Jájah in the vicinity of Lake Kúra. Al-Maghzá, according to the former
writer, was the port in which were fitted out the fleets of the King of
Tekrúr, “who wages perpetual war with the infidels to the south of his
states.” Al-Maghzá signifies the place whence invaders sally forth. Abú-
l-fedá however differs from Yaḳút in assigning both Maghzá and Jájah,
not to Tekrúr, but to Kánem. Jájah (perhaps the Gagai of Clapperton,
Sec. Exped. p. 174) was the capital of a petty state situate probably
between those two kingdoms. It was remarkable for its fertility and
variety of its productions; among other things for its spotted sheep
(described by Lander in Clapp. Sec. Exped. p. 259-60). But it must be
observed that the Arab geographers, in describing the bearings of those
places, particularly in reference to the lake, speak in general the
language of misconception.]
[Footnote 220: Bowdich remarks (Mission to Ashantee, p. 478 note), that
the name of the river written Kúra, Kúda, &c. was always pronounced
Quolla by the natives in their conversations with Mr. Hutchinson. Ignaz
Pallme (in the Athenæum, 1840, p. 54), a traveller in Kordofán, relates
that the natives of that country think that the Bahr el-Abiad may be
followed westward through Baghermi, Kúḳo (Kouka), and Niero (Naroo, the
hilly country north-east of Zegzeg); and “further on (he says), in Kúla
(Kúra) flows a river not identified” (that is, different from the Nile).
Browne also (Travels in Africa, p. 254) heard in Darfúr of Darkulla (the
Land of Kúla or Kúra), where pepper was in abundance, and the rivers
were navigated in large canoes. He indeed supposed Darkulla to lie
towards the south. But his map exposes his mistake; for the rivers Bahr
Wullad Ráshid, B. el Salamat, and B. Heimad, crossed on the route to
Darkulla, and which he places to the south and west of Baghermi, bear
the names of Arab tribes dwelling in Wadaí and on the shores of Lake
Chad (Burckhardt, Trav. in Nubia, pp. 433, 436). The route therefore
went westwards.]
[Footnote 221: The Kiliwah (the Kalawa of Capt. Lyon, Kolluvi of
Hornemann), a Tawárik tribe, are masters of Asben, or the territory
between Houssa and Aghades. Their town in Guber is called by Clapperton
Killiwawa or Calawawa, by the Tatar merchant Wargee, Galibaba.
Clapperton frequently mentions also the Kilghí (whom he calls Killgris),
another powerful tribe of the same nation. Their territory is the
kingdom called by Bowdich (p. 208), Kallaghee, fourteen days’ journey
from Gamhadi (Kambari), or from the Quolla, crossing the Gambarou
(Kamba-róa, or Kamba water) on the tenth. Kamba is apparently the name
given by the indigenous population to Kábi, or a part of Yaúrí (Dupuis,
Append. 85). The Gambarou of Bowdich is the Gulbi Kambáji, or river of
Kambáji or Konbash of Dupuis’ Itineraries (App. 126 and 192). The name
Kilghí is changed by the Blacks into Kilinghi (see Note 162), whence
comes the title Kilinghiwa given to the King of Kachenah (Walck. Rech.
p. 451).]
[Footnote 222: Hají Hamed (Quart. Rev. 1820, No. 45, p. 232), among
others, bears witness to the course of the Great River from the Sea of
Nyffé to Egypt by Kachenah and Kano. Capt. Lyon’s informant, however
(Lyon’s Trav. p. 142), traces the stream from Funda to Katagum, while
Ben Yusuf, Hornemann’s son (Denham, I. p. 334), and Mohammed Miṣri
(Jour. Roy. Inst. 1823, p. 5) are equally positive in making it flow
through Adamawa. Much has been said of the unanimity of the natives in
connecting the waters of Lake Chad with the River Chadda, but they agree
only in the vague outlines of a theory, not in facts; they are unanimous
in making the Kowára flow into the Chad, and not the Chad into the
Kowára.]
