under Arabian controul. Even that great section

Yarraba submitted to Korannic jurisdiction, or was compelled to receive

laws from the Moslems of Haoussa, Marroa, and Fillany, whose

preponderating influence, from time to time, affected more or less every

kingdom down almost to the shores of the Atlantic, or that tract which

collectively is termed Wangara. The particular period to which these

traditions refer, nearly corresponds with the year of Christ 1200; for

the prevailing belief is, that the Moslem arms were every where

successful, up to this time; and their religion, indeed, still gained

rapidly over the continent until the commencement of the seventh Hejyran

century, when civil dissentions crept into the state and engaged the

tribes to war with each other, in opposition to the denunciations of the

Koran, and that ostensible maxim of policy which should have harmonized

their councils for the preservation of their political and religious

footing amidst tribes so barbarous and warlike.

As enemies, the Arabs are said never, at any time, to have penetrated

beyond Nikky, which is thirteen days south of the Koara. Two of the most

powerful sovereigns in that neighbourhood, namely those of Magho and

Dzogho embraced their creed by invitation, and deputed ambassadors to

the Arabian head-quarters tendering their submission.

The names of these sections refer particularly to the Moslem system of

geography; from whom, in all probability, they derive an exclusive

origin, as the Ashantees know them, it would seem, through the agency of

the Moslems, and the Fantees know nothing about the matter; but on the

contrary say, “We don’t know that; it is the Crammo’s (Moslems) talk.”

It is presumed, however, that the information is of importance, for

these names are commonly known to every Moslem nation in Africa.

The Moslems of Kong and Manding commonly used the term Wangara, as

relating to Ashantee, Dahomy, and Benin, west of the Formosa. Of the

Niger, well known to them by its Bambara name Joliba, they reported to

this effect; that it has its source in a chain of mountains which bears

west, and something north of the capital of Kong, from whence it is

distant eighteen journies. According to this estimation I conceive, its

fountain may exist in about 11° 15′ latitude north, and 7° 10′ longitude

west of the meridian of Greenwich. The intermediate space comprises a

part of the district called Ganowa, inhabited by the Manding and Falah

(Foulah) tribes. The surface for the first five or six days, they

relate, is inclining to hilly, yet it is by no means abrupt; and forests

alternately abound, but they are not so impervious as those of Ashantee.

After the first hundred miles, the traveller commences ascending a

cluster of lofty mountains, and this labour occupies him six days. The

mountains abound in rivers and rapid torrents, which discharge

themselves on the opposite sides into the Jolliba, and further to the

westward they are so high and steep that no man can ascend to their

summits; which are barren, bleak, and oftentimes covered with snow. They

are inhabited about half way up by ferocious tribes of cannibals. The

source of the river lies about two days distant up the mountains; and is

distant from Coomassy thirty-eight journies, or about five hundred

British miles horizontal.

The river in the neighbourhood, at the head of the mountains, is a small

rapid stream full of cataracts, which foam over a bed of rocky ground,

where it would not be possible to float a canoe. It flows on to a

considerable distance among the valleys and broken ground until it has

cleared the mountains, which it leaves far to the south, as it explores

a channel on the plains of Melly. On the confines of Bambara it is

already a large river, occasioned by the junction of many other rivers

of almost equal magnitude and whose sources are in these mountains. It

passes Yamina, Safana, and Sago, to Massina and Jenny; beyond which it

spreads into a large lake, called Bahar Dibber, or the Sea of Ghimbaba.

The Dibber is very large, and in the season of rain the land on the

opposite side, although high, is not discernible. Beyond Jenny the

river, at the opposite outlet of the lake, inclines to the north till it

reaches Timbuctoo. From thence its track is easterly to Ghou, having

then traversed the district of Fillany. From Ghou it enters Marroa,

passing through Corimen, Kaby, and Zanberma, as it inclines with a

southerly fall to the Youry, and the lake of Noufy. From Youry the river

inclines south-east, passing the cities of Noufy, Homan, and Magamy, in

the form of a great sea, which has several outlets to the south and

three great branches which communicate with the Shady on the east. From

the Shady the river flows, under its new name, to Gambaro, after having

passed Haoussa, Rakka, Yakoo, and Kano. From Gambaro it sweeps a little

to the southward of Bornou, Ghotta, and Arkani, till it enters Bagharmy,

where it forms a junction with the Nile of Egypt. Its course beyond this

is through Kordofan, Foor, Wady, Sennar, Nubia, &c. On the confines of

Habesh, (Abyssinia) it again spreads into a large sea, and its channel

receives the tributary waters of innumerable rivers of the largest size,

of which that called Shary, between Foor and Wady, is best known from

its situation in the land of believers. Indeed, this is the substance of

what was advanced by the Moslems, as well from the east as the west,

natives of Sarem, Dagomba, and Ghunja; or inhabitants of the banks of

the Ghulby and Koara. Briefly, they would say, the great sea flows to

Egypt, and the little one to the salt sea, from whence you came, (the

Guinea Gulf,) but they are both united at Noufy.

