THE NEGROLAND
OF THE ARABS.
THE NEGROLAND
OF THE ARABS
EXAMINED AND EXPLAINED;
OR,
AN INQUIRY INTO THE
EARLY HISTORY AND GEOGRAPHY
OF
CENTRAL AFRICA.
BY
WILLIAM DESBOROUGH COOLEY.
LONDON:
PRINTED BY JAMES HOLMES, TOOK’S COURT.
PUBLISHED BY J. ARROWSMITH, 10, SOHO SQUARE.
* * * * *
1841.
TO SEÑOR
DON PASCUAL DE GAYANGOS.
MY DEAR GAYANGOS,
The following Essay owes its origin wholly to the extracts from
the writings of Ibn Khaldún and Ibn Baṭúṭah, which you had the kindness
to communicate to me. Not only did you occasion the present developement
of my speculations, but you have also at all times cheerfully aided me
in the researches to which they gave birth; you have placed at my
disposal, as it were, your perfect knowledge of the Arabic language,
and, from the abundance of your learning, have in some measure made good
my deficiency. To whom, then, can this little work be dedicated so
justly, as to you? Nor, while acknowledging my obligations, can I forego
the pleasure afforded by such an opportunity of expressing towards you
the friendship and esteem of
Yours sincerely,
WILLIAM DESBOROUGH COOLEY.
_London, March_ 3, 1841.
PREFACE.
* * * * *
The following Essay has for its object to establish the early geography
of Central Africa on a solid basis. It aims at offering a clear and
well-grounded explanation of the geographical descriptions of Negroland,
transmitted to us by Arab writers; and, by thus connecting the past with
the present, at giving an increased value to the historical information
derived from the same sources. The attainment of that end will throw a
steady light on the past condition of a country now awakening a general
interest. It will enable us to trace some important political
revolutions; to discern the nations which have stood forth politically
eminent, and to estimate correctly, by means of a lengthened and
authentic retrospect, the progress of civilization in Africa.
The task here undertaken has more of novelty in it than may be at first
suspected. Hitherto no attempt whatever has been made to explain the
Arab geography of Negroland by treating it as a whole, and as the
immediate subject of investigation. Yet no department of the wide field
of literature stands more in need of critical labour, or appears more
justly entitled to it. The Arabs in the Middle Ages were copious and
circumstantial writers, though neither profound nor exact. Geography was
one of their favourite studies. The interests of trade and religious
zeal led them across the deserts of Northern Africa to Negroland, of
which they have left us accounts bearing in every lineament the
expression of unaffected sincerity. Yet such has been the difficulty
found in recognizing the places described in those accounts, that, up to
this day, scarcely any addition to our positive knowledge of Negroland
has been derived from the writings of the Arabs.
Ibn S’aíd, a writer of the thirteenth century, has enumerated thirteen
nations of Blacks, extending across Africa, from Ghánah in the west, to
the Bojá on the shores of the Red Sea in the east. Yet it is not till we
arrive at the tenth of these, or Kánem, that we are able to identify
satisfactorily the nomenclature of Ibn S’aíd with that of modern
geography. The first nine nations towards the west, or nearly three-
fourths of the whole, remain undetermined.
The Arab geography of Africa lies, at present, a large but confused heap
of materials, into which modern writers occasionally dip their hands,
each selecting what appears to serve his purpose, and adapting it to his
views by an interpretation as narrow and partial as his mode of inquiry.
Modern geographers—D’Anville and Rennell not excepted—have allowed
fancied resemblances of sound to lead them far away from fact and the
straight path of investigation. They have, for example, unanimously
assumed the Kanó of the present day to be the Ghánah of past ages. The
disorder introduced into the early geography of Central Africa by this
false method of proceeding, has deprived it of all its value. It seems
incapable of combining with the results of modern discovery; and instead
of the harmony which ought to subsist between our present information
and the ample accounts of Negroland written five or six centuries ago,
we find in almost every application of the latter, the jarring
consequences of false assumptions.
To give a new value to such confused materials, we must have recourse to
a new and improved method of treating them.
The course here followed is, to examine the Arab authors of greatest
value, and to develope, as completely as possible, the information found
in them, their meaning being collected altogether from internal
evidence, and without any regard to extrinsic systems. Where their
statements are clear, natural, and consistent, no attempt has been made
to interfere with or strain them by arbitrary conjectures. Where, on the
other hand, they are obscure, absurd, or contradictory, care has been
taken to inquire,—1st, What were the sources or channels of the author’s
information? 2ndly, How far it must be taken in strictness, or may claim
the latitude allowed to the language of ordinary discourse? 3rdly, The
state of knowledge, and prevalent geographical systems in the writer’s
time? 4thly, What portions may be looked upon as original or authentic,
and what as founded on inference or surmise?—The point of greatest
difficulty, and which demands the utmost care and perspicacity, is to
distinguish between the language of experience and that of system; to
separate the original information from the supplementary additions made
to it, for the purpose of filling up or rounding the description, or of
reconciling it with theoretical conceptions.