[Footnote 223: The author of the Kitábu-l-Jʿarafiah divides Africa into
three parts, one of which is Karkar: Shehabeddin (Not. et Extr. tom. II.
p. 156), adopting the same division, writes Kaúkaú. The division into
four parts is frequently referred to by Marmol (tom. I. pp. 18, 21, 31),
who follows probably Ibn Gezzar.]
[Footnote 224: El Bekrí probably wrote Remrem; though El Idrísí, copying
him, writes Demdem; the latter author names also the Lemlem. Ibn Sʿaíd
may be conjectured to have written Yemyem, but the doubtful text of the
MSS. leaves the point undecided. Abú-l-fedá mentions not only the
Demdem, but also the Nemnem, which latter people he places south of
Saharte (the most eastern district of Tígré in Abyssinia) and of Samhar
(the Dankali coast), and consequently in what is now called the Taltal
country. All those names, Nemnem excepted, refer to the same people.]
[Footnote 225: In the maps of Forlani and others of the sixteenth
century, the Nile, Zaire, Cuama, and Spirito Santo, were all made to
flow from Lake Zambere. Sanson however (1650) allowed that lake no
outlet towards the east, but Hollar (London, 1667) still joined the
river of Kílwah with Lake Zaflan, which, as well as Lake Zambere, was
connected with the Nile. In all these maps Abyssinia extended to lat.
18° S. Delisle was the first who reformed these absurdities.]
[Footnote 226: Labat (Rel. Hist. de l’Ethiopie Occidentale, II. p. 90),
copying, but not faithfully, Cavazzi de Montecucoli, states, with
surprising coolness, as matter of history, the supposed origin of the
Jagas in the country of the Monoemugi (Monomoézi). The country of the
Jagas, that is to say, of the chieftains so entitled, lies immediately
behind Angola, perhaps not above 250 miles from the sea coast, and there
is nothing in the history of their followers calculated to show that
they come from the remote interior. Andrew Battel, who was seized on the
coast and carried off by the Jagas, with whom he spent above a year,
says (Purchas’ Pilgrims, II. p. 973), that they told him they come from
Sierra Leone. This absurd statement shows that Battel had got into his
head some of the geographical speculations of his day. The Jesuit
Sandoval (Hist. de Ethiop. p. 48) thus abridges the information of the
missionaries: “About ninety years back, a nation called in their own
country Gangedes, in Congo, Jagas, in Angola, Guindes, in India (Eastern
Africa), Zimbas, in Ethiopia (Abyssinia), Gallas, and in Sierra Leone,
Zumbas (Cumbas, in Jarric, probably for Çumbas), which name they changed
for Manes, and who lived on human flesh, issued forth,” &c. Finally,
Anguiano (Epitome Historial &c. del Imp. Abyss. 1706, p. 8), speaking of
the Agows, assures us that the names Agáo, Agag, and Giagos, or Giacos,
are all the same.]
[Footnote 227: A writer in a popular journal, says of the Zoolus
(properly Amazúla,) near Natal,—“They extend much further northward,
where they are found under the names Sualies and Gallas.” (Quart. Rev.
Febr. 1837, p. 178.) The Arabic word Sowáḥilí means “inhabiting the
coasts.”]
[Footnote 228: The portion of Da Couto’s History here quoted (Decade X.
lib. 6, c. 15) has never been printed, but the Library of the British
Museum possesses two MS. copies of it. The lake here referred to is
called by De Barros Zambere, a name copied servilely by all succeeding
writers, though it was doubtless a misprint for Zambeze. Cuama is the
name given to the lower portion of the Zambeze, which river is so named
according to Dos Santos (Ethiop. Orient. p. 44), because, on quitting
the Great Lake, from which proceed the chief rivers of Southern Africa,
it flows through a territory inhabited by a people of that name.” The
people alluded to are the Ambios of Da Couto, the Movíza of the
Portuguese of the present day, but who call themselves M’Bíza. The true
name of the river, therefore (and that intended also to be given to the
lake), is Zambíza. N’yassi, or _the sea_, as this lake is called by the
natives (whence D’Anville’s Massi, by mistake for Niassi), is commonly
but erroneously designated in our maps Lake Marávi. The Marávi country,
that is to say, the country in which the chieftains bear the title of
Marávi, extends from the Zambíza to the Livúma behind Cape Delgado, and
touches but does not encompass the lake. Da Couto, following De Barros,
borrows the name Rhapta from Ptolemy. It serves to indicate eruditely
rather than clearly what the Arabs call the River of Maḳdishó, that is,
the Juba.]
