theory a positive statement made by many of their best authors. It is in
the highest degree improbable, that with little or no knowledge of the
various Black nations inhabiting the eastern coast of Africa, they
should have had any accurate acquaintance with the remote interior: and
besides, the acquiescence in system here imputed to them, is no greater
than must have inevitably arisen from the imperfect state of their
knowledge. Little more than a century ago, European geographers
represented Abyssinia as occupying nearly a fourth of the African
continent; on its eastern borders they placed a great lake, from which
issued the Egyptian Nile, and all the great rivers of Southern
Africa.[225] The maps of Africa of that date exhibit less vacant space
than they do at the present day. The improvement of geography, with
respect to that quarter of the globe, has consisted chiefly in reducing
what is known within its proper limits. Distant nations were of course
as easily brought together and united as distant countries. The
different African tribes which, in the course of the sixteenth century,
devastated the widely-separate coasts of Sierra Leone, of Angola, and of
Melinda, were, by a sweeping generalization, all supposed to be one and
the same people, and were furthermore identified with the Agows and
Gallas of Abyssinia.[226] Vestiges of these ideas still remain in our
treatises of geography, and in some of the latest maps, nor is the
system of thinking from which they emanated yet quite obsolete.[227] But
the close resemblance of European theories respecting the mysterious
interior of Africa to those of the Arabs, is strikingly manifest in the
following words of the Portuguese historian, Da Couto:—“About the year
1570, a horde of barbarians, like locusts, issued from the heart of
Ethiopia, from the great lake whence flows the Cuama, the Zaire, the
Rhapta, and the Nile.”[228]—Here then we have the exact counterpart of
Lake Kúra and the Demdem or Demádem. The subsequent history of the horde
referred to by Da Couto is taken up by other learned writers, who affect
to describe its march southwards from Mombása to the Cape of Good Hope;
thence to Angola, whence it spread to Sierra Leone and elsewhere: so
that not even the Demádem were ever carried by conjecture so far from
their native homes.[229] Thus it appears that the theories ascribed
above to the Arabs, much excelled in sobriety, while they were exactly
parallel in design with the geographical speculations of a later age.
The position of the kingdoms of Negroland enumerated by Arab writers
having been now discussed and determined, and the efforts of Arab
theorists to mould into unity and form the isolated facts before them,
having been traced out, our task is at an end. The demonstration of the
fact that Ghánah lay between the desert and the Great River near
Tomboktú, at once reconciles with nature and probability, the history of
the constant intercourse of that state with Sijilmésah. The nation whose
language is spoken in the most important part of Negroland, is now
brought into light. The Tekrúr have been traced from the vicinity of
Silla to the eastern bank of the Kowára. The History of Málí has been
made known, and the limits of that empire partially determined. It has
been clearly shown that Kághó was also called Kaúkaú, but that the
application of the latter name to one or more other places, further
east, has caused incurable confusion. The ignorance and erroneous
hypothesis of the Africans respecting the course of the Kowára, have
been detected in the ancient accounts of Lake Kúra; and the limits of
the positive knowledge of the Arabs have been ascertained in the fact
that their theoretical geography embraced that lake, and the Demdem who
inhabited its shores.
It will not be necessary to dwell here on the general harmony and
widely-extended coincidence attending the conclusions arrived at in the
preceding pages. A long series of inferences, each stamped with the
character of likelihood, and all agreeing perfectly among themselves,
yet obtained independently of one another, not by straining arbitrarily
selected texts, but by eliciting and examining each author’s fullest
meaning, and which form together a complete whole, reconcileable not
only with geographical facts, but also with that speculative mind, which
in the history of human knowledge is itself an incontestible though not
easily seized fact;—such a series of inferences, we say, carries with it
an internal evidence of truth not easily impugned. It remains therefore
only to recal attention to the chief historical revolutions brought to
light in the course of our inquiries. The wars and conquests of the
Morabites eventually opened the Western Desert to commercial enterprise.