In all parts of the world, and in every age, the human mind moves in a
constant cycle. In like stages of its progress it occupies similar
positions, and goes through the same round of error. This truth is
exemplified in the history of Geography, as well as in that of every
other branch of human knowledge. The corrections made in our maps of
Africa during the last three centuries; those made by Ptolemy in the
geography of the same quarter of the globe, written by Marinus Tyrius;
and those of which the great Alexandrian himself stands in need, are
nearly all reducible to one common rule. The errors to which
systematical geography tends, while it is not as yet founded on science,
are so fully shown by experience, that we can safely derive from our
knowledge of them a principle of rectification, applicable to all the
materials of unscientific geography, presented to our notice, and
obviously needing correction. The endeavour to trace errors according to
fixed analogies, will at least lead us from mere conjecture towards a
rule of reason.
The most vexatious and frequently recurring hindrance in researches of
the kind here undertaken, arises from the defects of the Arabic written
character, and the uncritical servility of Arab copyists and compilers.
In Arabic writing, some of the characters closely resemble one another,
and are distinguished only by diacritic points: the vowels likewise are
chiefly indicated by points, which, like those of the former kind, are
often wholly omitted. Hence it follows, that proper names, the correct
reading of which cannot be inferred from the context, easily sink, when
written in such ambiguous characters, from corruption to corruption,
till at last they altogether cease to be recognizable. Misnomers arising
in this way were perhaps often adopted in discourse, till, in process of
time, they became authorized by usage. Uncertainty with respect to the
true reading of proper names, besides being in itself a source of great
perplexity, has the ill effect of encumbering the truth with much
preliminary discussion of an apparently trivial kind. Nor are our
difficulties with respect to proper names confined to the writings of
the Arabs. In some parts of Africa, different races are so commingled,
that five or six languages may be heard spoken within a narrow extent of
territory. Travellers arriving in such a country from different
quarters, and associating with different portions of the population,
will naturally report in different ways the names of places. If
Europeans, they variously represent, each according to the genius of his
own language, articulations which, being strange to their organs, they
did not invariably seize correctly. Names have been also transferred
from one language to another, without due regard to the sound originally
sought to be represented. Here, then, are abundant sources of confusion,
which, so far, at least, as it involves the genius and construction of
African languages, we are not always in a condition to clear up. Yet it
is necessary, as we proceed, to endeavour to distinguish between the
more and the less doubtful; and if any one should feel surprised at the
attention occasionally bestowed in the following pages on proper names,
let him only reflect, that the errors arising from the neglect of so
many inevitable causes of variance, would at least equal what may ensue
from even the least skilful discussion of them.
It would have been easy to lengthen the list of Arab authors here made
use of; but little would have been gained for Geography by reference to
works equally deficient in judgment and originality. The authors chiefly
relied on are, El Bekrí, Ibn Khaldún, and Ibn Baṭúṭah. El Idrísí is
analysed in some passages, chiefly for the sake of explaining certain
discrepancies between him and the first-named writer, and to estimate
the weight due to his authority. The conjectures scattered through the
following pages are much fewer than the nature of the subject and the
course of investigation would have permitted; but it was thought
advisable to keep conjectures within bounds, even where they could not
have interfered with the reasoning. Reserve and circumspection are
especially necessary for an author whose conclusions differ widely from
those of his precursors in the same field of inquiry, and who aims at
deciding definitively questions which have long divided the judgments of
the learned. Reference to the systems of recent authors has been, in
general, avoided, lest the frequent recurrence of the language of
refutation might give the whole an air of controversy. Pains have been
also taken to abridge whatever was not strictly geographical, the object
here aimed at being properly the consideration of geographical
questions, the careful and satisfactory discussion of which demands a
special treatise.
The mode here adopted of writing the Arabic names, is fully explained in
the Journal of the Royal Geographical Society, vol. VII. p. 245; but in
its application will probably be found much unsteadiness and
imperfection, arising partly from the want of familiarity with it, and
partly from the difficulty of setting exact bounds to the employment of
a foreign orthography, which jars disagreeably with the necessary
reference to the orthography of our modern travellers. The attempt at a
systematic reform of the mode of writing African names, has been
avoided, and therewith the alternative also, of either multiplying
without end the subordinate topics of discussion, or else of allowing
much hypothesis to steal in under the mask of precision.
In conclusion, it may be remarked, that the attempt here made, however
successful it may be deemed—and it cannot be denied that it broaches
some truths, and discloses a new and logical method of treating an
interesting subject—is yet but a sketch, which remains to be filled up,
after a careful examination of the numerous Arabic MSS. preserved in the
public libraries here and abroad, by some one better qualified for that
labour, and enjoying fairer opportunities than the writer of these
pages.
CONTENTS.
* * * * *
INTRODUCTION 1
GHÁNAH, AÚDAGHOST, AÚLÍL.
Támedelt — Route to Aúdaghost — Line of Drifting Sands — 5
Position of Aúdaghost — Route to Ghánah — The Desert — Tíser —
Azawad — The Zenágah — Genéwah — Lumtúnah — Goddálah — Aúlil
— Trade of Aúdaghost — Aúkar — Sínghánah — Tekrúr — Tádmekkah
— River of Ghánah — Samaḳanda — Ghaïárú — Bokmo — Manners of
Ghánah — Ghánah near the site of Tomboktú
EL IDRÍSÍ COMPARED WITH EL BEKRÍ.
Measures of El Idrísí — His delineation of the Great River — 48
History of the Maghráwah
MÁLÍ.
