Wassoulo. — Manners and customs of the inhabitants. — Flourishing
state of agricultural industry. — Hospitality. — Kankary. —
Sambatikila. — Reflections on the sale of slaves. — Scarcity. —
Description of the residence of the almamy. — Commerce. — Smiths’
work. — Bambara villages. — Arrival at Timé. — Ranges of
mountains.
Wassoulo is a country inhabited by idolatrous Foulahs, who are herdsmen
and agriculturists; they rear a great number of horned cattle, and
some sheep, and goats. I have seen among them horses of a small breed,
and incapable of supporting much fatigue. They have also poultry,
on which they set a high value, and which can only be bought for
gunpowder, tobacco, salt, or glass-wares. They take especial care
of their young fowls, collecting them every night in a sort of round
basket, and carrying them into their huts to protect them from cold,
and soon after sun-rise every morning, they are again set at liberty
to run about round the house; they are seldom fed with grain of any
kind, but live upon insects, herbs, and the grains of rice or millet,
which fly out of the mortars while pounding. The men take care of the
poultry, and bring out of the fields heaps of earth swarming with
termites, which the fowls immediately devour. All the inhabitants
have dogs to protect their houses; but I did not see dogs’ flesh
eaten in Wassoulo, as in some parts of Bambara.
The country is generally open, and diversified by a few hills; the
soil very fertile, and partly composed of a rich black mould mixed
with gravel: the country is watered by the Sarano, and by many large
streams, which fertilise the soil; it brings forth in abundance every
thing which is necessary for man in an unsophisticated state. The
inhabitants are gentle, humane, and very hospitable, curious to excess,
but much less teazing than the Mandingoes. Their food is very simple;
they eat, like the people of Kankan, rice, tau, foigné, without
pounding; to these they add a sauce made of leaves of different herbs,
or of roasted pistachio-nuts. They seldom use salt, which is a great
luxury, and eat meat only on feast-days; in their sauces they mix
(besides gombo) the leaf of the baobab, dried and pounded; they also
eat the fruit of this tree, which they steep in water or milk, and
which, like nédé, is very sweet and nutritious.
The women manufacture earthen pots for their housekeeping; for this
purpose they use a grey clay, which they find on the banks of the
streams; they knead it, and clear it of all extraneous matter, and
when of the proper consistence, it is easily worked: having brought
it into the right form, they polish it by degrees with their hands,
and the vessels, when finished, are placed in the shade to dry slowly,
for the heat of the sun would crack them; when half dry, they are
again polished with a piece of wood made for the purpose; in this
way they become quite shining, and are again set to dry. Before
they are completely hardened, they are exposed to a gentle sun,
and eight or ten days afterwards they are piled one upon another,
between two layers of millet-straw, which is set on fire to complete
the baking. Vessels which are thus made come out quite glazed and of
a greyish colour; they are usually round, with a little rim round
the top, and no handle; they very much resemble what are made all
through Fouta-Dhialon and Kankan. The amiable inhabitants of this
happy country live as if they were all of one family. Each hamlet
is composed of twelve or fourteen huts, or even fewer, surrounded by
a clumsy and tasteless wooden palisade. In the centre of this little
group of huts is a court, into which they all open; the cattle are shut
up in this court at night; but the calves have a separate enclosure;
it is the business of the women to milk the cows. There are usually two
outer doors to this court, at each of which is a forked piece of wood,
which you are sometimes obliged to stride over, as it is not always
very easy to squeeze past it, and I have found it very troublesome,
on various occasions, in my Arabian costume. These forks are thus
placed to prevent the cattle from straying at night, and there is
another entrance without this kind of barricade through which they
are brought in and out.