The impulse given by the religious enthusiasm of the same people to
Tekrúr, spread rapidly through western Negroland, till at length the
wave recoiling on the desert, the Ṣúṣú first, and then the people of
Málí, became masters of Ghánah, and reckoned some of the Zenágah tribes
among their tributaries.[230] The outlines of the history of Málí
deserve particular attention. The establishment of extensive empires in
the early stages of society, almost always give rise to a better order
of things, by breaking down the obstructions to general intercourse, and
allowing free scope to aspiring industry. The progress of Tekrúr
eastwards, the foundation of Aghades, and the change effected by both
these events in the condition of Houssa, have been already pointed out,
and need not be further insisted on.[231]
It is impossible to deny the advancement of civilization in that zone of
the African continent which has formed the field of our inquiry. Yet
barbarism is there supported by natural circumstances with which it is
vain to think of coping. It may be doubted whether, if mankind had
inhabited the earth only in populous and adjoining communities, slavery
would have ever existed. The Desert, if it be not absolutely the root of
the evil, has, at least, been from the earliest times the great nursery
of slave hunters.[232] The demoralization of the towns on the southern
borders of the desert has been pointed out; and if the vast extent be
considered of the region in which man has no riches but slaves, no
enjoyment but slaves, no article of trade but slaves, and where the
hearts of wandering thousands are closed against pity by the galling
misery of life, it will be difficult to resist the conviction that the
solid buttress on which slavery rests in Africa, is—The Desert.
[Footnote 195: At the present day the servile and perhaps most numerous
class of the population of the southern shores of the Persian Gulf, are
Zinj, or Blacks, originally from Zinjibar (corrupted into Zanguebar), or
the eastern coast of Africa. In Zinjibar, that is, the country of the
Zinj, on the other hand, the rulers and upper classes are chiefly Arabs
from ʿOmán and the Persian Gulf. The tribe of the Lámí, who have given
their name to Lámú, near Patta, are originally from the neighbourhood of
Baṣrah. The event related in the text ceases to appear improbable when
the nature and antiquity of the intercourse between Zinjibar and the
Persian Gulf are considered.]
[Footnote 196: The Berbers here spoken of are the inhabitants of the
country called by the Greeks in general Βαρβαρία, and by the Arabs
Al-ʿajemí—that is, foreign; which latter name has been converted by
ancient geographers into Azania (Ptolemy; and Arrian, Perip. Mar.
Eryth.), and by moderns into Ajan. The name Berber, in this as in most
other instances, originated in the commercial and diplomatic language of
the Roman Empire. The east-African Berbers are now called Somáli; but
their ancient designation still remains to Berberah, a town or rather
encampment opposite to ʿAden. The tribe who possess Maḳdishó (the
Magadoxa or Magadocia of our maps) are the Bajúna or Bagúna, called by
the Sawáḥilí, or natives of the coast of Zinjibar, Wagúña. They are the
Baẓúnah of El Idrísí (Jaubert’s Idrísí, I. p. 55, where مدونه is read
for بذونه). It will be shown further on, that the Demádem have been
transferred to the eastern side of Africa by an ordinary effort of
speculative geography.]
[Footnote 197: The title of the Emperor of Abyssinia was Negusa Negast,
or King of Kings. (Ludolf. Comment. p. 11.) The city called by the Arab
writer Kʿaber was Ankó-ber (or the Pass of the Ankó, a tribe formerly
occupying that tract, but now removed further north), at present the
capital of Shoa. The Arabs and Abyssinians in ancient times were
intimately connected. The language of Tigré, or Northern Abyssinia, is
of Arabic origin, and even the Amharic is thought by Gesenius (Ersch and
Gruber’s Encyklopedie, art. Amharische sprache) to be an older offset of
the same stock.]
[Footnote 198: The Bojá or Bogá are the Βουγαείται of the Greek
inscription of Axum, copied by Salt (Trav. p. 410). Under that general
name was included all the tribes of the desert between Abyssinia and
Egypt; the Blemyes of ancient geographers, and the Bisharee or Bishareen
of modern travellers.]