Ghánah subjected by the Molaththemún — The Ṣúṣú — The People of 61
Málí — The Kings of Málí — Table of their succession
IBN BAṬÚṬAH’S JOURNEY.
Tegháza — The Desert — Aïwalátin — Kársekhó — The Ṣanṣarah — 70
Málí — Manners of the Court — Departure from Málí — Position
of that capital — Mímah — Tomboktú — Kaúkaú — The Berdámah —
Tekaddá — Káhir — Limits of Málí — Múlí and Malla — Kombori —
Yúfí — Remarks on Ibn Baṭúṭah’s Journey — Kanó not Ghánah
TEKRÚR.
Zághah — The Zagháï — Sanghee — Sungai — Sokai — Zachah — 97
Eastward Movement of the Tekrúr — Abuse of the name Tekrúr
KÚGHAH, KÁGHÓ, KAÚKAÚ, KARKAR.
El Bekrí’s account of Kúghah and Kaúkaú — El Idrísí’s hesitation 103
— More than one Kaúkaú — Karkar — Gargari — Surmise as to the
present existence of Kághó
LEMLEM, REMREM, DEMDEM, EL-LÍMIYÍN,
Various names of one people — Originally one name — Its probable 111
origin — Refers to Houssa — The modern Yemyem — El-Límiyín
NEGROLAND DIVIDED INTO NATIONS.
Ibn Sʿaíd’s list — Makrízí’s additions — Ibn Sʿaíd compared 116
with Leo — Results of the comparison — Kingdom of Kúra — Lake
Kúra — Compared with the Kowára — Interference of theory —
Recapitulation
POSTSCRIPT.
REMARKS ON HOUSSA.
Routes from Ashantí to the Kowára — The letter r often changed 140
into a ḍ — The Kambaroa — The Kadunía — The River Kowára
probably so called from the country in which the Quorrama rises
CORRECTIONS.
Page 14, note 31—for Moallakah read Maḳámah.
Page 60, note 107—for A’walílí read Awalílí.
[Illustration: Sketch _of a_ Map _to illustrate_ the ARAB GEOGRAPHY of
NEGROLAND _By_ W. D. Cooley, Esqr.
_London, John Arrowsmith, 10 Soho Square 1841._]
THE
NEGROLAND
OF THE ARABS.
* * * * *
INTRODUCTION.
Nature has marked out, in a plain and peremptory manner, the chief lines
of communication between the maritime regions of North Africa and the
fertile Interior beyond the great desert. The Oasis, or habitable tract
of Fezzán, south of Tripoli, projects far into the barren waste, and a
journey of not more than forty days conducts thence to Kánem or Bornú.
In the west, a route of equal length connects the last traces of
cultivation at the back of Atlas, with the Great River of Negroland,
where, winding in a long circuit towards the north, it seems to drive
back desolation, and narrows the limits of the desert. The two routes
here described, are those chiefly frequented at the present day by
caravans proceeding to Central Africa; and the preference given to them
is due to their combining such advantages of convenience and security,
as must have constituted them the chief routes in all ages.
The first of these, or the road between Fezzán and the interior, may be
presumed to have been frequented by the ancients. If we assume that
commerce spread westward from Egypt, or if we fix our eyes on Augila or
the Greek colony of Cyrene, the eastern route will certainly seem
entitled to be the channel of the earliest intercourse with the Blacks.
But the discussion of such questions does not lie within the scope of
our present inquiry; and it will be here sufficient to observe, that so
far as the Arabs were concerned, the western route, though last reached,
was the most frequently trodden and most diligently explored. The stream
of Arab invasion in Northern Africa flowed rapidly to the west, till
accumulating between the shores of the Ocean and Atlas, it pressed on
the Berber clans inhabiting all the fertile recesses of this range of
mountains. Continual wars thence ensued, in the course of which the
discomfited party always fled to the desert, wherein they wandered to
the borders of Negroland.
It is by the western route that we have derived, through Arab writers,
the amplest and earliest accounts of Central Africa. For the Arabs in
Spain who cultivated letters maintained a constant intercourse with
their rude but active brethren of Western Barbary, whom trade and
warfare alike occasionally impelled to visit the countries beyond the
desert. In the beginning of the eleventh century of our era, the hills
on the south side of Wád Nún and Darʿah, or the northern portion of the
western desert, were occupied by the Lumtúnah, a tribe of the
Zenágah.[1] Separated from them by an uninhabited tract, were the Benú
Goddálah of the same nation, whose territory, comprising the southern
zone of the Ṣaḥrá, extended eastward from the sea shore to the country
of the Blacks.[2] The more sterile tracts of the desert in the interior,
within the limits possessed by the Zenágah, were abandoned to the
wandering tribe of the Benú Masúfah, by their more powerful brethren
near the coast.[3] These three tribes, inflamed with religious zeal, to
which their intestine feuds had given a martial character, shaped their
course northward, and being united under the name of Al Morábiṭún, or
Champions of the Faith, they subjugated the fertile countries on both
sides of the southern Atlas, and founded, in 1073, the empire and city
of Morocco. The Al Morábiṭún, or Morabites, subsequently extended their
sway into Spain, in the history of which country they figure under the
name of Almoravides. But long before they carried their arms into
Europe, they corresponded intimately with the polished courts of
Mohammedan Spain; and while they had not yet quite relinquished the
desert, nor forgotten their acquaintance with the frontiers of
Negroland, they communicated their information to the inquisitive, and,
for that age, well instructed Spanish Arabs. The age immediately
preceding the foundation of Morocco is that in which we should
accordingly expect to find the most valuable accounts of the Western
Desert, and of the Negro kingdoms contiguous to it. The events of that
period were calculated to bring within the reach of literary activity,
full, fresh, and authentic information respecting the interior of
Western Africa. It is fortunate for us, therefore, that we possess an
account of that country written in the very age referred to, by one who
resided at the most accomplished court in Spain; whose station in
society and official rank afforded him the amplest means of satisfying
his curiosity; and whose perspicuity and good sense entitle him to a
distinguished place among Arab writers. The author here alluded to, Abú
ʿObeïdi-llah Abdullah el Ḳorṭoby, was son of the independent ruler of
Huelva. He resided chiefly in Cordova, at that time the centre of Arab
refinement, and filled the highest offices in that kingdom. His account
of Negroland, entitled ‘Kitábu-l-mesálek wa-l-memálek,’ or the Book of
Roads and Realms, was written in the year of the Hijra 460, or A.D.
