News from Tesaoua--Razzia on Sakkatou--Laziness in Zinder--The
Hajah--Herds of Cattle--More Tuarick Patients--Gardens--My
Luggage--Adieu to the Sarkee--Present from his Highness--Start from
Zinder--Country--Birds--Overtake the Kashalla--Slaves for
Kanou--Continue the Journey--People of Deddegi--Their Timidity--Horse
Exercise--Cotton--Strange Birds--Occupation of Men and Women--State of
African Society--Islamism and Paganism--Character of the Kashalla--A
Dogberry--Guddemuni--Cultivation--Beggars--Dancing Maidens.
A Shereef has come here to-day from Tesaoua, and reports that Overweg
left that place for Maradee, about eight days since, with a Tuarick of
En-Noor. The city of Maradee is but an hour from Gonder, and is about
twice the size of Zinder. The whole occupation of these two cities is
that of razzia, and their subsistence and riches are all derived from
this source. These places also swarm with Tuaricks, Kilgris, Iteesan,
and Kailouees, who join the blacks of Maradee and Gouber in their
slave-hunting expeditions. A grand razzia is being perpetrated by the
united forces of the Sultans of Maradee, Gouber, and Korgum, with the
assistance of a thousand Tuarick horse, on the territories of the Sultan
of Sakkatou. The cavalry of the marauders consists of some five
thousand, and there are more than this number on foot. My informant says
they will go near Kashna, perhaps to its very gates. So it seems the
Sultan of Sakkatou, with all his power and his great cities, is unable
to check, or apparently even to avenge, the depredations committed upon
his most important provinces. It is said that the product of this razzia
will be some of the finest slaves in this part of Africa, many of them
almost white. We are to leave here to-morrow. Inshallah! It is too bad
to be kept so long here, when Haj Beshir has sent orders for us to come
immediately.
_7th._--The morning was cool; thermometer at sunrise, 58 deg.. I slept
little, being angry at being kept here so long. I read Milton to divert
my mind awhile from African subjects.
There seems to be little industry in Zinder. The education of the
greater part of the males is to fit them for razzias, and this must be
considered as the principal cause of the unfeeling manner with which the
blacks hereabouts look upon, their captive brethren. These captives are
their means of livelihood; they live on the products of the razzias,
and, of course, the superior intellects with which they may come in
contact countenance all their proceedings; for the foreign merchants are
equally interested with them in their inhuman expeditions. Africa is
bled from all pores by her own children, seconded by the cupidity of
strangers.
All the Moors and Arabs whom I conversed with extol the power of the
Sheikh of Bornou, and represent him as the greatest sheikh in Central
Africa. Nevertheless, the Fellatahs are everywhere, far and wide, from
Sakkatou to Adamaua, a dominant people, though few in number compared
with the population of the subjected kingdoms.
One of the most remarkable women, perhaps the only remarkable woman in
Zinder at the present moment, is a certain Hajah (i.e. a woman who has
made the pilgrimage of Mekka). She is a native of Fezzan, and is now
employed in the household of the Sheikh of Bornou. She is excessively
free and easy with all men folks; and although such a saint, her
chastity, I am told, does not rate high. She returns to Kuka with us--no
great gain to our caravan.
Near our enclosure is a long space full of bullocks and cows--some four
hundred and fifty. These are distributed amongst the whole population by
ones, twos, and threes. I have seen no herd but this, and if this is
really the only one, it speaks little for the wealth of the people of
Zinder. In fact, with regard to horses it is much the same,--the Shereef
can hardly find me a horse to ride on in the whole town.
Apparently, Zinder is a wretchedly poor place. All are needy, from the
Sarkee downwards, and when they get any property it all comes from the
razzias. The system of living on rapine and man-stealing seems to bring
its own punishment along with it.