The Ghulby is said to flow also easterly upon a parallel with the Koara

itself, which it joins, as has been related, in Haoussa. Admitting this

to be the case, its source may be considered somewhat conjectural. In

truth there was a diversity of opinion upon this topic, some maintaining

that its fountain existed in the chain of mountains before mentioned,

between Kong and the river Ahmar; whilst others affirmed that the Ghulby

itself was a branch separated from the Koara by a ridge of mountains, in

the vicinity of Janny; and that the navigation of this southern limb was

open and unobstructed from Janny to Ghoroma, the capital of Magho,

through Konbory. Perhaps the latter was the prevailing opinion. All my

informers were ignorant of the rivers called in Park’s map, Ba Nimma,

Maniana, Ba, and Moosica: of these names that of Maniana alone was

familiar to them as a nation of idolatrous mountaineers; behind Kong,

and subject to the sovereign of Manding, who was a Moslem. Yet the route

to Sego, on the Niger, by the way of Banna, Ghofan, and Baddin, leads to

a great river or sea, running also easterly, and distant from the

Jolliba but four or five days. This river is named the Yasser.

In reference to the source of the Niger, it was published in a London

paper, of the 14th of January, 1823; that Captain Laing, (the gentleman

who has recently returned from the Gold Coast with official dispatches

of the late disasters in that quarter) saw the hill during his mission

to the interior, “where the Niger (called Timbie) springs. The river

flowing on from the hill of Loma in 9° 15′ north latitude, and 9° 36′

west longitude, marks the boundary between Sangara and Soolimani, the

former bearing to the right of east, and the latter to the left of west.

The geographical scite of Loma was ascertained by taking the bearings of

two points, and from the well known accuracy of Captain Laing, there can

be no doubt of the observations being correct.” This officer started on

the 16th April, and returned the 29th October.

The rout from Ghofan to that part of the Niger, which is in the vicinity

of Sago or Sego, takes through the kingdoms of Ghobagho, Kasogho, and

Safany, the latter of which is tributary to Melly, another kingdom

westward, of greater power than either of the others; and which is

separated from the Manding states (most of whom pay a tribute to it

notwithstanding,) by a chain of high mountains called Jibbel Kaunagh,

probably the same mountains observed by Park from the Niger. The chief

towns on this route, after crossing the desert, are Lankantira, Katary,

Botintasy, and Daboya the capital of Ghobagho. The route from thence

inclines to the NNW. taking through the towns of Denkary, Bonough,

Bouasa, Cabary, and Yaba (a city of greater extent than Salgha). From

Yaba the traveller proceeds through several other towns, which are

marked on the map and described in the manuscript, until he alights on

the banks of a great river, called by the natives of those parts Bahar

Yasser.[160] At this station, to which I have assigned the latitude and

longitude of 12° 50′ north and 2° west, it is usual for the traveller to

stop several days at a city of some magnitude, called Borma from the

island on which it is seated. Kow, which is a city of great magnitude in

Safany, is distant from the Yasser river one easy journey, and from Kow

to Sago, in a direction still inclining to the westward of north, it is

no more than four journies. The usual track pursued by the traders from

Ashantee is to Kantano in Banna, a city little inferior in size and

population to Coomassy itself, and from this station to Sago, or any

part of the Niger in Bambara, it is no more than twenty seven days’

journies, or eighteen from Daboya. From Sago to Jenny it is no more than

four water journies, or ten long ones by land.

The north banks of the Niger, westward of the Dibber lake, were little

known to my informers, except that they knew them to be populous,

containing many tribes of heathens and Moslems intermixed. But south of

the river, in the kingdom of Konbory, they described many large towns

and cities, some of which, as Taslima and Fedanky, were inhabited by a

population exclusively Moslem. The Korannic law governs all these parts,

or the people from choice and the veneration they have for Moslems

conform to its tenets in civil matters.