1067, just fourteen years after the first rise of the Morabites, and six
before the foundation of Morocco. We shall therefore take El Bekrí as
our guide while endeavouring to determine the true position of Ghánah,
in his age the principal kingdom of Negroland.[4]
[Footnote 1: Wád Nún is also called by early writers Núl, or Núl el
aḳṣa. Darʿah دَرعَه is also written Dirʿah دِرعَه (MS. B.M. fol.
101)—Lumtúnah لمتونه—The Berber name Zenághah زناغه was corrupted by the
Arabs, as Ibn Khaldún informs us, into Ṣinhájah صنهاجه, pronounced in
the west Ṣinhágah.]
[Footnote 2: Goddála, so pronounced, though written by El Bekrí Joddála
جدَّاله (MS. B.M. fol. 106); by Ibn Khaldún and others, Godálah ڭداله.]
[Footnote 3: Benú Masúfah بنو مسوفه.]
[Footnote 4: For an account of this valuable author, see the recently
published History of the Mohammedan Dynasties in Spain, by Don Pascual
de Gayangos, p. 324. The excellent MS. in the library of the British
Museum (No. 9577) there described, shall be here briefly cited as MS.
B.M. A translation of El Bekrí’s Book of Roads and Realms, by M.
Quatremère, has appeared in the 12th volume of the Collection entitled
‘Notices et Extraits des MSS. de la Bibliothèque du Roi.’ But the
Parisian MS. is so deficient in points, that the translator,
notwithstanding his learning and acuteness, has not always been able to
divine the true reading. A fragment of the same work, containing what
relates to Ghánah, has been translated by M. Jaubert, to whom it was
sent from Barbary, and inserted in the 2nd volume of the ‘Recueil des
Voyages et Mémoires,’ &c. published by the Société de Géographie in
Paris. Wherever this extract, which is taken from a MS. of inferior
authority, is quoted alone in the following pages, the reader may
understand that the readings so adopted agree in characters with the
readings found in the MS. B.M., and have in addition the vowel points.]
GHÁNAH — Aúdaghost — Aúlíl.
Previous to the foundation of Morocco, all the trade of Negroland with
Western Barbary was directed towards Sijilmésah, a town on the eastern
side of Atlas, eight or ten days from Fás or Fez, and in the district
which is now called Táfílélt.[5] From Sijilmésah, a two months’ journey
southward conducted to the nearest kingdom of the Blacks, which was that
called Ghánah.[6] But in propriety of speech Ghánah was the title of the
king, whose dominion, anterior to the rise of the Al Morábiṭún or
Morabites, extended to Aúdaghost, a town on the southern border of the
great desert, and containing a Berber population.[7] Driven from
Aúdaghost, the negro king fixed his residence at Aúkár, fifteen days’
journey south-westward from the former place, and not far from the great
river of the interior, called by Arab writers the Nile of the Blacks.[8]
But the new capital, as well as the kingdom, was still generally known
by the name of Ghánah.
A desert of forty days’ journey in extent lay between Aúdaghost and
Támedelt,[9] a town of Sús el Aḳṣa, on the verge of the desert, and
eleven days from Sijilmésah. The two months’ journey between Ghánah and
Sijilmésah, would, if literally interpreted, place the capital of the
Blacks forty-nine days distant from Támedelt. But where could a route of
forty-nine days southward from the borders of Sús el Aḳṣa meet the Great
River, unless in the vicinity of Tomboktú?[10] This city is distant
about two months from Táfílélt, and not more than fifty days from Sús el
Aḳṣa.[11] It owes all its importance to its advanced position, near the
very point where the river turns eastward, after repressing the desert
in its northerly course, and making its nearest approach to Western
Barbary. The advantages of such a position could never have been
overlooked while caravans traversed the desolate plains of the interior.
The site of Ghánah then, and Tomboktú, being equidistant from Sús el
Aḳṣa, both in a southerly direction from it, and both in the vicinity of
the Great River, which, within the distance of fifty days from Sús el
Aḳṣa, washes the desert during only a short part of its course, cannot
have been far asunder. This brief argument is in reality unanswerable.