The women, who are employed in cooking, perform their operations in the
open air. The inhabitants are in general very dirty and ill-clothed;
their costume resembles that of the natives of Toron; and, like them,
they use tobacco and snuff. They plait their hair in tresses, wear
ear-rings of small beads and necklaces, and iron bracelets on their
legs and arms, like the women. They are Foulahs, but do not speak the
Foulah language. Their complexion, which is lighter than that of the
Mandingoes, is of a darker hue than the negroes of Fouta-Dhialon. I
tried to discover whether they had any religion of their own; whether
they worshipped fetishes, or the sun, moon or stars; but I could
never perceive any religious ceremony amongst them, and I suspect
that they are careless on the subject, and trouble themselves very
little with theology: if they had any specific belief of their own,
instead of encouraging Musulmans and grigris, they would scorn them,
and adhere to the superstition of their country. Small hamlets are to
be seen at short distances from one another all over the country. The
inhabitants grow a great quantity of cotton, of which they manufacture
cloth, and sell it to dealers, who carry it to Kankan. The looms which
they use for weaving cloth are like ours, but smaller; the breadths
are not more than five inches wide; the slays are of reed, and they
have a shuttle like ours with small bobbins, which they fasten to
the shuttle with a thin bit of wire, or a small piece of reed; they
do not weave fast. The women sit in their courts, and spin cotton;
as they do not understand carding, their thread is coarse and uneven;
they use the same kind of spindle which is employed by the negresses
of the Senegal.
They have in the country smiths, who make poniards, iron bracelets,
and agricultural implements; these last consist chiefly of a hoe
eight or ten inches long, and five broad; I did not observe any
other. With this instrument they make trenches, clear away the weeds,
and cultivate the ground as well as we can in Europe. They have a
small axe to cut down the trees which grow in their fields, and they
take care to destroy the roots, which I had not seen practised since
I left the coast. The inhabitants of Wassoulo carry on little traffic,
and never travel; their idolatry indeed would expose them to the most
dreadful slavery if they did. Gentle and humane, they give a friendly
reception to all the strangers who come among them. They grow a great
quantity of tobacco; when it has run to seed, they gather the leaves,
dry them in the sun, and reduce part of them to snuff, of which they
consume a great quantity; the rest is reserved for smoking. They have
a pair of large tongs, like a smith’s a foot long, to light their
pipes with. The young men shave their heads, like the Mahometans. Most
of them are very expert in the management of the bow and arrow,
and I have seen them amuse themselves with shooting at a mark in a
tree. The children, who are all naked, are early addicted to bodily
exercises. These people have a habit of making incisions in their
faces, and filing their teeth; they have several wives, like all
other idolaters, who are most submissive to their husbands; a woman
always drops on one knee when she hands any thing to her husband,
and the same ceremony is observed to strangers of distinction. I
never saw any kind of illness in the country; they are all robust
and healthy. Though vegetable butter abounds amongst them they make
little use of it; they prefer animal butter for culinary purposes,
and reserve the vegetable for pains and wounds: they also grease their
hair with it, and rub it over their bodies, which gives them a rank
smell. They form a great contrast to the inhabitants of Kankan in the
article of cleanliness; for they are altogether filthy and disgusting,
and never wash their clothes, which are always of a black or yellow
colour. They wear on their heads a cap eighteen inches in height, the
top of which is very narrow, and hangs down on the back or shoulder;
I could hardly guess the original colour, so completely was it always
disfigured with dirt and butter; when it drops off in rags they
provide themselves with a new one. The women have no other covering
than a pagne, which they wrap round their loins; on their heads they
wear a strip of the manufacture of the country, which serves as a
head-dress. I never saw any of them smoke, but they take a great deal
of snuff, and also rub it on the inside and out of their gums.