A _posse_ of Tuarick patients assailed me very early this morning. The
Tuaricks, who have more intellect than the blacks, let loose their
imagination to fancy they have all sorts of complaints. Thus I have more
patients from them than from the people of Zinder, and am quite
undeceived as to my having done with this tribe when I entered the gates
of this town. There is, however, this difference now, that they treat me
with the greatest respect, and are very quiet, bringing presents instead
of demanding presents.
The Tuaricks of Gurasu, I hear, have a bad name, and are troublesome to
the Sheikh.
I went to the gardens this morning and yesterday morning--it is an
immense relief from the enclosure of huts in town--but have not observed
anything new. I am told that the suburbs of Kanou are full of palms.
Zinder, if the people were industrious, could have its forests of palms,
bearing luscious fruit twice a-year. But, alas! the excitement of the
razzia destroys the taste for all rational industry. What bandit could
ever settle down into a tiller of the ground?
_8th._--The people came this morning, in a great hurry, to take off the
luggage, and afterwards pretended that I should go to-morrow, whilst the
baggage must be forwarded to-day. This arrangement I positively refused
to comply with, being determined to stop no longer.
I went to take leave of the Sarkee. His highness had nothing to say, and
we as little to him. We just shook hands, and that was all. He is not
very well pleased with his late man-hunt. He still owes twenty thousand
dollars, which it will require a dozen such speculations to pay off. The
castle outside was besieged with soldiers, all lounging and listening to
two or three drummers. I am disgusted to see so many idle people. The
only novelty was four or five singing-women, who sung choruses inside
the walls to a drummer. All the soldiers in undress, or not going on
razzia, are bare-headed, and also nearly all the inhabitants of the
town. A few persons, mostly women, wear a piece of blue cotton cloth
over their heads, tied tight, so as to have the appearance of a cap. The
common sort of women go with their breasts bare; others, of higher rank,
drag up their skirts to cover their breasts; and a few add a piece of
cotton cloth, which they throw over their shoulders like a shawl.
The Sarkee has presented Yusuf with a horse, blind with one eye, and not
much bigger than a jackass, in return for the present Yusuf made to him.
In fact, this potentate is now as poor as a rat, and has nothing to give
away. When he has anything, he soon parts with it, being generous to
prodigality. The title Sarkee is used for men of inferior rank, and is
something like Bey.
I waited till three o'clock, P.M., for my servants, and Said of Haj
Beshir, to come and bring the oxen for the rest of the baggage--the boat
and the heavy baggage left in the morning; and seeing no signs of their
preparation, I determined to be no longer duped by them, and told the
servant of Haj Beshir that I would start to-day, be the consequence what
it might. So off I went to the Shereef, and told him I must go at once,
to follow the Kashalla, who had taken away the box in which was the
chronometer, and I must go to wind it up early in the morning. He
immediately informed the Sarkee, and asked for a soldier. A soldier was
forthwith brought, and a message from the Sarkee, that the horse which
had been sent for me to ride upon was a present from his highness to me.
This is the first present of the kind I have received in Africa; and
after giving away about five hundred pounds sterling of Government money
I have got in return, at last, a horse worth one pound fifteen shillings
and fourpence, the current value of this country! The Sarkee of Zinder
is miserably poor, but he was afraid to let me go to Kuka, to his
master, without giving me a present.
I started from Zinder, riding my "gift horse," about an hour before
sunset, and arrived at Dairmummegai, a very large village, where the
Kashalla had pitched tent, after three hours' ride. Our course was due
east, through a scattered forest of dwarf-trees, in which were
fluttering about a number of strange-looking birds, that reminded me I
was in a foreign land. One solitary bird excited my pity; its form was
something like that of a small crane, but, verily, it was most
disproportionally thin, with very long neck and shanky legs. It was
wandering about as if it had lost itself in the world; and yet a bird
losing itself in the world is a strange notion! We met a couple of
huntsmen, on the shoulders of one of whom was coiled a fine bleeding
gazelle. These huntsmen had only bows and arrows, and they had managed
to get a gazelle, whilst we, with all our matchlocks and muskets, had
never been able to shoot one of these animals during our eight or nine
months of passage through the desert. The Kashalla was exceedingly glad
at my arrival, and got ready a bowl of new milk. He is a man of some
fifty or sixty years of age, black, and with Bornou features, speaking a
little Arabic. The greater part of the Bornou people know a few words of
this language. The Sheikh sent him to bring the boat and our baggage. He
is a friendly, quiet man, whilst the man sent by Haj Beshir, Said, is an
impudent slave, and only thinking of what he can get by his journey.
