A.D. 1850.
Dr. Heinrich Barth, a native of
Hamburg, and lecturer at the University of Berlin upon geography,
had already had some experience of African travel, when, in 1849,
he learned that Mr. James Richardson had planned an expedition
from London to Central Africa, with the view of opening up the
Soudan to European commerce, and substituting for the cruel
slave-trade the legitimate enterprise of working the natural
riches of the country. Dr. Barth obtained permission to
accompany it, and with another volunteer, also a German, named
Overweg, he repaired to head-quarters. The expedition was
authorized and supported by the British Government. It met,
therefore, with no preliminary difficulties; and we may begin our
summary of its adventures at Tripoli, whence it started for the
south on the 24th of March, 1850. Entering the Fezzan, it
crossed the rocky and elevated plateau known as the Hammada, and
through fertile wadys, or valley-basins, separated by precipitous
ridges and broad wastes of sand, made its way to Mourzouk, the capital,
situated in a sandy plain, where agricultural labour is possible
only under the shelter of the date-palms. The town has no
rich merchants, and is not so much a commercial depôt as a
place of transit. For Dr. Barth and his companions it was,
however, the first stage of their journey, and, indeed, their
true point of departure. They made all haste, therefore, to
leave it, and on the 13th of June entered upon their great
undertaking. On the 25th, after an unavoidable delay, they
quitted Tasua, crossed a considerable mass of sand-hills, and
descended into a more agreeable district, where the heights were
crowned by tamarisk trees, each height standing alone and
isolated, like sentinels along the front of an army. This
pleasant variety of scenery did not last long, however; they came
again upon a soil as rocky as that of the Hammada, and met with
an alternation of green valleys and sterile promontories, similar
to that which they had explored before they reached Mourzouk.
They had reached the Wady Elaveu, a huge depression running
north and south, when, at a distance of two hundred yards from
their camp, they discovered a pond, forming a centre of life in
that solitary region. Everybody hastened to enjoy a bath; a
crowd of pintados and gangas hovered, with bright-coloured wings,
above the laughing, frolicking company, waiting until they could
take their places. While in this vicinity the travellers
were disturbed by the conduct of some Towaregs, who had been
engaged to conduct them to Selompih. Eventually, some
slight change was made in the plans of the expedition, which, it was
determined, should go on to Ghat, and remain there for six days;
while the Towaregs, on their part, undertook to set out
immediately afterwards for the Asben. Striking into the
valley of Tanesof, they saw before them, revelling in the glow
and gleam of the sunset, the Demons’ Mountain, or Mount
Iniden; its perpendicular summit, adorned with towers and
battlements, showed its white outlines vividly against a
dark-blue sky. Westward, the horizon was bounded by a range
of sand-hills, which the wind swept like a mighty besom, filling
the air with sharp, gritty sand, and covering the entire surface
of the valley.
On the following morning, their course carried them towards an
enchanted mountain, which the wild legends of the natives have
invested with picturesque interest. In spite of the
warnings of the Towaregs, or perhaps because they had cautioned
Dr. Barth not to risk his life in scaling that palace of the evil
spirits, he resolved on attempting the sacrilegious
enterprise. Unable to obtain guides, neither threats nor
bribes prevailing over their superstitious terrors, he set out
alone, in the belief that it had been formerly a place of
religious worship, and that he should find there either
sculptures or curious inscriptions. Unfortunately, he took
with him no provisions but some biscuits and dates, and worse
food cannot be imagined where there is a want of water.
Crossing the sand-hills, he entered upon a bare and sterile
plain, strewn with black pebbles, and studded with little mounds
or hillocks of the same colour. Then he followed the bed of
a torrent, its banks dotted with herbage, which offered an asylum
to a couple of antelopes. Anxious for the safety of their
young, the timid animals did not move at his approach.