On the 23rd of July, at seven in the morning, we took leave of
our hosts, who had given us a very good supper of rice the evening
before. We directed our course E.S.E. and passed a little village,
the name of which I have forgotten. At one of the cabins I asked for
a little water to quench my thirst; a female slave brought me some
in a calabash: she knelt down as she presented it to me. We heard
distant thunder, but had no rain. We continued our progress to the
S.E. for eight miles, and passed Banankodo, a large village of the
Foulou, containing four or five hundred inhabitants; it is shaded by
large bombaces and baobab trees. The country over which we travelled
was under water, and the plain quite open: it was about noon, when,
after having gone three miles more, we halted at Yonmouso, a little
hamlet similar to those of the Wassoulos. Arafanba fired his piece
in token of rejoicing on our arrival at this little village, where he
had friends, with whom we went to seek a lodging, and they forthwith
prepared a hut for us, in which we passed the night. I had met on the
road a Poulh of Foulou, accompanied by his wife, who carried upon her
head a breakfast of foigné and milk: as this man had questioned my
guide respecting me, and was doubtless interested about me, I accepted
with pleasure the breakfast which he offered to me. I wished to pay him
in glass-wares, but he persisted in refusing all compensation. When
I arrived at Yonmouso this man brought several of his companions to
see me: he said nothing concerning his generous hospitality to me—a
reserve that I admired greatly in a negro. He asked to see my umbrella;
I hastened to gratify him, and it excited, as before, the admiration
of all: to amuse them, I opened and shut it repeatedly. The hut was
not cleared of people the whole evening; but their visits were very
short, and their manners reserved: they also had recourse to wisps of
lighted straw to see me the better, and liked the looks of me. Many
gave me milk, and at the beginning of the night a pretty good supper
of boiled yams pounded, with gombo sauce, which we seasoned with a
little salt, and to which roasted pistachio-nuts were added.
The 24th of July we remained amongst these good people to rest from
our fatigue. My guide gave five or six charges of powder for a kid:
we ate part of it for our supper; and our host, to whom a small
portion was given, presented us with some good sour milk and boiled
rice for our breakfast the next morning. In the course of the day,
we had a visit from a Poulh of the Fouta-Dhialon who was settled
in this country. My guide presented him with a piece of kid, and
I with a sheet of paper, for which he overwhelmed me with grateful
acknowledgments. In the evening, many Foulahs from the neighbouring
parts, attracted by the report that there was a white man in the place,
paid me a visit; they lighted straw, and were very much amused at the
length of my nose. They all said that I was a fine fellow, and went
away very well pleased. Our host supplied us with a supper of yams,
to which we added a piece of kid.
On the 25th of July, in the morning, the Foulah to whom we had given
a piece of kid, sent us a plentiful breakfast of rice, besides
a fowl and some milk; after making our meal we took leave of our
host; my guide made him a present of a few strings of beads, and two
little bits of scarlet cloth an inch and a half square. It was eight
o’clock when we set off. We directed our course to the S.S.E. and
travelled twelve miles in that direction without stopping; the country
is generally open, but abounding in nédés and cés; the soil full
of small gravel, and, in many places, of volcanic stones. We crossed
several streams with well wooded banks, near which were neat cottages
of the Bambaras, who were peacefully cultivating their little fields
of yams; the country is not so well peopled as that of Wassoulo. We
halted towards two o’clock, at Manegnan, a village inhabited by
Bambaras; it contains about eight or nine hundred inhabitants; the
natives call this part of the country Foulou, and like the Wassoulos
they speak the Mandingo language; I did not perceive that they had
any particular dialect. They are idolaters, or rather, they are
without any religion; their food and clothes are like those of the
inhabitants of Wassoulo; and they are equally dirty. At the entrance
of the village I passed the _banankoro_, where all who are disengaged
meet together to smoke their pipes and converse; I saw a number of
old men there. The banankoro is a large hut, covered with straw,
and open all round; the roof is supported upon stakes driven in a
circle, and at equal distances. Round logs of wood are placed on the
ground near one another, to serve as seats; these logs are so ancient,
that they have become highly polished by use.
On reaching our lodging, I was visited by many of the old men, who had
seen me pass when they were assembled; some of them gave me colats and
a fowl for supper; these negroes seemed to me as gentle and humane
as the Foulahs of Wassoulo, whom they resemble extremely in their
countenances, their apparel, their customs and habits of life. They
were never weary of looking at me, and said that they had never seen a
white man; for the Moors of this country do not travel. Part of the
evening was stormy, which at first prevented the inhabitants from
seeing me; but they made themselves amends after the rain was over,
crowding round me till eight o’clock in the evening with the same
eagerness and curiosity; they also lighted straw, and paid me the
same compliments as the people of Yonmouso.