[Footnote 199: By the expression that the Nubians are brethren of the
Zinj, it must be understood that they are of negro origin; and indeed
there is little reason to doubt that the Nubians on the Nile were
originally a servile population, the progeny of the Nubah of Kordofán,
who, in the course of events, became sole possessors of their master’s
domains. Their emancipation was forwarded by powerful external causes
(see Edinb. Rev. No. 125. p. 297), and does not appear to have been
accomplished by means of revolt or invasion, as was the case with the
Zinj in Baṣrah, and the Funj in Sennár (Bruce’s Trav. vol. VI. p. 370).
When the Arabs conquered Nubia, they exacted an annual tribute of
slaves, which was called _Bakt_ (Quatremère, Mémoires sur la Nubie, II.
p. 42), a word evidently derived from the ancient Egyptian language, in
which _Bok_ signified a slave.]
[Footnote 200: The family of Abú Ḥafṣ, of Berber origin, rose to the
sovereign power in Tunis, in the early part of the thirteenth century.
(Makrízí in Hamaker, Spec. Cat. p. 105.)]
[Footnote 201: The names of nations from Kaúkaú westwards, enumerated by
Ibn Sʿaíd, are written as follows by Ibn Khaldún (MS. B.M. fol. 90) and
Makrízí (Hamaker, Spec. Cat. &c. p. 107, whose orthography is here
retained) respectively: ?aghárah ٮغارة I.K.; Baḳárah بقارة M.—At-Tekrúr
التكرور I.K. & M.—Kimí كمي I.K.; Nama نمي M.—?emyem ٮميم I.K.; Temím
تميم M.—Ḥáyí (?) حايى I.K.; Já جا M.—Kúra كورى I.K.; omitted by
Makrízí.—Inkizár انكزار I.K. & M.]
[Footnote 202: The comparison of texts made in the preceding note proves
that Makrízí borrowed from Ibn Sʿaíd, but it is not easy to define the
extent of his obligations to that writer. The Tunisian dynasty of Abú
Hafṣ, the wars of the Zagháwah with the Wathekú (the opponents of that
dynasty), and the invasion of Mábiná by the King of Kánem in 1252,
referred to by Makrízí, all belong to the age of Ibn Sʿaíd, from whom he
probably obtained his knowledge of them. But, on the other hand, Makrízí
names the King of Kánem reigning in A.D. 1398, a century later than Ibn
Sʿaíd. It appears more probable that his list of the Black nations near
Kánem was the fruit of his own inquiry, than a transcript from an
earlier writer.]
[Footnote 203: As names changed from Arabic to European writing are apt
to acquire thereby a more determinate form than properly belongs to
them, those mentioned in the text shall be here represented in their
original character, that the reader may be enabled to appreciate our
conjectures respecting them. Iklí اكلي; Afnú افنوا; Mambó منبو.
Caancouma (in Hamaker) كانكوما is evidently Kátakúmá كاتكوما wanting a
point. In like manner Hamaker’s Caancou must be changed into Kátakú. It
may be thought that there is not sufficient authority to prove that
Kátakúmá and Kátakú are distinct countries. But Burckhardt (Trav. in
Nubia, p. 433) has stated the position of the latter, and the districts
comprised in it (nearly all pointed out by Denham) with so much
precision, that his testimony, corroborated by that of Mohammed Miṣrí
(Journ. of the Roy. Inst.), decisively separates Kátakú from the Katagum
(Kátakúmá), which was visited by Clapperton.—Ibkarem ابقرم—Rábúmá
رابوما—Haúdama هودمي—Ankarar انكرر is probably written by an error of
the pen for Ankarú انكرو.]
[Footnote 204: Shádí شادي; Mábiná مابنا; Abham ابهم; Atʿaná اتعنا;
Yáfalam يافلم; Mekba مكبا; Kálkín كالكين.]
[Footnote 205: Aderma ادرما; Dafúmú دفومو; Abkalá ابكلا we have ventured
to change into Ankalá انكلا; Túkámá توكاما.]
[Footnote 206: Afnú is the name given by the people of Bornú to Houssa
(Lucas in Proc. Afr. Assoc. I. p. 165), or the eastern part of it.