Affection inspired them with courage; they raised their heads
boldly, and waved their tails. The enchanted palace seemed
to recede as he advanced; finding himself in front of a dark deep
ravine, he changed his course, only to find the passage barred by
a precipice. Under the glare and glow of a burning sun he
undauntedly pursued his way, and at last, spent with fatigue and
exertion, reached the summit, which was only a few feet wide, and
could boast neither of sculptures nor inscriptions.
From so lofty a watch-tower the prospect was necessarily
extensive; but on surveying the plain below with anxious glance,
Dr. Barth failed to detect any sign of the caravan. He was
hungry and athirst; but his dates and biscuit were not eatable,
and his supply of water was so limited that he durst not indulge
himself with more than a mouthful. Feeble and spent as he
was, to descend was imperative; he had no water left when he once
more stood upon the plain. He dragged his weary limbs
onward for some time, but at length was forced to own to himself
that he did not know the direction he ought to take. He
fired his pistol; but it elicited no reply. Wandering
further and further from the route, he came upon a small grassy
oasis, where some huts had been constructed of the branches of
the tamarisk. With hopeful heart he hurried towards them;
they were empty. Then in the distance he saw a long train
of loaded camels ploughing their slow way through the sand; no,
it was an illusion!—the illusion of fever. When night
fell, he descried a fire gleaming redly against the darkened sky;
it must be that of the caravan! Again he fired his pistol,
and again there was no answer. Still the flame rose steadily
towards heaven, and seemed to beckon him to a place where he
should find rest and safety; but he was unable to profit by the
signal. He fired again; no answering sound came forth from
the silence of the mysterious night, and Dr. Barth, on his knees,
entrusted his life to the Divine Mercy, and waited and watched
for the dawn of day. The dawn came, as it comes to all
God’s creatures, whether rich or poor, happy or
wretched—comes with a blessing and a promise that are too
often accepted without thought or emotion of gratitude; the dawn
came, and still the calm of the desert remained unbroken.
He loaded his pistol with a double charge, and the report,
travelling from echo to echo, seemed loud enough to awaken the
dead; it was heard by no human ear but his own. The sun,
for whose beams he had prayed in the night-watches, rose in all
its glory; the heat became intense; slowly the belated wayfarer
crawled along the hot sand to seek the scanty shelter afforded by
the leafless branches of the tamarisk. At noon there was
scarcely shade enough to protect even his head, and in an agony
of thirst, he opened a vein, drank a little of his own blood, and
lost all consciousness. When he recovered his senses, the
sun had set behind the mountain. He dragged himself a few
paces from the tamarisk, and was examining the dreary level with
sorrowful eyes, when he suddenly heard the voice of a
camel. Never had he listened to music so delightful!
For twenty-four hours had his sufferings been prolonged, and he
was completely exhausted when rescued by one of the Towaregs of
the caravan who had been sent in search of him.
The
caravan spent six days in the double oasis of Ghat and Barakat,
where crops of green millet, taking the place of barley and rye,
indicated the neighbourhood of Nigritiá. The gardens
were neatly fenced and carefully cultivated; turtle-doves and
pigeons cooed among the branches; the clean, well-built houses
were each provided with a terraced roof. Dr. Barth observed
that the male inhabitants worked with industry and intelligence;
as for the women, almost every one had a babe on her shoulders,
and children swarmed by the wayside. As a whole, the
population was far superior, physically and morally, to the
mixed, hybrid race of the Fezzan.
They left the gracious and grateful oasis to plunge into the
desert, a chaos of sandstone and granite rocks. On the 30th
of July, they reached the junction-point of two ravines which
formed a sort of “four-ways” among these confused
masses. The wady which crossed their route was about sixty
feet broad, but, at a short distance, narrowed suddenly into a
defile between gigantic precipices upwards of a thousand feet in
height—a defile which in the rainy season must be converted
into a veritable cataract, to judge from an excavated basin at
the mouth, which, when Dr. Barth and his companions passed, was
full of fresh and limpid water. This
“four-ways,” and these defiles, form the valley of
Aguéri, long known to European geographers by the name of
Amaïs.