Within the assigned time, a caravan travelling at the ordinary pace,
could reach the Great River nowhere but in the vicinity of Tomboktú. The
site of Aúkár then being near Tomboktú, Aúdaghost fifteen days distant
from it towards the north-east, must have been situate in the same tract
as the modern town or encampment of Mabrúk.[12] Thus the first view of
the routes to the chief towns of the ancient Ghánah suggests the
approximate positions of those towns. Let their positions be assumed
accordingly, so as to give distinctness to our conceptions, while we
follow, step by step, the routes to them across the desert; and the
examination of these routes in all their particulars will, in turn,
illustrate and confirm our assumptions, if they be correct.
The position of Támedelt, the starting point of the caravans to
Negroland, must be in the first place determined. That town is stated to
have been five days westward (or, we must rather suppose, south of
westward) from Darʿah, and six days south-eastward from Iklí, the
capital of Sús, which town, situate on a river flowing northward, was
two days from Mésah and five from Wád Nún. Now the capital of Darʿah was
five days distant from Sijilmésah, which was nine ordinary journeys from
Fez.[13] Támedelt was therefore twenty days from Fez, by the road on the
eastern side of the mountains, and it was also six days south-eastward
from Iklí, which town must accordingly be so placed within five days of
Wád Nún, and two days northward from the river of Mésah, as to allow
Támedelt a somewhat westerly bearing from Darʿah. These conditions being
fulfilled, the position of Támadelt will be nearly in lat. 28° 45′ N.,
long. 7° 10′ W., and not far from the modern Tatta.[14] The position
thus assumed, though not quite free from uncertainty, will yet involve
no inaccuracy capable of endangering the argument depending on it.
The starting point being ascertained, there remains no difficulty in
tracing the route to Aúdaghost. The first day’s journey from Támedelt
conducted to a deep well called Bír el Jemmálín:[15] the second led
through a narrow defile. Then for three days the road went over the
mountains of Azawwar,[16] strewed with masses of iron-stone. These
mountains extend, according to El Bekrí, ten days’ journey from the
ocean to the road (from Támedelt probably) to Sijilmésah. They are
evidently the same chain of mountains which caravans now pass at the
distance of six days from Wád Nún. It is apparent also that the road to
Aúdaghost must have crossed them at a distance not exceeding ten days’
journey from the sea; and therefore could have scarcely inclined towards
the east. Three days beyond the mountains was the watering place of
Tendefas, and three days further a great well called Weínhílún.[17] Then
another three days led to a scanty spring named Tázḳa, or the House.[18]
Four days further were the brackish wells of Weítúnán, and after another
four days the watering place of Aúkázenta.[19] There ended the hard
desert, and the region of loose sand-hills commenced, the passage of
which presented the greatest difficulty to the traveller, and was
fraught with danger.
The northern limit and general direction of the sandy region of the
great desert are marked out with tolerable distinctness in the
narratives of some modern travellers. It was on the twenty-fifth day of
his journey from Wád Nún to Tomboktú that Sidi Hamed entered the region
of drifting sand.[20] This must have been somewhere between the twenty-
third and twenty-fourth parallels of latitude. In the same line, or
twenty-two days from El Harib, between Tatta and Darʿah, Caillié left
the sand-hills on his journey from Tomboktú northwards.[21] Laing, on
his way from Twát to Tomboktú, entered the sands in lat. 23° 56′ N.; and
Scott crossed a similar tract, eleven days’ journey in extent,
apparently from the twenty-first to the twenty-third parallel inclusive,
and not far from the ocean.[22] The vast expanse of light sand thrown up
into wave-like hillocks, which change with every wind, is a remarkable
feature of the great desert, depending not more on the mineralogical
constitution of the country than on the excessive dryness of the
climate. The permanence of its general position, therefore, in spite of
local fluctuations, is as certain as its extension from west to east,
between the zones fertilized by rains. Now the site of Támedelt was four
or five days westward from El Harib; and since on the road to Tomboktú
from the former of these places the loose sand is entered on the twenty-
fifth day, from the latter on the twenty-third; while from Támedelt to
Aúdaghost the sands were entered also on the twenty-third day, there is
reason to infer, that so far, the direction of the road from Sús el Aḳṣa
to Aúdaghost differed little, if at all, from the modern road to
Tomboktú. The ancient and modern roads to Negroland ran nearly parallel
between the hills south of Sús el Aḳṣa and the zone of drifting sands.
The most difficult part of the journey, according to El Bekrí, lay over
the ridges of loose sand, on entering which there was no water to be
found till, after four days’ toil, the traveller reached the wells of
Wanzamín, where all the roads to Negroland met together.[23] The roads
thus said to meet that from Sijilmésah must have been those from
Wergelán, Twát, and Télemsén or Tremecen. Now the roads from these
places to Tomboktú all unite at Telig, about thirty days from El Harib,
and our hypothesis respecting the position of Aúdaghost derives no
slight confirmation from the circumstance that it gives to the meeting
of the roads to that place, twenty-seven days from Támedelt, a position
which harmonizes perfectly with their present junction on the road to
Tomboktú. Near the meeting of the roads was a mountain, the recesses of
which concealed bands of various tribes of the Zenágah, as the Lamṭah,
Gezúlah, Geráwah, &c., all from the south-western extremity of Atlas,
who lay in wait to attack caravans.