Einsiedel (Cuhn’s Merkw. Reisen. III. p. 439) understood that Hafnou
(Afnú) lies between Bornú and Zegzeg. Abdu-r-Raḥmán Aga, Niebuhr’s
informant (Walck. Rech. p. 72) also uses the name Afnú as equivalent to
Houssa. The Sultan of Tekrúr, he says, who possessed Mara (Marra), was
tributary to the Sultan of Afnú, residing in Zamfara. Seetzen also (Von
Zach’s Monatliche Correspondenz, vol. XXI. 1810, p. 152), places Affano
immediately to the west of Bornú. See also the Bulletin de la Soc. de
Geogr. de Paris, tom. VI. p. 169, where Kachenah is stated to be the
capital of Afnú. It is remarkable that in Bornú, and the adjoining
deserts, the Arabic expression Súdán (country of the Blacks) is always
given to Afnú or Houssa (Lucas, as above; Denham’s Discoveries, &c. II.
p. 85), a strong proof that it was the country of the Remrem or Demdem,
and the point to which the slave merchants directed their march.]
[Footnote 207: Kátakú comprises Mandara, Musgow, and the other provinces
on the west of the River Shary, which are therefore not named. It is not
to be ascribed to mere chance, that two names are changed, by the
addition of a single point to each, into Kátakúmá (the Katagum of
Clapperton) and Kátakú, the Katákó of Burckhardt, the Kotoko of the
native of Bornú cited in the preceding note (Bullet. Soc. Geogr.), and
the Kotko of Seetzen (p. 153).]
[Footnote 208: Umburm is in the country of the Yemyem near Jacoba
(Clapp. Sec. Exped. p. 250). In Sultan Bello’s account of Baúshí (Denham
and Clapp. Disc. II. p. 451), he mentions a province of that country
called Aádám. We cannot venture to say whether this is the root from
which Adamawa is derived, but it might be easily changed in discourse
into Haúdama. Angarú (Ankarú) is three long days’ journey west of the
capital of Bornú (Mohammed Míṣrí, in Jour. Roy. Inst.), and within the
dominions of Bello (Clapp. in Denh. Disc. II. p. 313). It is the Ungura
of Hornemann, which was supposed to be identical with Wanghárah (Proc.
of Afr. Assoc. II. p. 200).]
[Footnote 209: One of the natives of Houssa, interrogated by M. Menézes
de Drummond (Hertha, July, 1827, p. 12), mentioned the Schadŭh (Shádí)
among the tribes depending on Zegzeg. Can the name Mábiná be the same
word as Foobina, said by Mohammed Másíni (Clapp. Sec. Exped. p. 335) to
be sometimes affixed to Adamawa? The name Bobyra, given in the Quarterly
Review (No. 77, p. 178), on the authority of Clapperton, in whose
published Journal it nowhere occurs, might easily have its origin in
Fobina, or even Mabina ill-written in Arabic. According to Abdu-r-Raḥmán
Aga, the King of Tekrúr possessed Marra and Adana. One of the
Itineraries collected by Dupuis (Resid. in Ashantee, App. p. 129,)
places an Etana on the river west of Marra.]
[Footnote 210: Clapperton found the plains of Zamfara covered with a
chain of lakes which are connected in the rainy season; and Lyon (Trav.
in N. Afr. p. 151) was told that the country between Kanó and Zegzeg is
annually covered with water.]
[Footnote 211: The name Angalawha, occurring on the northern shores of
Lake Chad, is easily traced by an analogy of the Bornowí language
indicated by Denham (the tree Kuka being called also Kukawha,) to
Angala, which name also occurs on the southern shores of the lake. The
town or station of Togáma is seven days distant from Kachenah, on the
road to Aghades (Lyon’s Trav. p. 131). Hornemann (Proc. Afr. Assoc. II.
p. 300) gives some account of the tribe so called.]