The unpleasant intelligence now arrived that a powerful chief,
named Sidi-Jalef-Sakertaf, projected an expedition against their
peaceful caravan. Fortunately, it was only a question of
the tribute which, by right of might, the Towaregs levy from
every caravan that crosses the desert.
Sidi-Jalef-Sakertaf was pacified; and the enthusiasts went on
their way through sterile valleys and frowning defiles that would
have daunted the courage of any but a votary of science and
adventure.
They next arrived at Mount Tiska, which is six hundred feet in
height, and surrounded by numerous lesser cones. It forms a
kind of geological landmark; for the soil, hitherto so broken and
irregular, thenceforward becomes smooth and uniform, while rising
gradually, and the vast plain stretches far beyond the limit of
vision without anything to interrupt its arid monotony. A
two days’ journey brought our travellers to the well of
Afelesselez. It is utterly wanting in shade; only a few
clumps of stunted tamarisks grow on the sandy hillocks; but,
desolate as it is and uninviting, the caravans resort to it
eagerly, on account of its supply of fresh water.
Sand; stones; little ridges of quartzose limestone; granite
mixed with red sandstone or white; a few mimosas, at intervals of
one or two days’ march; abrupt pinnacles breaking the dull
level of the sandstones; dry and bushless valleys—such were
the features of the country through which Dr. Barth and his
companions wearily plodded. Herds of buffaloes, however,
are numerous; as is also, in the higher ground, the Ovis
tragelaphis.
On the 16th of August the travellers, while descending a rocky
crest covered with gravel, came in sight of Mount Asben.
The Asben or A’ir is an immense oasis, which has some claim
to be considered the Switzerland of the Desert. The route
pursued by Dr. Barth on his way to Agadez traversed its most picturesque
portion, where, almost every moment, the great mountain revealed
itself, with its winding gorges, its fertile basins, and its
lofty peaks.
Agadez is built on a plain, where it seems to lament that the
day of its prosperity has passed. At one time it was the
centre of a considerable commerce; but, since the close of the
last century, its population has sunk from sixty thousand to
seven or eight thousand souls. Most of its houses lie in
ruins; the score of habitations which compose the palace are
themselves in a deplorably dilapidated condition; of the seventy
mosques which it previously boasted only two remain. The
richer merchants shun the market of Agadez, which is now in the
possession of the Touats, and supported by small traders, who do
a little business in the purchase of millet when the price is
low.
The day after his arrival, Barth repaired to the palace, and
found that the buildings reserved for the sovereign were in
tolerably good repair. He was introduced into a hall, from
twelve to fifteen yards square, with a low daïs or platform,
constructed of mats placed upon branches, which supported four
massive columns of clay. Between one of these columns and
the angle of the wall was seated Abd-el-Kadir, the Sultan, a
vigorous and robust man of about fifty years old, whose grey robe
and white scarf indicated that he did not belong to the race of
the Towaregs. Though he had never heard of England, he
received Dr. Barth very kindly, expressed his indignation at the
treatment the caravans had undergone on the frontier of
A’ir, and, by-and-by, sent him letters of recommendation to
the governors of Kanó, Katséna, and
Daoura. Dr. Barth remained for two months at Agadez, and
collected a number of interesting details respecting its
inhabitants and their mode of life. Thus, he describes a
visit which he paid to one of its more opulent female
inhabitants. She lived in a spacious and commodious
house. When he called upon her, she was attired in a robe
of silk and cotton, and adorned with a great number of silver
jewels. Twenty persons composed her household; including
six children, entirely naked, their bracelets and collars of
silver excepted, and six or seven slaves. Her husband lived
at Katséna, and from time to time came to see her; but it
appears that she scarcely awaited his visits with the loving
expectancy of a Penelope. No rigid seclusion of women is
insisted upon at Agadez. During the Sultan’s absence,
five or six young females presented themselves at Dr.