Camels and horses abound in all these parts, as well as in Manding, and

the people are warlike as well as commercial. The houses of the

inhabitants are flat-roofed, and constructed, for the most part, with

clay, although not differing materially in architecture from such as may

be seen in the northern states of Africa, on the Mediterranean shores;

they are not built, however, higher than those of Ashantee, with the

exception only of a few, which are two stories. The common luza,

(almond) the tûta, (mulberry) the luzal hendi, (cocoa) and many of the

productions of North Africa, grow spontaneously in these parts, blended

with the palm, date, plantain, and a variety of other species, such as

may be found everywhere in the Torrid Zone.

Janny is a very large city in the kingdom of Massina, and Ghimballa a

district or principality bordering the river, and having a town called

by the same name, which is seated one journey from the Dibber lake, on

its northern shores. Massina is the most westerly kingdom of Fillany.

From Janny it is reckoned seven or eight land journies to Timbuctoo; and

it is usual to travel the distance on horses or camels through Ghimbala,

in preference to performing the voyage across the Dibber, which, besides

its southerly inclination, is subject to storms, the merchant being

moreover harassed by canoes belonging to the petty kings and chiefs who

live on its banks, and who are in the practice of extorting goods and

money.

The Arab tribe called Woled Moghata, inhabit the desert confines behind

Massina; and in travelling to their douars, or encampments, from Janny,

you fall in with a large river, on the 10th day, which flows to the

south-east, (perhaps south;) the name of it, however, was not known.

Neither these Arabs nor the neighbouring African tribes use fire-arms;

they may indeed have possession of a few, which they purchase or take

from the natives of the Senegal and Gambia; but gunpowder being at all

times a scarce commodity, these weapons are not in much repute. The fact

may be, that the inland people of those districts are debarred a free

traffic in those commodities by their maritime neighbours, the same as

the practice is among the Ashantees and Dahomans. Many of the chiefs,

however, have a few, which they exhibit with great ostentation on days

of ceremony. Beyond the river which flows through the country of the

Woled Moghata, is the great and populous district of Marroa, of which

the kingdom of Foulaha, containing the tributary states or

principalities of Ghou and Kaby, are the westernmost boundaries. Atogho

and Zanberma are kingdoms on the south bank of the Koara, opposite the

former, in the district of Fillany. The Great Desert approaches the

river at Sago, within the distance of twelve journies; this desert,

called by way of distinction Sahara Azki, or the Pure Desert, is the

most barren of vegetation of any known in these parts; and the traveller

can seldom procure water for his cattle, under the lapse of ten or

twelve days.

The second route falling under description, is that leading from Salgha

to the right of north through Tonouma, part of Ghobagho, Ghomba, and

Mousee, to the powerful kingdom of Magho, whose capital city is Ghoroma.

There are two roads by which the traders journey,—one taking north from

Salgha to the city of Betariby, the other inclining more easterly,

through Banko and Caja to Yandy, in the country of Simmer. The former,

however, is considered the more direct route; and as such it is

preferred by travellers whose object may be to visit Ghoroma direct. The

towns between Betariby and the Ghulby, are Yashily, Deghony, and Wabia,

a capital city, as large as Coomassy, and a territory purely Moslem. The

great wilderness of Ghomaty, frequented by the elephant-hunters, lies to

the right or eastward of this, stretching off to the neighbourhood of

the city of Zogho itself, from which it is distant a single journey

only.[161] From Wabia the road leads through Kousagho, Jakolshi, Sakoya,

and Coltega, to Boughori, (a city of the heathens, of very considerable

magnitude;) from thence it is only one journey to the Ghulby, بحر غلبي,

in the kingdom of Magho, passing through the town of Batili.

This, which is a circuitous route to Haoussa, (for the Niger itself they

rarely or never visit between the parallels of 1° west, and 6° or 7°

east,) is often preferred by the traders who visit Haoussa, on account

either of the commercial habits of the people, or their proximity to the

great fairs[162] and markets, which are generally holden weekly in the

vicinity of the Koara, and to which the merchants from all parts of the

north-east are in the constant practice of resorting. Ghoroma is on the

north bank of the Ghulby, and distant from Batili one journey by water,

or three by land. By this road it is seventeen journeys from Salgha to

Ghoroma; but by the way of Yandy it is one day more, the track upon

either parallel bearing to the right of north.