[Footnote 229: Cavazzi de Montecucoli, a laborious and sincere writer,
relates (Istorica Descrittione de tre Regni, &c. 1690, book II. c. 3)
that a chief named Zimbo raised an army in Congo, with which he invaded
Melinda on the opposite coast. Being there defeated, he retired towards
the Cape of Good Hope, and afterwards attacked Angola, &c. Zimbo’s
marches equalled those of Tamerlane. The enormous exaggerations and
mistakes of the Catholic Missionaries respecting the interior of
Southern Africa, still retain their places in works of geography.]
[Footnote 230: A Mandingo warrior named Abba Manca (Mança?), conquered
Bambúk in the beginning of the twelfth century, and compelled its
inhabitants to adopt the Mohammedan rites (Golberry, Fragmens d’un Voy.
I. p. 419). Silla was one of the first converted of the negro towns; and
as, in the Mandingo language, the word Silla means a way, road, pass, or
ferry, and might therefore have been naturally employed to designate a
town situate on the line of traffic, it may be conjectured that Silla
belonged to the Mandingoes from the beginning. It may be here observed
that the termination _boo_ (see Note 52), characterizing the names of
villages in Bambara, signifies a hut. (Dard. Dict. Wolofe, pp. 19, 22;
Caillié, III. p. 301).]
[Footnote 231: The Sultan of the Fellátah dynasty in Houssa styles
himself Sultan of Tekrúr. The Fellátah conquerors of Houssa issued, in
the beginning of the present century, from the province of Ader,
adjoining Kábí on the north, and where they may have been long
established. It is possible then that the kingdom of Tekrúr, mentioned
to Niebuhr by Abdu-r-Raḥmán Aga, and also heard of by Hutchinson
(Bowdich, p. 483), may have belonged to the Fellátah dynasty now
dominant in Houssa.]
[Footnote 232: The Garamantes, a Libyan nation, chased, in chariots
drawn by four horses, the Ethiopian Troglodytes (Herodotus, book IV. c.
152). El Idrísí (in Jaubert’s Trans. I. p. 110,) remarks that stealing
children to sell them to strangers for a trifle, is a general practice
in the desert, and “no one there sees harm in it.”]
POSTSCRIPT.
* * * * *
REMARKS ON HOUSSA.
The route from the capital of Ashantí, through Gonja, to the Kowára or
Quorra opposite to Yaúry, is determined as satisfactorily as can be
expected from native information. Three different itineraries of that
route agree in the chief points, conducting from Lake Buro, or from
Salagha (which is the same as Dagwumba), through Tonuma, Jabzogho,
Ghofil, Zogho, Jambodú, Suso and Kúka to Nikki, the capital of Borghú.
Beyond this place is the town of Rugha, the River Wori, and the
mountains over which lies the road to Sholo on the banks of lake Kúra
(the Quorra). But in two of the itineraries the names Rugha, Wori, and
Kúra are written Ḍugha, Woḍi, and Kúḍa.[233]
From Sholo the route conducts by Kambashi, Ghúnti, and Yendukka to
Kachenah in twenty-five days. Other native routes, passing northwards of
this through the mountainous country of Fagh, cross the river at Gongo
(_i.e._ the ferry,) to Múrí (Múli), and then proceed through Kábí, over
the Gulbi Kambaji to Raka, and thence through Kotú-n-kúra to Marki, and
crossing the hills near Surami to Kachenah. The Gulbi Kambaji (river of
Kambaji) of Dupuis, it has been already observed, is the same as the
Gambarou (Kamba-roa, or Kamba water) of Bowdich. The latter writer
places to the north of it, Mallowa, Kallaghee (Kilghí), Barrabadi
(Beráberi), and Kachenah. On the south side of his Gambarou, or between
it and the Quorra, he sets Gauw, Gamhadi (Kombori), Fillani, Goubirri,
Zamfarra, Yaoura, and Noufí. If a partial error in the position of
Mallowa be allowed for, and a more decided one in the case of Gauw, it
will be evident that the river dividing the countries here enumerated is
the Quorrama, or river of Kábí.[234]
Mohammed Masíní, describing the Kowára, says, “this great river issues
from the Mountain of the Moon; and what we know of it is, that it comes
from Sookan (Sókaí) to Kiya (Kiyaú, the Gauw of Bowdich), to Kabi, to
Yaouri, to Boossa, to Wawa, and to Noofee; but in that place there is
another river that springs from Zirmá, to Ghoober, to Zeffra, to Kory or
Koora, and then enters Noofee; its name is Kaduna. On the north of it
Kanbari lies; on the east is Kory; on the south are Cankan and Kafath;
and on the west is Bassoa or Bashwa (Busawa, the territory of Busá).