Barth’s house. Two of them were rather handsome, with
black hair falling down their shoulders in thick plaits, quick
lively eyes, dark complexion, and a toilette not wanting in
elegance; but they were so importunate for presents, that Dr.
Barth, to escape their incessant petitions, shut himself up.
Barth rejoined his companions in the valley of
Tin-Teggana. On the 12th of December they resumed their
march, crossing a mountainous region, intersected by fertile
valleys, in which the Egyptian balanite and indigo flourished,
and finally emerging on the plain which forms the transition
between the rocky soil of the desert and the fertile region of
the Soudan—a sandy plain, the home of the giraffe and the
antelope leucoryx. By degrees it became pleasantly green with
brushwood; then the travellers caught sight of bands of
ostriches, of numerous burrows, especially in the neighbourhood
of the ant-hills, and those of the Ethiopian orycteropus, which
have a circumference of three yards to three yards and a half,
and are constructed with considerable regularity.
The wood grew thicker, the ground more broken, the ant-hills
more numerous. As the travellers descended an abrupt
decline of about one hundred feet, they found the character of
the vegetation entirely changed. Melons were abundant; the
dilon, a kind of laurel, dominated in the woods; then appeared an
euphorbia, a somewhat rare tree in this part of Africa, in the
poisonous juice of which the natives steep their arrows;
parasites were frequent, but as yet lacked strength and pith; in
a pool some cows were cooling themselves in the shades of the
mimosas that fringed its banks; the thick herbage flourishing
along the track impeded the progress of the camels, and against
the horizon were visible the fertile undulating meads of
Damerghue. Continuing their journey, they came upon a
scattered village, where, for the first time, they saw that kind
of architecture which, with some unimportant modifications,
prevails throughout Central Africa. Entirely constructed of
the stems of the sorghum and the Asclepias gigas, the huts
of Nigritiá have nothing of the solidity of the houses of
the A’ir, where the framework is formed of the branches and
trunks of trees; but they are incontestably superior in
prettiness and cleanliness. The traveller, in examining
them, is impressed by their resemblance to the cabins of the
aborigines of Latium, of which Vitruvius, amongst others, has
furnished a description. More remarkable still are the
millstones scattered round the huts; they consist of enormous
panniers of reeds, placed on a scaffolding two feet from the
ground, to protect them from the mice and termites.
On their arrival at Tagilet, the travellers separated.
Mr. James Richardson undertook the road to Zindu, Overweg that to
Marádi, and Barth to Kanó.
Kúkáwa was named as the place, and about the 1st of
April as the date, of their reassembling. Our business here
is with Dr. Barth.
At Tasáwa he gained his first experience of a large
town or village in Negroland proper; and it made a cheerful
impression upon him, as manifesting everywhere the unmistakable
marks of the comfortable, pleasant sort of life led by the
natives. The courtyard, fenced with a hedge of tall reeds,
excluded to a certain degree the gaze of the passer-by, without
securing to the interior absolute secrecy. Then, near the
entrance, were the cool and shady “runfá,” for
the reception of travellers and the conduct of ordinary business;
and the “gída,” partly consisting entirely of
reed of the best wicker-work, partly built of clay in the lower
parts, while the roof is constructed only of reeds,—but
whatever the material employed, always warm and well adapted for
domestic privacy; while the entire dwelling is shaded with
spreading trees, and enlivened with groups of children, goats,
fowls, pigeons, and, where a little wealth has been accumulated,
a horse or a pack-ox.
Dr. Barth afterwards arrived at Katséna, a town of
considerable size, with a population of eight thousand
souls. It was formerly the residence of one of the richest and
most celebrated princes in Nigritiá, though he paid a
tribute of a hundred slaves to the King of Bornu as a sign of
allegiance.