The traders who visit Magho generally proceed northward to the little

tributary heathen kingdom of Ghotto, to which there is a communication

by water, either by the overflowing or connexion of a lake, called by

the Moslems Konzagha, and which lies to the north-east of Ghoroma, at

six journeys distant. The River Ghulby is parted from at the great city

of Andary, a capital station of the traders, on the second day. The lake

itself is considerably more than one journey in length, from east to

west, and the water of it is perfectly pure and sweet-flavoured. To

Ghoroma I have accordingly assigned the latitude of 12° 25″ north

longitude, 1.33 east. Nearly upon the parallel of Popo, and to Andary, I

have given 12° 34 latitude, 2° 12 longitude, which would place it on a

line nearly with Whydah.

Magho is a kingdom which contains a mixed population of Moslems and

Heathens,—the former enjoying the government. The sultan[163] is one of

the most powerful princes south of the Koara, and may, as my informer

stated, vie in rank with the sultan of Bargho, his eastern neighbour.

The dominions of the sovereign extend right and left of north to Atogho,

(a principality of heathens south of the Koara and Konbory,) where the

population again is mixed. The people of these parts, Moslems or

Heathens, are highly commercial and enterprizing.

From Magho the traders sometimes drop down the Ghulby to Kook, Nikky, or

Rougha; but there is another route leading inland through many towns,

which may be referred to in the chart or native MSS. leading also to

Nikky, the metropolis of Killinga, and the great kingdom of Bargho. From

Nikky, the Haoussa road leads over the Ghulby, to Wory and other towns

in the north-east, through the heart of Bargho, and from thence to its

tributary kingdom of Wawa, as it will fall under description next in

order. The road from Nikky to Kassina, below the Noufy lake, takes

through the kingdoms of Maury, Kandashi and Souy, leaving Kaima and

Atagara, two other powerful states; the former Moslem, and the latter

Heathen, in the south and south-east. The track of country on this route

is mostly champaign, rich, and fruitful, well watered with innumerable

small rivers, and some great ones, which it is affirmed flow southerly,

and fall into the sea in the neighbourhood of Benin.

Two or three journies eastward of Nikky is a lake of moderate

dimensions, called Makaro, which they relate, has no connexion with the

River Ghulby; and the water of it is said to be brackish, or salt. Salt

is also dug out of the earth hereabouts, and transported to all parts of

the south and west, as also to the markets of Nikky, Youry, Boussa,

Kook, Kassina, &c. To this lake I have assigned the latitude of 12°

north, and 6° 30 east. The chief towns in its neighbourhood are Ghora

and Ghatagha,—the latter a very large and populous city, inhabited by a

great proportion of Moslems, and resorted to from all parts of Soudan.

From Ghatagha, the route to Kassina inclines to the left of east,[164]

through Fogha, Toukani, Bakoridi, and Conka, to Kanbaja, along the track

pursued by the Ghulby in its course to the Noufy. Some of the other

principal towns are Kaado, Fakaro, Ghosi, Rekena, and Marina, which is a

city of the very first rank, and the metropolis of Souy. To this place I

have assigned a position, 13° 28″ north latitude, 11° 10″ east

longitude. It bears south-east from the Noufy lake, from which it is

distant two journies. The Moslem law prevails throughout these

districts. At Fakaro, Kaado, and Kanbaja, the governments are in the

hands of these people, who rule a mixed population of Moslems and

Idolaters; but the latter are not tolerated in any part of the kingdom

of Souy. The intercourse between Bornou and Souy is very great, and both

nations are skilled in manufactures. The land is said to be amazingly

rich and productive in corn and fruits. The city itself is said to be as

large as Yandy, which is the largest in the south, upon that parallel,

or below it. The fairs which are held here are resorted to by people not

only from all parts of Haoussa, but also from Bournou, Yakoo, Gambaroo,

Maury, and Bargho. The heathen kingdom of Yakoo, the capital of which is

Saghona, bears easterly from Marina, inclining, perhaps, a little to the

south, as it is below the lake called Shady. Still further to the south-

east is the negro kingdom of Gambaro, which, as well as Yakoo, are

sometimes tributary to Bornou. From Marina the road leads northerly over

a river called Ghulby Kerba, to a small town called also Souy, from

whence, after crossing a second large river, whose name is unknown to

me, it will lead to Rouma, also a large city of the Moslems, and an

important place of trade. From Marina to Rouma it is four good journies,

and from Rouma to Kassina, which bears north of it, it is four more,

over the great eastern outlet of the lake Noufy, called the Koara Raba,

or Koara Rafa, through the towns of Cooney, Mayo, Moro, Malabo, and New

Birini, (built after another city of this name, and of great renown.)