On the 26th of July, at seven in the morning, we gave a present to
our host and prepared to set off. I perceived that the village was
surrounded by a wall, and that the inhabitants cultivated tobacco round
their houses, for their own use. I was followed by a crowd for about
half an hour; we crossed an inundated plain of indigo, which grows
spontaneously, and afterwards passed over a very tottering bridge;
here the villagers left us. I saw some cultivated land, but not in such
good order as what I had left behind me. The husbandmen bring their
fowls with them into the fields, to eat up the insects. We continued
our course to the S.E.; and travelled eleven miles briskly enough;
the country around us was level, and better wooded than what we had
crossed for the last few days. We arrived at Nougouda a walled village,
inhabited by Bambaras; and stayed there some time to change porters;
we also bought a little milk and dégué to refresh ourselves. We then
continued for five miles more to the south; at a considerable distance
to the S.W. ¼ S. of our route, I saw three very high mountains with
flattened peaks; we travelled two miles to the S.S.E. over a woody
country, covered with ferruginous stones, and not cultivated. About
four in the afternoon, we reached Tangouroman, a walled village which
contains about three or four hundred Bambara inhabitants; we were
nearly tired out, for we had travelled at a great rate, because my
guide wished to reach his own home before night. The village is shaded
by fine bombaces and baobabs. The poor inhabitants were unable to
provide us with a fowl, or even with milk, and they found it difficult
to give us a supper; they brought us a dish of foigné, with a sauce
of herbs, which they had prepared for themselves, and supped on a
bit of boiled yam; after which frugal repast, they fell to dancing
merrily and kept it up all night. I remarked in our host’s court,
many little bundles of straw supported upon stakes or large stones,
to keep it from the damp, which is excessive in this country; in these
magazines they store their provision of rice, millet, pistachio-nuts,
and yams, which are never plundered. I have not seen a single beggar
between Kankan, or indeed Baléya, and this place. Arafanba went to
sleep at Sambatikila; for my part, I was so fatigued with my day’s
journey, that I staid where I was, with the saracolets and a Foulah
of Fouta-Dhialon. Our host made a present of a fine Barbary duck to my
guide, who was considered in this country as a marabout of importance;
we should have liked very well to eat it for supper, for we could
find nothing to buy, but he kept it for his own private use.
On the 27th of July, at six in the morning we took leave of our host,
after having paid him for our entertainment. We gave him four strings
of beads, with which he appeared to be satisfied. In crossing the
village I perceived that it was as dirty as its inhabitants; we
were up to the ancles in mud. We directed our course to the S.S.E.,
and I saw nothing on my way but some poor fields of foigné, yams,
and pistachios, in very bad order; I did not perceive any maize,
which would be very useful to the inhabitants. The greater part of
the land is a black mould intermingled with gravel; cultivation is
almost entirely neglected. Twelve miles to the left of our road, we
saw a chain of hills of inconsiderable height extending towards the
N.E. A little way from Sambatikila, we met my guide who was coming
to meet us; our host, who the evening before had given him a duck,
had sent his little daughter with us to Sambatikila, and Arafanba,
recollecting I suppose that this Bambara was by no means rich, sent him
back his duck; I was rather surprised at this conduct in a Mahometan
towards an infidel. My guide told me that the almamy was anxious
to see me, and sorry that I had remained behind the evening before;
I told him jokingly, that the prince would soon have the pleasure of
gratifying his curiosity.