For two centuries, from 1600 to 1800, Katséna appears
to have been the principal town in this part of the Soudan.
Its social condition, developed by contact with the Arabs, then
reached its highest degree of civilization; the language, rich in
form and pure in pronunciation, and the polished and refined
manners of the inhabitants, distinguished it from the other towns
of the Háusa. But a complete and pitiful change took
place when, in 1807, the Fulbi, raised to the highest pitch of
fanaticism by the preaching of the reformer, Othmán dan
Fódiye, succeeded in gaining possession of the town.
The principal foreign merchants then emigrated to Kanó;
the Asbenáwa also transferred their salt-market thither;
and Katséna, notwithstanding its excellent position and
greater salubrity, is now but of secondary importance as the seat
of a governor. Mohammed Bello, who held that post at the
time of Barth’s visit, either through capriciousness or
suspicion, was very desirous of sending him on to Sokoto, the
residence of the Emir. At first he employed persuasion, and
when that failed, resorted to force, detaining Barth a prisoner
for five days. However, the energy and perseverance of the
traveller overcame every difficulty; and, having obtained his
freedom, he directed his steps towards the celebrated commercial
entrepôt of the Central Soudan.
Kanó, as he says, was an important station for him, not
only from a scientific, but a financial point of view.
After the extortions of the Towaregs, and his long delay
in A’ir, he was entirely dependent upon the merchandise
which had been forwarded thither in advance. On his
arrival, he had to liquidate a debt which had risen to the large
amount of 113,200 kurdi; and he was much disheartened by the low
value set upon the wares which were his sole resource.
Lodged in dark and uncomfortable quarters, destitute of money,
beset by his numerous creditors, and treated with insolence by
his servant, his position in the far-famed African city, which
had so long occupied his thoughts and excited his imagination,
was the reverse of agreeable. Anxiety acted upon his
physical health, and a severe attack of fever reduced him to a
state of great weakness. Yet the gloomy colours in which he
naturally paints his own condition do not extend to his
description of Kanó. That is bright, vivid,
and graphic.
The whole scenery of the town—with its great variety of
clay houses, huts, and sheds; its patches of green pasture for
oxen, horses, camels, donkeys, and goats; its deep hollows
containing ponds overgrown with water-plants; its noble trees,
the symmetric gónda or papaya, the slender date-palm, the
spreading alléluba, and the majestic bombyx, or
silk-cotton tree; the inhabitants, gay in diversified costumes,
from the half-naked slave to the most elaborately dressed
Arab—forms an animated picture of a world complete in
itself; a strange contrast to European towns in external form,
and yet, after all, in social inequalities, in the difference of
happiness and comfort, activity and laziness, luxury and poverty,
exactly similar.
Here a row of shops is filled with articles of native and
foreign produce, with noisy buyers and sellers in
every variety of figure, complexion, and dress, yet all intent
upon gain, and endeavouring to get the advantage of each other;
there, a large shed, like a hurdle, full of half-naked,
half-starved slaves, torn from their quiet homes, from their
wives, husbands, parents, arranged in rows like cattle, and
staring with hopeless eyes upon the purchasers, wondering,
perhaps, into whose hands it would be their lot to fall.