From the wells of Wanzamín the road continued through sand-hills in the
province of Wárán for five days to a large well belonging to the Benú
Wáreth, thence in two days to Agharef, and in three more to Akríri, that
is to say, the reservoir of water.[24] Near this place was a mountain
named Azgúnán, where caravans were in danger of being attacked by the
Blacks.[25] One day further, over hot sands, lay the brackish wells of
Wárán, then, for three days, fresh water was found in wells belonging to
the Zenágah, and another day led over the high mountain, at the foot of
which stood Aúdaghost. This town was situate in a hilly country, within
the limits of the rains, and does not appear to have had any water but
that of wells. It can hardly be supposed that the limit of the rains in
the interior of the African continent, at a distance from the sea coast,
ascends beyond the twentieth parallel of latitude.[26] Now if a distance
of forty days’ journey be measured from Támedelt, so as to intersect the
twentieth parallel towards the interior, it will be found that fifteen
days’ journey south-westward (according to the distance and bearing of
Aúkar from Aúdaghost) measured from that intersection, will reach to the
neighbourhood of Tomboktú.
The foregoing account is evidently that of a route frequented by
caravans, and therefore the distances mentioned in it may be received
with confidence. Its general direction, as Abulfedá tells us, was to the
south. El Bekrí describes also the journey from Darʿah to Ghánah, in a
brief and uncircumstantial manner; but his description, though wanting
in the minuteness and precision derivable from the experience of
caravans, is yet not wholly uninstructive. From Wádi Darʿah to Wádi
Tárḳa, on the margin of the desert, was a journey of five days. Then the
traveller entered the wilderness in which water occurred only every two
or three days. Of the wells first met with, one was called Tezámt.
Eastward of it were Bír el Ḥammálín, or the porters’ well, and another
named Nálellí or Málekí.[27] “From these wells,” says our author, “to
the country of Islám, is a distance of four days; and at an equal
distance are the Adarérén Wazzél, or mountains of iron.[28] There a
desert begins in which there is no water for eight days; it is, indeed,
that which is emphatically styled The Desert. The water in it belongs to
the Benú Yentesír, a tribe of Zenágah. The village of Moddúken, which is
next arrived at, belongs to the same race. Thence to Ghánah is a journey
of four days.”[29]
Wádi Darʿah was three days from Támedelt, probably east by north. Wádi
Tárḳa may be conjectured to have been on the southern side of the
mountains of Azawwar mentioned in the account of the route to Aúdaghost.
But the particular here chiefly deserving of attention, is The Desert,
in which no water was met with for eight days. The name of this desert,
omitted by El Bekrí, is supplied by subsequent writers. We are informed
that the merchants going to Ghánah passed through the desert of Tíser, a
dry and desolate wilderness of sand, with only a few pools of bad water,
the chief of which was that called the well of Tíser.[30] The extent of
this desert is variously stated to be eight, ten, twelve, and even
fourteen days’ journey.[31] At its eastern extremity stood Aúdaghost,
and hence it is not surprising that the journey to that city should
present diminished difficulty; though the loose, hot sands, and
intervals of four or five days without water, in the latter half of the
route thither, between the 23rd and 32nd days, clearly mark the
continuation of the inhospitable tract.[32] On the west, the desert of
Tíser adjoined the division of the Ṣaḥrá called Kamnúdíyah, which
bordered on the ocean in the vicinity of Cape Bojador, as shall be shown
hereafter. Unless we assign, therefore, to the territorial divisions of
the Ṣaḥrá a disproportionate extension from west to east, the contiguity
of the maritime district of Kamnúdíyah to the desert of Tíser,
strengthens the presumption that the latter could hardly have reached
beyond the twelfth meridian from the shores of the Atlantic; or, in
other words, that it did not extend far east of the meridian of
Tomboktú, and, consequently, that the road to this city from the north
passes over the tract of desert anciently named Tíser.