[Footnote 212: If we suppose the word Kissour pronounced N’Kissúr with
the nasal sound, which among the Africans so often precedes the letter
_k_, then its affinity with Inkizár becomes more apparent. The
Portuguese, like the Arabs, employ an initial vowel in prefixing the
nasal; thus for N’Yáka, N’Yambána, N’Góla, they write Inhaqua,
Inhambana, Angola. Of the guttural pronunciation which seems to foreign
ears to confound the _a_ and _u_, many examples might be given. Leo
Africanus says that one language (which he calls Sungai) extended from
Málí to Kághó; and as we know that the Kissour, commencing at Jenni, now
extends at least to Tomboktú, we are justified in concluding that it is
the Sungai, or the language to which the Zagháï, the chief inhabitants
of Inkizár, lent their name. We have seen that the word Daḳno, the name
of the ordinary beverage of the people from Jenni downwards, was in use
below Tomboktú in the fourteenth century. (See above, p. 84.) It avails
little against this, that the Sungai language was also spoken in Málí:
for what is more natural than that the language of the most populous and
industrious part of an empire should be generally spoken in its capital;
and that a Moorish merchant should give little attention to the language
of the lower classes?]
[Footnote 213: Two intelligent natives of Kanó, who were in London a few
years ago, when interrogated respecting Wanghárah, agreed in stating
that it is “behind Ako,” or Yariba. In the same vague manner probably,
Leo Africanus, little acquainted with the interior, conceived it to be
behind Zamfara. But his description of Wanghárah (pt. VII. c. 14), the
nature of the journey to it, its trade, and its fear of Tomboktú, leave
no doubt as to the country intended by him. The meditated invasion of
Wanghárah by the King of Bornú, may indeed provoke scepticism; but let
it be considered that the historical traditions related to Clapperton
(Second Exped. p. 102, 103) by the King of Boussa (Busá), testify the
former conquests of Bornú on the western side of the Kowára. Leo had a
very inadequate idea of the extent of Negroland south of the Great
River. He even speaks of the ocean encircling the desert from Cape Nún
to Gaoga (pt. I. c. 2). He could not, consistently with such views,
place the distant and populous country of Wanghárah south-westwards from
Zamfara.]
[Footnote 214: Ibn Sʿaíd died A.D. 1286, at an advanced age. Yaḳút, of
whose Geographical Dictionary the Bodleian Library possesses a copy,
flourished somewhat earlier. Both these writers are quoted by Abú-l-
fedá, who died A.D. 1331. Yaḳút and Abú-l-fedá cite Ibn Fáṭimah with no
other variance than is usual in different MS. copies of the same work.
The Jábí of Abú-l-fedá is clearly preferable to Yáḳút’s Ḥání (see Note
201); but the Bedí of the former and the Yuthí of the latter are
probably equally erroneous. It may seem a bold emendation to alter them
into Yúfí or Núfí; but let it be considered that the country now called
Núfí or Níffí may have changed its name with its population; that Ibn
Baṭúṭah clearly means Núfí when he speaks of Yúfí; and that the name
written Yúfí in the Gayangos MS., is in other MSS. written Yuwí (Lee and
Kosegarten, Lee’s Ibn Baṭúṭah, p. 238), and in others Buwí (Burckhardt,
Trav. in Nubia, p. 491; and Lee). Now Bedí بدي and Yuthí يُذي lie, with
respect to Buwí بُوي, Yúwí يُوي and Yúfí يُوفي, within what may be
called reasonable limits of corruption, and the proposed change brings
all into order.]
[Footnote 215: Abú-l-fedá and Yakut wrote Kúra كُورَى; in one of the
Routes (No. 4) published by Dupuis the river is called Koara كُوَرَا,
though had the points been correctly written, we should probably have
had Kúrá. Bello writes in his map Kowára كوارَ, or, as our travellers
have called it, Quorra. In Brahima’s Itinerary (Bowdich, Mission, &c. p.
491), and in another translated by De Sacy, (Walck. Rech. p. 453), the
Great River is named Lake Koad or Caudh كوض, which ought rather to be
read Kúḍa. Further on we shall show that in these Itineraries the Arabic
letter Dád ض is substituted for _r_; so that Lake Kúra is here intended.
The Kowára, Kúra, or Quorra is frequently styled by the natives a sea or
lake, according to some accounts, of forty-eight days’ sail in extent
(Ali Bey Badia’s Travels, I. p. 338). Clapperton (Denham, Disc. II. p.