How dark to them the mystery of life! In another part may
be seen all that can minister to human ease and comfort, and the
wealthy buying dainties and delicacies for his table, while the
poor man eyes wistfully a handful of grain. Here a rich
governor, dressed in silk and gaudy clothes, mounted upon a
spirited and richly caparisoned horse, is followed by a troop of
idle, insolent menials; there, a blind pauper gropes his way
through the restless, excited multitude, and fears at every step
to be trodden underfoot. Observe yonder a yard neatly
fenced with mats of reed, and provided with all the comforts
which the country affords; a clean, neat-looking cottage, with
nicely polished clay walls, a shutter of reeds placed against the
low, well-rounded door, to forbid abrupt intrusion on the privacy
of domestic life; a cool shed for the daily household work; a
fine spreading alléluba tree, affording a pleasant shade
in the noontide hours, or a stately gónda or papaya
lifting its crown of feather-like leaves on a slender, smooth,
and undivided stem, or the tall and useful date-tree, adding its
charm to the fair scene of domestic peace and comfort,—the
matron, in a clean black cotton gown wound round her waist, and
with her hair trimly dressed, busily preparing the meal for her
absent husband, or spinning cotton, and at the same time urging the female
slaves to pound the corn; the children, naked and merry, playing
about in the sand, or chasing a straggling, stubborn goat;
earthenware pots and wooden bowls, cleanly washed, all standing
in order. Our survey also includes a
“máciná”—an open terrace of clay,
with a number of dyeing-pans, and people actively employed in
various processes of their handicraft: one man stirring the
juice, and mixing some colouring wood with the indigo in order to
secure the desired tint; another drawing a shirt from the
dye-pot, or suspending it to a rope fastened to the trees; and a
couple of men busily beating a well-dyed shirt, and singing the
while in good time and tune. Further on, a blacksmith with
rude tools that an European would disdain, is fashioning a
dagger, the sharpness of which will surprise you, or a formidable
barbed spear, or some implement of husbandry; beyond, men and
women turn an unfrequented thoroughfare to account by hanging up,
along the fences, their cotton thread for weaving; and, lastly,
close at hand, a group of loiterers idle away the sunny
hours.
Ever and anon comes upon the scene a caravan from
Gónja, with the much-prized kola-nut, chewed by all who
can spare as much or as little as “ten kurdi;” or a
caravan passes, laden with natron, bound for Núpa; or a
troop of Asbenáwa, going off with their salt for the
neighbouring towns; or some Arabs lead their camels, heavily
charged with the luxuries of the north and east, to the quarters
of the opulent; or a troop of gaudy, warlike-looking horsemen
dash towards the palace of the governor with news from some
distant province. Everywhere you see human life in its varied
forms, the brightest and the most gloomy closely mixed together,
as in life itself happiness and sorrow are never divided; every
variety of national form and complexion—the olive-coloured
Arab; the dark Kanuri, with his wide nostrils; the
small-featured, light, and slender Ba-Fillanchi; the broad-faced
Ba-Wángara; the stout, large-boned, and masculine-looking
Núpa female; the well-proportioned and comely
Ba-Haúshe woman.
The regular population of Kanó numbers about 30,000
souls, but is raised to 60,000, from January to April, by the
influx of strangers. Its trade principally consists of
cotton stuffs sold under the form of tebi, a kind of blouse;
tenkédi, the long scarf or dark blue drapery worn by the
women; the zunie, a kind of plaid, very bright in colour; and the
black turban, worn by the Towaregs. At Kanó are
concentrated also the products of northern, eastern, and western
Africa, flowing thither through the channels of Mourzouk, Ghat,
Tripoli, Timbúktu, and the whole of Bornú.
Early in March the intrepid traveller resumed his journey,
across an open and pleasant country. At Zurrikulo he
entered Bornú proper. The beautiful fan-palm was
here the prevailing tree; but as Barth advanced, he met with the
kuka, or Adansonia digitata, and the landscape brightened
with leafiness, and soon he entered upon a pleasant tract of
dense green underwood. “The sky was clear,” he
says, “and I was leaning carelessly upon my little nag,
musing on the original homes of all the plants which now adorn
different countries, when I saw advancing towards us a
strange-looking person, of very fair complexion, richly dressed
and
armed, and accompanied by three men on horseback, likewise armed
with musket and pistols. Seeing that he was a person of
consequence, I rode quickly up to him and saluted him, when he,
measuring me with his eyes, halted and asked me whether I was the
Christian who was expected to arrive from Kanó; and on my
answering him in the affirmative, he told me distinctly that my
fellow-traveller, Yakúb (Mr. Richardson), had died before
reaching Kúkáwa, and that all his property had been
seized. This sad intelligence deeply affected me; and, in
the first moment of excitement, I resolved to leave my two young
men behind with the camels, and to hurry on alone on
horseback. But as I could not reach Kúkáwa in
less than four days, and as part of the road was greatly infested
by the Tawárek (or Towaregs), such an attempt might have
exposed me to a great deal of inconvenience. Therefore, we
determined to go on as fast as the camels would allow
us.”