I saw, as I passed through the streets of Zinder this morning, a number
of slaves chained together, going to the market of Kanou; so that this
place is the great central depot of this merchandise. These were some of
the fruits of the Sarkee's last razzia.
_9th._--The morning was cool, and we started early, and made six hours
and a-quarter in a general south-east direction, through a continuation
of scattered forests, with open spaces, the wood being broken in upon
here and there by a scanty ghaseb cultivation. Amongst the trees, some
rose with giant arms and all the characters of tropical vegetation. The
country was undulating, with ranges of low hills. Blocks of granite were
scattered on the surface of the ground; in the deeper valleys lay
stagnant water of the last rains, fast drying up; and here were
water-fowls, waders, and some large, strange, black-and-white geese,
with necks of enormous length.
After three hours and a-quarter we came to the considerable village of
Deddegi, where, on our appearance, all the inhabitants fetching water or
tending cattle ran away. This I may remark, as the first time that the
people ran away at our appearance amongst them. Hitherto we have always
had the population pressing upon us for curiosity, or to attack and
plunder us. Things change. But the flight of the people of Deddegi is
easily explained. We were soon recognised as a Bornou caravan, and the
Bornouese in coming to Zinder,--the Sheikh's people especially,--have
been in the habit of plundering these villages, or carrying off the
people and their cattle, the former into slavery. Recently the Sarkee
has complained of this, and the Sheikh, to do him justice, has ordered
the Sarkee to seize any Bornouese committing these misdemeanours, and
execute what justice he pleases upon them. The Sarkee, now, will not be
slack to obey his master's commands. Still it is not surprising the
people ran away from a Bornou caravan.
We encamped at the group of villages called Dairmu. My "gift horse" had
given me most excruciating pain in riding, and I was obliged to dismount
for half an hour. The saddles are very bad, and cut you raw before you
are accustomed to them. But I must submit to this fatigue, for now I
must ride horses and put away the camel, which is too slow for
travelling in Soudan, where water and herbage are found for the horses
every two or three hours.
After I was somewhat recovered, I went to see the village, and found all
the people working upon cotton; some cleaning it, some winding it into
balls, and others weaving the gubaga, or narrow strips of cotton cloth,
with which the greater number of the population are clothed. A small
portion of the cotton-twist is dyed with indigo, and with this and the
undyed a species of check-cotton cloth is woven; but all very rude. The
Sheikh of the place supplied the caravan with bazeen. For myself I
purchased a couple of fowls, which cost just twopence farthing in
English money: they were, however, small; and I may remark that all
fowls are small in this country, and most of the domestic animals, like
horses, sheep, dogs, cats, &c. are diminutive when compared to those of
Europe. The bullocks, however, are of a good size, with branching horns.
The sheep have no wool, or rather, the wool takes the appearance and
substance of hair, like that of a dog; and their tails, too, are like
those of dogs; but, indeed, the Soudan sheep are well known. No fruit or
vegetables are found in these villages: not even onions, common in most
places. The birds have all a strange appearance. I am no naturalist, and
wonder when I should examine. That filthy species of vulture, the
scavenger of Zinder, is seen in twos and threes. The woods abound in
turtle-doves. I gave the Kashalla a ring for himself and his female
slave, or wife, as it may be. Very few men of this sort have wives: all
their women are slaves. He was greatly pleased with the present.