Old Birini, which is still a place of some importance, bears about west

north west of Kassina, from which it is distant three journies. To

Kassina I have assigned the latitude of 15° 12″ north, longitude, 11°

50″ east, it being about nine hundred geographic miles from Coomassy, or

seventy-three journies, by the foregoing route through Magho, Bargho,

and Maury, and sixty-eight hard travelling by a direct path.

There is a river, the Moslems relate, of very great dimensions, and

which serves as the boundary on the lakes, between Bornou and Haoussa

and the desert. This river, which they name Bahar Bairam, comes out of

Bornou, and falls into the Koara, somewhere between the Noufy and Shady,

or perhaps into one or the other of them. To go from Kassina to Rakka

and Kano, two large principalities of the Moslems, on the banks of the

Shady, it is usual to cross the Bairam, I think the first or second day.

Haoussa is separated on the north-east from the desert, and Sokory, a

place of some importance, on its confines, by a chain or cluster of

small mountains, called Jibbel Taurica. The Felatah tribes inhabit all

the country hereabouts. The sultan of Kassina, which is a city no way

inferior to those of the first class in Africa, is supreme in Haoussa,

receiving tribute from all parts of it, including the lesser kingdoms of

Youry, Konbash, Bousa, Garanty, and Yandoso. The Felattah tribes, and

the Arab territory of Jekhy, I think, stand in the same relation to this

monarch, who is a rigid Moslem, and whose dominions in the east contain

none who do not conform to the faith. The Moslems, in fact, compose the

great bulk of the population of Haoussa, and its government is

exclusively in their hands. Jekhy, which is a station of much greater

renown than Sokory, is distant from Kassina twenty journies, in a north-

west direction. It is a rocky or stony district, inhabited by a branch

of a tribe of Arabs called Woled Gormah. From Jekhy the caravans and

traders explore their way to all parts of the north and north-west,—to

Taffilet, Algier, Akabli, Tunis, Tripoli, &c.

There is a route from Janny to Jekhy, as may be seen in one of the MSS.

by dropping down the Dibber to Alfine, and from thence, by land, through

Kasoo, Dansoo, Sakam, Boghfom, and Aty, then over the Koara to

Kankawansa, Henkonta, Dankasado, Dody, Kamana, and Jekhy, from whence to

Azban it is twenty-three day’s journey, and to Egypt (Cairo) one

hundred. This is the usual track of pilgrimage performed by the natives

of the west and south-west, besides those of Safany, Melly, Manding,

Konbory, &c. Haoussa and Marroa are, perhaps, the most important

commercial districts in central Africa, and their manufactures of cotton

goods, carpets, trinkets, and cutlery, some of which I have seen, are

little, if any thing, inferior to those of Mauritania. Horses and camels

abound everywhere, and the inhabitants fight with bows, arrows, darts,

and lances, in common with most or all of the inland nations. The

population of these parts must indeed be great, if it is true, as

related, that, like Benin itself, or superior to it, there is scarcely a

piece of waste land to be seen, or where corn and other nutritious

vegetables are not cultivated by the inhabitants, who, I think the

Bashaw told me, here make use of the plough, and I believe nowhere else

south of the Niger, unless that instrument may be used in Bornou. Some

of the mosques and public inns in Kassina, Old and New Berini and

Marina, as well as in Haoussa and Marroa, in general are said to be very

elegant structures, having marble basins and fountains for ablution. The

palaces of the sovereigns are built with proportionate magnificence.

Akom in Bornou is considered a sort of metropolitan sovereignty or

principality; for here the sultan, it is said, chiefly resides, who

rules the whole empire, to the confines of the Desert, Nubia, and

Sennar. Bornou is considered the greatest monarchy in Africa, without

exception. The inhabitants are Moslems, not only there, but probably

from the 8th or 9th parallel of longitude upon the Koara and Shady, to

the shores of the Red Sea, excepting some insulated tribes, as it is

stated, of Christians, and perhaps Jews, the former living independent

in the mountains, and the latter in subserviency to the believers.