But it will naturally be asked, is there such a tract of peculiarly arid
desert on the road to Tomboktú? Certainly there is; a desert of like
extent, presenting the same physical character, and occupying a similar
position in the route. Ibn Baṭúṭah, on his way from Sijilmésah to
Tomboktú, arrived at Tegháza, near the edge of the desert, in twenty-
five days. In ten days more, he came to the wells, or rather muddy pools
of Táserahlá, where the caravan halted to prepare for the march over the
formidable waste of sand, which it required ten days to traverse in
order to reach Aïwalátin, a town on the southern border of the
Ṣaḥrá.[33] Had that traveller crossed obliquely from Táserahlá to
Tomboktú, he might perhaps have found the waterless desert to exceed a
ten days’ journey in extent. But towards the east its width seems to
diminish; whether it be that the northward course of the Great River, or
the chain of mountains determining that circuit of the stream, and
stretching across into the desert, modifies the atmosphere so as to give
a greater range to the periodic rains in that meridian, we have no means
of deciding. But the whole of the western Ṣaḥrá and the peculiar tract
under consideration, are described by Leo Africanus in the following
manner:—
“To begin with the desert of Zenaga; this is a dry and barren tract
beginning from the ocean on the west, and extending eastward to the salt
pits of Tegaza. On the north it is bounded by Numidia; that is to say,
by Sus, Acca, and Darah; and it extends towards the south as far as the
land of the Blacks; that is to say, to the kingdom of Gualata and
Tombutto. There is no water found in it, except at intervals of a
hundred miles, and this, after all, is salt and bitter, in wells of
great depth, particularly on the road from Segelmesse to Tombutto. There
are many wild animals and serpents in it, as shall be related in the
proper place. In this waste is found a desert very difficult and dismal,
called Azaoad, where neither water nor dwelling-place is met with for
two hundred miles, from the well of Azaoad to the well of Araoan, which
is a hundred and fifty miles from Tombutto, and in which great numbers
of men and animals perish of heat and thirst.”[34]
The same writer elsewhere informs us, that the desert of Azawad was so
called from its barrenness and dryness. It is not unreasonable to
suppose that when the local designation of Tíser fell into disuse, the
epithet expressing the general aspect of the region took its place. The
name Azawad still remains to the tract of desert northward of
Tomboktú.[35] And it cannot escape attention that the deserts of Tíser
and Azawad resemble each other not only in extent and physical
character, but that they are also equidistant from Sijilmésah; that they
are both on the road southward from it, and both reaching to the
southern limit of the Ṣaḥrá. There is still another point of resemblance
between them, which, of itself, is almost sufficient to prove their
common identity. El Bekrí remarks, that in travelling from Sijilmésah to
Ghánah, a desert of two months’ journey was traversed, in which there
were no fixed habitations, and the only people met with were wanderers,
such as the Benú Masúfah, a branch of the Zenágah. The Benú Masúfah
then, were in the middle of the eleventh century the tenants of the
inhospitable plains over which lay the road to Ghánah; and it is
remarkable that, three centuries later, the same miserable tribe hovered
over the road to Tomboktú. Ibn Baṭúṭah found them to be the regular,
and, as it were, hereditary guides across that desert, with the
intricacies of which, tradition as well as personal experience had made
them perfectly acquainted. In a region where the natural landmarks are
so broad and unchangeable, and where man is comparatively so weak; where
there is so little to tempt ambition or to nourish caprice, and where
the whole tribe laying claim to a long extent of territory, could never
exceed a handful of individuals,—the fact that the roads to Ghánah and
Tomboktú, traced over peculiarly arid and forbidding tracts, both passed
through the encampments of the same tribe, is a strong proof of the
proximity of those roads: for the occupiers of the most inhospitable
region in which life can with difficulty be supported, are not likely to
be disturbed in their possessions.
It has been seen that Leo Africanus represents the country of the
Zenágah, or Ṣinhájah, to have extended from the sea shore as far
eastward as Tegháza and Tomboktú. He obviously meant to intimate that
the road to Tomboktú formed the eastern boundary of that nation or
division of the Berbers. But his expressions are not such as require to
be strictly interpreted; on the contrary, they have a claim to that
latitude of explanation which reconciles them with the state of things
at present, when the Zenágah occupy the country round Tomboktú and to a
short distance eastward of it. His expressions, however, militate most
strongly against any hypothesis which would place Aúdaghost remote from
Tomboktú, since the road to the former of those cities lay wholly within
the limits of the Zenágah. If these people held as large a share of the
Ṣaḥrá in the beginning of the sixteenth century as in the middle of the
eleventh,—and, since they figured as conquerors in the only revolution
generally affecting them in the meantime, this can hardly be
disputed,—it must follow that the road to Aúdaghost, being within their
limits, could not have passed far eastward of Tomboktú.
The Zenágah extended southward, according to Leo, “to the country of the
Blacks, where are the kingdoms of Gualata and Tombutto.” To the words,
“the country of the Blacks,” Marmol, while borrowing largely from the
Arab writer, adds the gloss, “which is called Geneúa.”[36] And herein he
accords with all other authorities respecting the position of Genéwah,
which region, however vaguely defined, is yet always placed on the
frontiers of Negroland, westward from Tomboktú. In early ages however,
before the Berbers had derived strength from Arab instruction, the
Blacks probably possessed a larger share of the desert, or at least the
name Genéwah reached further northward. An Arab writer informs us, that
Genéwah extended from the ocean in the west, to the country of Wergelán
in the east, and from Amímah in the south to Arkí and Núl el Aḳṣa in the
north.[37] The longitudinal dimensions of this country are here
expressed in terms of obvious inaccuracy. Wergelán, though far to the
north-east of the country called Genéwah, is yet made conterminous with
it, owing to the great share which that Berber state took in the
commerce of Negroland, at that time concentred in Ghánah. But the line
on which the breadth of Genéwah is measured, drawn from north to south,
from Arkí to Amímah, may be presumed to mark its central or principal
section. Now Arkí was on the hills of the Lumtúnah, seven days distant
from Wád Nún, and Amímah stood at a short distance westward or south-
westward from the future site of Tomboktú.[38] The mean position of
Genéwah being thus indicated, the author adds, “and of its cities, is
Ghánah.”[39] Here, then, is another proof that Ghánah was contiguous to
the western desert and to western Negroland, and that the tract of
country in which it stood and flourished, was the same in which Tomboktú
subsequently rose into importance.
The country assigned to Genéwah, in the above-cited passage, really
belonged for the most part to the Zenágah, who, anterior to their
conversion to Mohammedanism, lived much intermingled with the Blacks.