_10th._--My thermometer remains behind with the baggage at Zinder,
expected to-day. Here we wait for it, and the rest of the caravan. I
oiled myself well last night with olive oil, and feel much better this
morning. During a walk through the villages, I observed that two-thirds
of the male population, as in Zinder, are quite idle, lounging about, or
stretched at their full length upon the dust of the ground. A third find
something to do, either in working on cotton, or making matting, or in
the gardens, where tobacco, pepper, cotton, and indigo are grown. These
are the staple products of the gardens in this part of Africa. The women
have always something to occupy their time, suckling their children,
fetching water, cooking, or else picking cotton. All the males, I
imagine, at some seasons of the year, find occupation, when the ghaseb
is sown and when reaped. But, nevertheless, what powerfully solicits the
observation of the European in looking into these villages is the
downright livelong idleness of the male population.
We begin, at length, to regard this region merely as the nursery-ground
of slavery--of the system which takes away the idlers to perform their
share of the curse pronounced on Adam, that in the sweat of his brow he
should eat and earn his bread. Again it is to be observed, that the
wants of these people are very few: they live on ghaseb and milk, eating
little meat; these come to them almost without labour. The ground is
tilled by burning the stubble of the previous year, or by burning the
trees on new land. The seed is thrown in when the rain begins, and
nothing more is done till the grain is ripe for the sickle, when it is
gathered in. It is collected under small sheds made of matting, and
eaten as it is wanted. The cattle are mostly driven to graze and to
water, and this is all the attention they require. The cotton furnishes
a scanty clothing, deemed sufficient; all the children go naked till
they are ten years old, or only wear a piece of cotton, leather, or a
skin round their loins. The men of some consequence buy a tobe brought
from Kanou or Niffee; the women purchase a few beads and other ornaments
with their fowls or ghaseb. The bowls or household utensils are made
from gourds, in shape like a cucumber, but straight, with a knob at the
end; they are slit in two, and thus form two spoons, the concave head of
the gourd serving as the bowl, the other part as the handle. These
calabashes, some of which are pretty, are hung up within the huts as
ornaments. On peeping into these huts, nothing is seen but these said
calabashes, except the strings or nets by which they are suspended on
the sides of the huts. As you enter there is always a partition-wall on
your right hand, and a round entrance at the further end of the hut to
this part, partitioned off. This space, so divided off, is the
sleeping-place, where there is a raised bench of mud, or a bedstead made
of cane or wickers. A few utensils for culture, an axe and a hoe, may be
mentioned, all made by native blacksmiths, of the rudest description.
Iron is found in the native rocks of Soudan, and is not imported. The
greatest skill of the African blacksmith is, alas! shown in forging the
manacles for slaves. I must mention that many of the huts have walls of
clay, and roofs only of thatch or matting. The grain-stacks are also
raised a foot or two from the ground, on stakes, to prevent the ghaseb
getting wet during the rainy season. Thus it is that these children of
Africa live a life of simplicity little above pure savages, and I may
add, a life of comparative idleness, and perhaps happiness, in their
point of view.
Yesterday our Kashalla made a move to say his prayers. He was surrounded
by the people who came with him from Zinder and Bornou, and the
inhabitants of Dairmu. He prayed, but prayed alone, none following his
example! It is quite clear that all the black population hereabouts are
only nominal Muslims, and remain in heart pure Hazna, or pagans. Those
who do pray, pray very little indeed; there is no sensual charin or
allurement in Mahommedanism for the African mind, whilst its fasts and
commands of abstinence from strong drinks deter thousands from embracing
the religion of the false Prophet. It cannot allure the African by
polygamy, because the African has as many women as he pleases by the
permission of his native superstition. Islamism, therefore, takes no
hold of the native African mind. There are a few Tuaricks scattered
amongst all this population, but living generally out of the villages by
themselves; they are all subjects of the Sheikh, and have escaped the
desert to lead an easier life in Soudan. It is strange that some of the
Tuarick women are enormously corpulent, whilst a corpulent woman is not
found amongst the blacks. I must add, that the morality of these black
villages seems of a much higher and purer kind than that of the Tuarick
villages of Asben. Here they do not look upon woman, as in Asben, simply
in the light of an instrument of pleasure: but I fear this will soon
change. What morality, indeed, can there be without higher and more
binding motives?