About the centre of it is the kingdom of Noofee, with that of Abyou
(Abbiwa).”[235]
The river here described under the name of Kaduna, as running first
northwards from Zirmá to Guber, and then southwards to Núfí, is
apparently the same described by Clapperton in these words: “This stream
rises only a day’s journey in the mountains or hills south of Guari,
runs through part of Zamfrá, and divides in one part the states of
Katongkora and Guari, and enters into the Kodonia in Nyffé.” The Kaduna
or Kadunia enters the Kowára in the vicinity of Raka and Rabba, perhaps
a little above the latter place. According to the native accounts, it is
during part of the year a great river, navigated in canoes made of a
single trunk of a tree, yet large enough to carry nine horses, but in
the summer it is quite dry.[236]
The country called by Mohammed Masíní, Kory or Koora (Kúra), is either
the Guari of the maps, or else Kotú-n-kúra. The resemblance of this name
to that of the great river (Lake Kúra) deserves attention. It appears
probable that the natives of Houssa name the Great River from what they
conceive to be its sources in their own country, tracing it from Kowára
(the Guari of Clapperton), through Zamfara and Kábí, down to the sea of
Kúra or of Núfí.[237] Hence it is not surprising, that, while Ibn Sʿaíd
mentions Kúra among the kingdoms of Negroland, Yaḳút and Abú-l-fedá
should apply that name to the great water which there received the Nile
of Ghánah.
LONDON:
J. HOLMES, TOOK’S COURT, CHANCERY LANE.
[Footnote 233: One of these routes is given by Dupuis (App. 124),
another by Bowdich (p. 491), and a third, translated from the original
Arabic by De Sacy, is inserted in Walckenaer’s Recherches (p. 453). The
comparison of this last route with the fragment (No. 11) in Dupuis’
Appendix (p. 135), shows that its author was Mohammed al Marrawi, the
servant of Ibrahim, from whom Bowdich derived his information. The Sholo
of the Itineraries is the Sooloo of Lander (Exped. to the Niger, II. p.
28), who means by the expression “the left bank of the river,” the bank
on his left hand, and contra-distinguishes it from the east bank, on
which his horses were. The systematic substitution of _d_ for _r_ by the
natives of a part of Houssa, is manifest from these itineraries. The
words Barrabadi and Gamhadi, for Beráberi and Kombori, are other
instances of the same change; and probably the savage and naked people
called Maradi, said to inhabit the country between Kachenah and Guber
(Lyon, p. 140), are no other than the Marrí, or people of Marra. The
deposed King of Houssa lives in Maradi (Lander, Sec. Exped. p. 63, 153).
Dupuis describes a route from Salagha, a little eastward of north, to
what he calls the great city of Andari, respecting which there is room
for some curious conjectures. But it will be sufficient for the present
to remark that his Andari عنظر (Itin. No. 6) and Fadaly فضلى (No. 10),
on the importance of both of which places he dwells with complacency,
are in reality one and the same.]