It was nearly nine o’clock in the morning, when we made our
appearance at Sambatikila, which is surrounded by a double wall, ten
or eleven feet high, and ten inches thick. We proceeded immediately to
the almamy’s, and were ushered into an ante-room, where we waited
till some one went to announce us. The chief admitted us immediately
to his presence, and we found him reclining under a little shed in his
court; he raised himself and extended his hand to me with the customary
salutations, _salam alécoum; alécoum salam; enékindé; a kindé_;
after having touched me, he rubbed his hand upon his face and chest,
to communicate the salutary effect; for he is very religious, and has
much faith in the sanctity of the Arabs. He was extremely polite,
and told me that he was happy to receive a man whose country was
so near Mecca. I told him that I meant to go thither; and he put
many questions to Arafanba, who was eager to tell him all he had
heard about me at Kankan. This old chief was dressed in the Arabian
fashion; his clothes were exceedingly clean; he wore a turban of a
red and white striped stuff manufactured in the country. Our visit
was very short; he lodged me in one of his son’s houses, together
with the two saracolets and the Foulah; the son appeared to me very
poor, but he gave us a neat habitation, and took great care that we
should have warm water wherewith to perform our ablutions before
prayer. I expected that the king would provide for our support,
but he left us the whole day without food, presuming that my guide
would take care of us; the guide sent us a breakfast of boiled yams,
and sauce without salt. After this frugal repast, which we ate with
considerable appetite, as it was then late in the day, I sent to my
guide for the goods of mine which he had brought the night before;
to reward him for the attention which he had paid me on the journey,
I made him a small present of cloth, a pair of scissors, and some
paper, with which he was delighted and thanked me heartily. He had
been kind enough to pay all my expenses on the way, and never asked
for any compensation. In the course of the day I was visited by many
Mandingoes, who live at Sambatikila; one of them gave me some milk,
which is not quite so plentiful here as in Wassoulo. It rained all the
afternoon; I went, nevertheless, to the mosque to show the inhabitants
that I was a zealous Musulman. At nightfall my guide sent us a small
supper of rice, with which we contented ourselves, because we could
get nothing else.
On the 28th of July, the almamy, recollecting, I suppose, that it
was his duty to feed the strangers, sent us a dish of rice without
salt, with a sauce of _zambala_,[54] and a supper of yams with a
similar sauce.
On the 29th of July, we had nothing to eat the whole of the day;
I bethought myself of calling upon the almamy, who seemed to have
forgotten that he had strangers at his dwelling, or thought that
they were accustomed to fasting. He did not hurry himself however,
for it was six o’clock in the evening when he sent us some yams,
boiled and pounded, with a little bad sauce; and we were unluckily
obliged to share this light repast with a Mandingo, who happened at
that moment to be prowling about our hut; he came and sat down by us,
and needed no pressing, for he had probably tasted nothing since the
evening before. I have often been obliged in the same way to share the
little food I could get with these hungry and idle parasites, who would
rather starve than work for themselves. As our host neglected us so
completely, we went out to procure some rice and yams for ourselves;
but we could find nothing in the village, for the devout almamy had
forbidden the customary market twice a week, under pretence that it
interfered with prayers. We sent to a neighbouring village, but were
equally unsuccessful; so we were forced to be content with the small
portion which our host allowed us. We were informed that provisions
were scarce, that there was not enough to last till next harvest,
and that the scarcity extended to the neighbouring country.
On the 30th of July, a caravan of saracolet merchants arrived at
Sambatikila, on their way to Foulou to purchase slaves, whom they sell
again in Foulou or Kankan. All the goods which are sold at the European
settlements on the coast are destined for this infamous traffic; the
slaves are not exported, it is true, but they are no better off than
if they were. Slavery may perhaps be abolished in civilized Europe,
but the wild and covetous African will long continue the barbarous
custom of selling his fellow-creatures. It is so pleasant to live
in idleness, and to enjoy the fruit of the labours of others,
that every negro does all in his power to become a slave owner;
their ambition is limited to the possession of twelve or fifteen
slaves, whom they employ entirely in agricultural labour. These
poor creatures are ill-clothed, and work very hard; but I never saw
them ill-treated. They are commonly obliged to provide for their
own support, and have a field to themselves, which they cultivate
for this purpose; they grow maize and cassava round their huts, and
find them a great resource. In the evening the almamy of Sambatikila
sent us nothing, and we had made up our minds to fast, when we were
agreeably surprised, about seven o’clock, by the sight of a dish
of boiled rice without salt, which was sent by my guide, Arafanba,
who knew that I was suffering from scanty diet. In truth, I could not
be too grateful to this generous negro, who deprived himself for my
sake of part of his supper, at a time when he found it very difficult
to provide for his family. Provisions were so scarce and so dear in
the village, that nobody thought of eating more than one meal a day,
and the night was chosen for the purpose, because the negroes would
rather go without food all day than retire to rest without supper.