269) was told that the river Kowára falls into the sea (of Nyffi or
Núfí) at Raka, where it is as wide as from Kano to Katagum, or about 150
miles. But not to multiply authorities, it will be sufficient to observe
that Sultan Bello believed Raka (Rághá),—which has been recently reached
by Mr. Jamieson’s steamer Ethiope,—to be a sea-port, and represented it
as such in his letter to the King of England.]
[Footnote 216: According to Ibn Fáṭimah, “when any one among these
people dies, they cast the dead body to their neighbours, and their
neighbours do the like for them.” So Sultan Bello related (Clapp. Sec.
Exped. p. 251) that in Umburm, where those who ail are killed at once,
for economy, “the person falling sick is requested by some other family,
and repaid when they have a sick relation.”]
[Footnote 217: Kimí might without much violence be changed into Límí,
and thus explain the name Al-Límiyín. At-Tekrúr we may assign, on the
authority of Abdu-r-Raḥmán Aga, to Marra, which probably extended from
Zamfara westwards between Guber and Kábí. The Baghárah or Baḳárah were
probably a tribe of the desert. The Kaúkaú of Ibn Sʿaíd is too far east
to be the city of that name on the Great River; we must suppose him
therefore to extend this name to Karkar.]
[Footnote 218: Leo’s Gago seems to be identical with the Caugha of
Hornemann, or Kaúka of Burckhardt (Trav. in Nubia, p. 436). Its empire
extended, he says, from Bornú to Nubia. The use of the name Bornú, in
former times, however, and the modern geography of the countries round
Lake Chad, are involved in an obscurity which it does not lie within the
scope of this essay to dispel. Leo’s text offers not only the names Gago
and Gaoga, but also, in two instances, Gaogao. He says (pt. VII. c. 14),
that while he was in Negroland, the King of Bornú marched against
Wanghárah; but learning, on his way, that Omar, King of Gaogao,
meditated an attack on his dominions, he turned back, and Wanghárah was
saved. But, in this passage, Gaogao is a misprint for Gaoga, as Leo
himself discloses by naming the King of Gaoga “Omar chi oggidí regna.”
In the other instance (pt. VII. c. 1), his Gaogao is justly changed by
Marmol (vol. III. fol. 21) into Gaoga. Leo (pt. I. c. 7) having
enumerated the fifteen kingdoms of Negroland visited by him, adds, that
there are three times as many, sufficiently well known, lying to the
south of the preceding; and names five of them, viz. Bito, Temiam,
Dauma, Medra, Goran. Marmol (vol. I. fol. 15), in copying this passage,
omits Dauma, and substitutes for it Mandinga. But Leo had no idea of
increasing the kingdoms of Western Negroland. His Bito is the Bede of
Denham and Clapperton, adjoining or comprised in the modern Bornú.
Einsiedel names together, Schikou—the Schaïkou of Lyon (Trav. in N. Afr.
p. 126), two days from the capital of Bornú—Bitou (Leo’s Bito), and
Engar (Angarú). Temiam may be an error for Yemyem: Dauma is probably the
Doma of our maps, or the country on the right bank of the River Chadda.
Medra seems to be Mandara, one letter being obliterated in the Arabic
MS. Goran (in Marmol Gorhan), which is often referred to by Leo, is
evidently the Desert of Kordofán. This name كردفان might easily become,
in negligent writing, Korhán كرهان; or as Leo, uniformly writing _kef_
with a _g_, and omitting the aspirates, would represent it, Goran.
Another region often named by Leo, may be fitly considered here. In the
Desert of Seu, south of Bornú (pt. VII. c. 15), and environing an
immense lake (pt. I. c. 27), called the Lake of the Desert of Gaoga (pt.
I. c. 2), he places the sources of the Niger (pt. I. c. 3). It is
obvious that the lake alluded to is Lake Chad, and that the name Seu is
the root of the appellative Showy, and the name Shouaa, respectively
given by Denham to a town on the Shary, and the Arab tribes inhabiting
the adjacent country.]