[Footnote 234: For the Gharanti and Yendoto of Dupuis, Ghúnti (the Gonde
of Clapperton) and Yendukka (the Yendukwa of that traveller, and
Yendakka of Lyon,) are here read, the change in Arabic writing being
extremely easy. The name Kandashy, which Mr. Dupuis gives to a part of
Houssa, originated in a mistake. He joined the word Dúshi, signifying
the hills or mountains, to a part of some preceding word. Marina,
Kandashy, ought to be Markí, and Dúshi, or the hills. Mr. Dupuis
continues, “Great Souy is the name of the adjoining country; there is
also another Souy, where the water is very broad, and bears the name of
Boromi Mághami.” For Souy سُوْوِ in this place we must read Surmi
سُرْمِ, a name variously altered into Solan, Zulami, Zurmie and Zirmie.
The situation of Surmi, or rather Surami the less, is pointed out by
Clapperton (Sec. Exped. p. 164). Lander crossed the river of Makamie
(Mághami). The word Boromi apparently signifies river, in some dialect
the use of which extends into Bornú and Kánem.]
[Footnote 235: The Cankan of Mohammed Masíní is probably the Ghana-
ghanah of Wargee. (Asiat. Journ. 1823, vol. XVI. p. 23.)]
[Footnote 236: There is, no doubt, some difficulty in believing that the
mouth of the Kadunia is above Rabba, when Lander states so clearly that
it is below Fofo; yet a MS. sketch of the route from Kano to the Kowára
in Núfí, drawn by Clapperton from native information, places it between
Rabba and Leechee, and directly opposite to Raka. Bakani, the capital,
is one day from the mouth of the river; it seems to lie directly in the
road from Kanó and Zegzeg to Raka and Katunga (Hertha, July 1827, Geogr.
Zeit. pp. 11, 14). From one of Clapperton’s MS. vocabularies,
communicated to me by my invaluable friend, the Rev. G. C. Renouard, it
would appear that the word Kaduna, in the Houssa language, signifies
_little_. If this be correct, which appears very questionable, there are
probably several rivers of that name. Here it may be remarked, that when
Dupuis (pt. II. p. 100) speaks of Saghona, the capital of Yekoo (Ako or
Yariba), he means Raka, which is also called Saguda (Clapp. p. 60).]
[Footnote 237: Clapperton (Sec. Exped. p. 232) says that the capital of
Zegzeg is called Quorra. He probably means to speak of the town which he
elsewhere calls Guari, but the name of which, in the native maps brought
home by him, is written Ḳowárah. When he speaks of Kóra (p. 133), he
appears to have in view the capital of Kotú-n-Kúra. This name is,
through obvious mistake, written Kotunfauda in Bello’s map. Kotú is a
name of frequent occurrence, as in Kotú-n-karafi (in the maps Cuttum
Curraffee), “where there is a copper mine” (Bello in Denh. Disc. II. p.
451). Karafi means metal in general. The country named Kúra is
mentioned, together with Niffi and Raka, by the Kaíd ben Yusuf (Denh.
Disc. I. p. 334). The slaves Boniface and Francisco agreed in
representing to M. Menézes de Drummond (Hertha, pp. 13, 14), that the
Kowára rises in the centre of Houssa, and that it takes its name from
the country named Kuara (Kowára), through which it flows.]
Transcriber's note:
Vowel diacritics in Arabic names have sometimes been adjusted to
match their transliteration.
Unpointed Beh-shape letters in medial or initial form have been
represented with the Alef Maksura (ى) character. Other unpointed
consonants are shown as printed.
Changes in the CORRECTIONS have been done, as well as:
pg xv, Changed: "GHÁNAH, AUDÁGHOST, AÚLÍL" to: "AÚDAGHOST"
pg 6, footnote 9, Changed: "Támedelt تَلمدَلْت (MS. B.M.)"
to: "تَامدَلْت"
pg 12, footnote 24, Changed: "Agharef أَغَوَفْ MS. B.M." to: "أَغَرَفْ"
pg 111, footnote 185, Changed: "(Walcknenaer, Rech. p. 450)." to:
"Walckenaer"
pg 124, Changed: "it it manifest that Ghánah coincides" to: "it is"
pg 134, Changed: "thirteenth century, it it obvious" to: "it is"
Other spelling inconsistencies have been left unchanged.