On the 31st of July, at six in the morning, the almamy, recollecting
probably that he had given us nothing the day before, sent us some
rice for breakfast. A good saracolet, belonging to the caravan which
had just arrived, and who had travelled often to Jenné, brought me
some rice and milk, which he begged me to accept: I gave him some
glass ware in return for his present. He was acquainted with many
Moorish merchants at Jenné, and assured me I should be well received
by them. This negro spoke a little Arabic; he told me, that on my road
to Jenné I should find provisions very scarce, salt in particular. The
son of the almamy came every now and then to see us, and to inquire
whether we wanted warm water for our ablutions; he took care that
we should never be short of _water_, but as to provisions, he did
not inquire very particularly, and I suspect that the poor devil was
little better off than ourselves; I noticed that he passed the whole
day without food, as if it had been the Ramadan, and at night, after
prayer, he ate a little tau with four other negroes. In spite of these
compulsory fasts, they all seemed very merry, and never failed to go
every morning to chant the Koran; the almamy himself also chanted from
time to time. His son came sometimes to offer me his scanty supper,
which I always refused, knowing that he had nothing else for himself.
On the 1st of August, I went with one of my companions to pay a
visit to the almamy. We entered an apartment, which served the double
purpose of stable and bedchamber, with the royal bed at the further
end; this bed was a platform, six inches high, six or seven feet long,
and five or six wide, upon which was spread an ox-hide, with a dirty
musquito-curtain to keep off the insects. The room might be thirty or
thirty-five feet long, and ten or twelve wide; it is constructed of
earth, which they have not taken the trouble to make into bricks; the
walls are seven, or seven feet and a half high, and a foot thick; the
roof is supported upon wooden posts, planted within the side walls, and
covered with straw; there are three entrances, the doors of which are
also formed of straw. No furniture is visible in this royal apartment;
but there were two saddles hanging up against the wall from the posts,
a great straw hat, a drum, which is only used in time of war, some
lances, a bow, quiver, and arrows; these were all its ornaments,
excepting a lamp, formed of a piece of iron, supported upon another
piece of the same metal, stuck into the ground: vegetable butter,
which has not consistency enough to be made into candles, is burnt
in this lamp. Two other apartments, of the same dimensions, serve
as magazines for the produce of the fields and other valuables. The
large inner enclosure contains several common huts, in which I saw some
looms like those employed on the coast. The old prince was lying down
on his bed, and he made us sit by him. He was saying his prayers, and
held in his hand a rosary two feet and a half long, the beads of which
were as large as bullets; he appeared very attentive. He addressed his
conversation to me, and begged me to make his compliments to the elders
of Mecca and Medina when I arrived there; after which he asked me to
wait a moment. He went out into the court and returned immediately
followed by a slave carrying on her head a calabash of rice, with
some disagreeable herb sauce, which he gave me; he then dismissed me,
promising that he would soon find me an opportunity for me to go to
Jenné. The absence of salt rendered this rice unpleasant; but I had
now ceased to be dainty, for hunger is sauce to all sorts of food,
as I have often experienced in the course of my travels. Shortly
after a Mandingo sent me an excellent dish of rice cooked with milk.
Since the 27th of July the rain had been incessant; the weather was
still cold and damp. In the evening of the 1st of August, the almamy
sent a man to tell me, that there was an opportunity for going to
Jenné, and that if I liked to take advantage of it, he would furnish
me with a guide to Timé, whence the caravan would start. I had a wound
on my left foot which I was doctoring with lint, and could not heal;
but I preferred suffering on the road, painful as my wound was, to
remaining any longer in a place where there would soon be a horrible
scarcity. I sent word to the chief that I wished to set off as early
as possible.