I was much pleased with the condescension of the Kashalla in furnishing
me with information on routes, and gave him a head of sugar. He is a man
of great generosity, and immediately divided it amongst his people. He
says he never leaves the Sheikh's presence, and it was solely on account
of me that the Sheikh sent him to fetch me from Zinder. If this be true,
their sovereign has paid a high compliment to the Mission.
The only character whom I could discover in Dairmu was the constable, or
general police-officer. This was an ill-looking fellow, with one eye
damaged,--a most unamiable Dogberry. He approached the Kashalla twice,
keeping, however, at a timid distance, kneeling down and throwing the
dust in handfulls over his head, in the most abject manner. Yet this man
was the dread of the whole neighbourhood! The exercise of all
disagreeable employments seems to debase man. Before his superiors he
crouches and grovels in dust; with the people he commands, he is a very
tyrant!
_10th._--I was joined yesterday evening by the rest of the caravan,
Said, and Moknee, and my new interpreter. Said brings goods for Haj
Beshir. We started early, and made seven hours; our route varying
between east and south-east, through a fine wavy country, rising at
times into high hills, with few trees in comparison to what we have
hitherto had, and a good deal of cultivation, all ghaseb. The sandy soil
is well adapted for this kind of grain. A ridge of quartz rocks strikes
up through the sand. The rocky hills are mostly granite. The atmosphere
was cooled by an easterly wind. We pitched tent, or rather halted, at a
cluster of villages of considerable size, the principal of which is
Guddemuni. They are all placed on hills. In the deep valley near is a
large lake, towards the east, about two hours long and half-an-hour
wide. In the dry season the people cultivate, by irrigation from the
lake, a quantity of wheat, which they export to Kanou. Besides wheat,
they raise ghaseb on the hill tops; and in the gardens, cotton, indigo,
tobacco, onions, pepper, dates (bearing twice a-year), henna, potatoes
(_dankali_), the palm (_geginya_),--bearing a large fruit (_gonda_),
like the mealy melon,--gourds, rogo, and gwaza; which last are two
species of potatoes. Some large trees are planted like the kuka, the
fruit of which is used for sauce.
To-day the Kashalla rode up to several men wandering in the fields,
hunting, and attempted to impose some labour on them. This was a signal
for a general stoppage of all foot-passengers, who were met by his
people, for one purpose or another, either to take from them any little
articles, or to vex them. They did not, however, stop two people we met,
but gave them full leave to pass. Who were these? One was a man who, by
disease, had become all over of a light flesh-colour, his black skin
peeling off. It was a perfect phenomenon--a man with strong negro
features, entirely white, or of a light dull-red colour. The other man
was a miserable, filthy, blind fellow, whom the first invalid was
leading. They were, in fact, a couple of mendicants going to Zinder on
speculation, having come from Kuka, begging through all the towns and
villages. The trade of begging is coextensive with man, civilised or
uncivilised, in towns or country. Africa has a good number of this
industrious class of people.
The language of this cluster of villages is Haussa, like that of Zinder,
the "Haussa of the North," as it is called: it varies a little from the
pure Haussa of Kashna and Kanou. The people of this place were all
excessively civil. I walked out in the evening, and saw about thirty of
the maidens of Guddemuni (one of the villages) encircling a female
dancer, who kept pacing to the sound of a rude guitar. At the sight of
me they all made off. The poor blacks in these villages always expect
that the white man comes to bring them into slavery. Afterwards I went
to salute the Sultan. We saw him during two minutes; he kept rubbing his
hands, as if he were cold. He was a sinister-looking man, dressed in a
white tobe; he had not the least suspicion of what a Christian might be.
I made the acquaintance of the taste of the doom-palm, in a dish of
pastry seasoned by it. The taste is something like rhubarb, only a
little sharper.