The latter may have had the upper hand; or, though in a servile state,
they may have been the more numerous class of the inhabitants; or
finally, the slave trade being carried on universally in the desert, the
Arabs of Barbary may have easily confounded the country exporting slaves
with that which produced them; and thus applied the name Genéwah to the
deserts of which Berber tribes were, if not the sole occupants, at least
the masters. But the movements of the Morabites revealed more completely
the partition and social condition of the Ṣaḥrá. The northern portion of
it, towards the ocean, was possessed by the Lumtúnah, whose dwellings
covered a range of hills (probably those called by El Bekrí Azawwar)
said to be six days’ journey in length, and to be shaded by 20,000 palm
trees.[40] On these hills, and about seven days from Wád Nún, stood the
fort or town of Arkí, the chief place of the Lumtúnah, whose flocks
wandered from the shores of the ocean as far eastward as the road to
Ghánah.
South of the Lumtúnah, but separated from them by an uninhabited tract
ten days’ journey in width, were the Benú Goddálah, the most powerful of
the Berber tribes. In the uninhabited tract ten days wide, it is easy to
recognize the sandy region south of Cape Bojador, and forming the
continuation of the desert of Tíser or Azawad. The country of the Benú
Goddálah is said to have extended a two months’ journey in length and
breadth, a description which is applied also to the whole western Ṣaḥrá,
and to the dominions of Ghánah; and considering that in each case the
Atlantic Ocean is taken as a boundary, it is evident enough that no
exact limits were set to territorial possessions in the desert, and that
claims of sovereignty often extended from opposite quarters over the
same ground.[41]
In the country of the Benú Goddálah was a mine or natural deposit of
salt near a town or place of fixed habitation on the sea shore, called
Aúlíl. At this place was a point of land, or peninsula, insulated by the
tide, but accessible on foot at low water. Close to it was the port.
Ambergris was collected on it at the sea side, and turtle, which
constituted the chief food of the inhabitants, were there so large, that
fishermen, as our author assevers, went to sea in their shells. From
Aúlíl salt was carried inland to Ghánah and other cities of the Blacks.
The road from the same place to Wád Nún was a two months’ journey in
length, going along the sea shore, where fresh water was found by
digging in the sand when the tide was out.[42]
There is little room for doubt or hesitation in determining the position
of Aúlíl. One point only on the whole coast of the Ṣaḥrá can be selected
for it with any show of reason: and that point is in the bay of Arguin,
where the natural deposits of salt, the little island or peninsula, and
the abundance of large tortoises, are all found together; and exactly at
a distance of two months’ journey from Wád Nún, along the shore.[43] At
Arguin also existed, in the fifteenth century, a trade derived from the
natural productions of the place, exactly similar to that ascribed to
Aúlíl in the eleventh century. Since the shores of the Great Desert
offer one locality, and but one, answering to the description given by
El Bekrí of Aúlíl, we must necessarily conclude that this town was
situate in that locality,—namely, near Cape St. Anne in the bay of
Arguin.[44]
Thus it appears that the Benú Goddálah were the possessors of the
maritime region of the Ṣaḥrá, from Cape Blanco southwards. They also
extended far inland (a two months’ journey, as has been already stated),
and were separated by a distance of only six days from the Blacks on the
Great River, and in the vicinity of Ghánah. They were the possessors,
therefore, of the vast country which is now divided among the Ludayas,
Brebísh, Trarzas, Erghebat, and others. Though esteemed the most
powerful of the Berber tribes, they were yet compelled to yield the pre-
eminence to the Lumtúnah, in the wars which immediately preceded the
coalition of both under the name of Morabites. It may be fairly assumed,
therefore, that these great tribes which divided between them the entire
breadth of the Ṣaḥrá where it was least inhospitable, constituted the
main body of the Berber nation to which they belonged; and therefore
that the road to Aúdaghost, which left them on the west, lay near to the
limit of the country occupied by the Zenágah, and consequently passed
through the same tract as the road subsequently traced to Tomboktú.
Having thus examined the routes from Sijilmésah to Ghánah, and briefly
surveyed the state of the western deserts, with a view to illustrate the
geographical position of the latter country, we may now proceed to
consider also its internal condition and character; to inquire who were
its neighbours in Negroland; how these were placed in relation to each
other; and how far the accounts given of them, taken collectively and in
the plainest acceptation, accord with the knowledge which we at present
possess of the interior of Africa.
Aúdaghost, once the residence, as we are told, of the king styled
Ghánah, was situate in a hilly country, on the margin of the desert, but
within the limit of the summer rains. Its water was chiefly drawn from
wells; its irrigated gardens had small extent, yet to eyes accustomed
only to the monotony of the sandy waste, the groups of palm trees around
it formed a luxuriant scene. Its population, gathered from various
tribes in the Belédu-l-Jeríd, belonged chiefly to the Berber nation of
the Zenátah.[45] Nor is it difficult to explain why an isolated Zenátah
population should fix and maintain itself in immediate contact with the
roving and predatory Zenágah; for during the period referred to in these
accounts, Sijilmésah, with which Aúdaghost was connected by ties of
commerce, belonged to the Zenátah. The latter town was, in reality, but
a trading colony on the frontiers of Negroland; and its mercantile
inhabitants, content with the town and trade, seem to have never
affected political independence.