On the 2d of August, at six in the morning, the almamy sent me some
rice and a piece of a sheep which had been killed the day before, which
I shared with my companions. About eight o’clock Arafanba came to me,
and we went together to take leave of the chief. He called me to his
store-house, and opened a little door, so low that a man must stoop
double to enter; one of his women then drew out a bracelet wrapped
in rag, of which he made me a present; it was silver and worth about
three francs; I had brought him a pretty present of coloured muslin,
paper, and strings of beads. Arafanba, my former guide, told him
that I had very little merchandise with me and was sorry I could
not offer him a more suitable present; he smiled and accepted it
with pleasure. The old man again desired me not to forget him when
I should be among the venerable sheiks of Mecca; I promised that I
would not and took my leave. A minute or two afterwards he came to
the hut where I lodged to return my visit; he was on horseback, and
had on his head a straw hat large enough to serve for an umbrella. He
was going to his ourondé to look after his slaves; he told me he
was sorry he had not thought in time of having a grigri made by
the hand of an Arab; he wished me a good journey and left me. About
ten o’clock, my new guide came to tell me it was time to set off;
it had been raining all the morning and the rain was not yet over,
but we did not stop for it. Before I proceed, however, I must give
some account of the fine country which I am leaving.
Sambatikila is a large village surrounded by a double wall; it is
independent and inhabited by Mandingo Musulmans. It is much larger than
Kankan, but not so well peopled; there are many large vacant places
in the interior of the village; the streets are narrow, crooked, and,
at this season of the year, full of mud. The soil, composed in some
places of black mould, and in others of grey sand mixed with earth, is
very fertile, but very little cultivated; the country is covered with
cés and nédés. The inhabitants are engaged entirely in commerce;
they go a few days’ journey to the south of their village to buy
colat-nuts, and these they carry to Jenné and barter for salt;
this traffic is not very lucrative, because the journeys are long
and troublesome, and they have to purchase food on the road, and to
pay for lodgings and transit-duty in all the villages.
A small quantity of very handsome cloth is manufactured in this
neighbourhood, from cotton purchased from the Bambaras. The average
price of a slave in these parts is thirty bricks of salt (a brick is
ten inches long, three wide, and two or two and a half thick: there
are larger and smaller bricks, and the value varies accordingly) a
barrel of powder and eight parcels of beads of a bright chesnut colour;
or, a gun and four yards of rose-coloured taffeta are also the price
of a slave. The trade of Sambatikila is not brisk; and is far from
equal to that of Kankan; the want of a market injures it greatly,
and the inhabitants are poor. Their crops are not sufficient to last
from one year to the next, and they are forced to buy rice from the
Bambaras, paying for it with salt, which the others cannot procure
in any other way. The Mandingoes would rather go without food part of
the day than work in the fields; they pretend that labour would take
off their attention from the Koran, which is a very specious excuse
for their laziness.
Their flocks, which are not numerous, consist of sheep and goats;
they also rear poultry; the few horses they have are of a very small
breed. The son of the almamy with whom I lodged had performed several
journeys to Jenné; he told me without any fear of compromising his
dignity, that he had carried a load of colat-nuts on his head, as well
as his companions. I questioned him as to the length of the journey;
and he told me that it took two months and a half or three months
to get thither, and that it was not possible to make more than two
journeys in a year.
The title of almamy, or king, is hereditary; the eldest son of the
sovereign always succeeds. He has usually four wives and a great
number of children. He is the only chief at Sambatikila, and if
disputes arise the elders assemble at the almamy’s house, or at
the mosque, to administer justice. Guns are not as common in this
village as at Kankan, for I saw nothing but bows and arrows hanging
up in the houses which I visited.
About ten in the morning, we commenced our journey; Arafanba, the
two saracolets, and the Foulah, conducted me as far as the bank
of a rivulet, which the natives call Oulaba, and which waters the
neighbourhood of Sambatikila; we crossed in a wretched canoe, which
was nearly upset more than once: it was made out of a single tree,
but was now old, broken, and patched with pieces of rotten pagne,
which would not keep out the water; fortunately the stream was not
very wide, and we arrived at the right bank without accident. Arafanba
accompanied me for a mile, and parted from me with great regret, after
charging my guide to take care of me. Arafanba was the most amiable and
agreeable Mandingo I had seen; and (what even now surprises me when
I think of it) he never asked me for any thing, and appeared quite
contented with the very moderate present which my means allowed me to
make. We travelled E.S.E. for two miles, over a very fine black mould,
intermingled with gravel; I saw only a few poor fields of foigné not
yet in flower, though the harvest was over in Wassoulo; we crossed
a tottering bridge, and arrived at Cagnanso, a little walled village
which we did not enter. I noticed a shop belonging to some smiths, who
were not better lodged than those which were on the coast; they make,
however, agricultural implements, poniards, bracelets, and barbs for
their arrows; the iron they use comes from Fouta-Dhialon. The environs
of this village, which are inhabited by Bambaras, are uncultivated,
but thickly studded with large trees, and covered with straw,
which last impeded my progress greatly, causing me terrible pain,
by fretting my wound and rubbing off the plaster; this, added to the
water which covered the roads, and the rain which fell in torrents,
fatigued me extremely. I longed to find a shelter where I might rest
myself; we nevertheless continued our journey towards the S.S.E. After
walking seven miles, we passed Coro, another walled Bambara village,
which contains about four or five hundred inhabitants; the environs
are no better cultivated than those of Cagnanso. We proceeded six
miles further to the south; the country is woody and flat, and the
road covered with gravel, which rendered walking very fatiguing. I
saw no signs of cultivation, and we crossed several marshes. About
three o’clock we halted, thoroughly fatigued, at Timicoro, a small
Bambara village. The environs are woody, and covered with high straw;
the fields are five or six miles from the huts, whether on account
of the soil being better, or to save the grain from the ravages of
goats and poultry, I know not. My guide took me to the house of one
of his acquaintance, who supplied us with a small, damp, and dirty
lodging. I had a good fire lighted immediately to dry my coussabe and
my breeches; for the rain had been pelting at our backs all day; it
continued through the night, and it was a small constant rain, which
rendered the air cold. At this village I saw many goats and fowls,
but the inhabitants have no horned cattle. At nightfall, the men
came home from work; they were all nearly naked, having nothing but
a tight cotton band which they pass between their thighs. I remarked
that these men had necklaces on their necks, ear-rings of glass beads,
and a great many amulets, such as goat’s horns, sheep’s tails,
&c. All these things supply the place of grigris, in which they have
great faith. They gave us a supper of tau, with herb-sauce, but no
salt; I ate a little of this dish, but the sauce was so bad that I
could not relish it.
In the evening a dispute arose between two men of the village,
who began to fight, and would even have used their poniards, if the
inhabitants had not collected round them to make peace. Nothing was
heard but the shrieks of the women, who made great lamentations,
and the crowd was immense; all spoke at once, and shouted to make
themselves heard, so that there was a tremendous uproar. My guide
informed me, that the chief of the village was blind, otherwise he
would have come to the spot and restored order. I never could learn
what was the cause of this scuffle, which took place precisely in
the court where we lodged, and lasted a very long time, though the
rain was pouring in torrents.
On the 3rd of August, in the morning, my guide cooked a small yam on
the coals, and I roasted a few pistachio-nuts, which we ate together;
after having presented our host with some small glass beads, we
proceeded on our journey; it was then about nine o’clock. It
still rained hard, and my umbrella was of little use, because the
high grass, and the bushes which covered the road, wetted me as
much as the rain. We travelled towards the south; at some distance
from Timicoro, I saw a few poor fields of foigné and yams in a bad
state of cultivation; the owners had not even taken the trouble to
grub up the bushes. We passed the village of Yango-Firé, situated
near a rivulet, where I saw plenty of poultry. We proceeded at
first to the south, and then towards the east. We passed Brokhosso;
to the S.E. of which I perceived a large hill, which appeared to
be entirely destitute of vegetation. After crossing some fields of
foigné, and others of french-beans, the first that I had seen since
I left the coast, we arrived about half-past one in the afternoon,
at the neat little village of Timé, inhabited by Mandingo Mahometans;
it is shaded by a number of enormous bombaces, and by a few baobabs;
we had travelled about ten miles. Three or four miles to the east of
Timé, we noticed a chain of mountains, which were probably eighteen
hundred or two thousand feet high; this range stretches from north
to east. That which faces the village is more elevated, and covered
with fine vegetation, except on the summit, which is very bare.