Four days later, and Dr. Barth saw before him the wall of
white clay which surrounds the capital of Bornú. He
entered the gate, and of some people assembled there inquired the
way to the sheikh’s residence. Passing the little
market-place, and following the dendal, or promenade, he rode
straight up to the palace which flanks the palace on the
east. The sheikh received him cordially, and provided him
with quarters closely adjoining the vizier’s house; these
consisted of two immense courtyards, the more secluded of which
enclosed, besides a half-finished clay dwelling, a spacious and
neatly built hut, which, he ascertained, had been specially
prepared for the reception and accommodation of the English
mission. It taxed all Dr. Barth’s energy and perseverance
to obtain the restoration of Mr. Richardson’s property; but
he finally succeeded. He also obtained a loan of money on
the credit of the British Government, which enabled him to
satisfy his creditors, pay Mr. Richardson’s servants, and
provide for the prosecution of the labours which had been so
unhappily interrupted.
The capital of Bornú consists of two towns, each
surrounded by a wall: one, inhabited by the rich, is well built,
and contains some very large residences; the other is a labyrinth
of narrow streets of small and squalid houses. Between the
two towns spreads an area of about eight hundred yards each way,
which, throughout its length, is traversed by a great highway,
serving as a channel of intercommunication. This area is
largely peopled; and a picturesque aspect it presents, with its
spacious mansions and thatched huts, its solid walls of mud and
its fences of reeds, varying in colour, according to their age,
from the brightest yellow to the deepest black.
In the surrounding district are numerous little villages,
hamlets, and isolated farms, all walled. Every Monday a
fair is held between two of these villages, lying beyond the
western gate; to which the inhabitant of the province brings, on
the back of his camel or his ox, his store of butter and corn,
with his wife perched upon the top of the burden; and the
Yédiná, that pirate of Lake Tchad, who attracts our
admiration by the delicacy of his features and the suppleness of
his figure, his dried fish, flesh of hippopotamus, and whips made
of the animal’s leathery hide. Provisions are
abundant; but to lay in at one time a week’s supply is a
wearisome and troublesome task, and a task all the more wearisome
and burdensome, because there is no standard money for buying and
selling. The ancient standard of the country, the pound of
copper, has fallen into disuse; and the currency partly consists
of “gábagá,” or cotton-strips, and
“kungóna,” or cowries. A small farmer,
who brings his corn to the market, will refuse cowries, however,
and will rarely accept of a dollar. The would-be purchaser,
therefore, must first exchange a dollar for cowries; then, with
the cowries, must buy a “kúlgu,” or shirt; and
in this way will be able at last to obtain the required quantity
of corn.
Provisions are not only abundant, but cheap, and the variety
is considerable. For corn,—wheat, rice, and millet;
for fruits,—ground-nuts, the bito, or fruit of the
Balanites Ægyptiaca, a kind of physalis, the
African plum, the Rhamnus lotus, and the dúm-palm;
for vegetables—beans and onions, and the young leaves of
the monkey-bread tree.
Dr. Barth had spent three weeks at Kúkáwa, when,
on the evening of the 14th of April, the Sheikh Omar and his
vizier departed on a short visit to Ngornu, and at their
invitation he followed next morning. The road thither was
marked with the monotony which distinguishes the neighbourhood of
the capital. At first, nothing is seen but the Asclepias
gigas; then some low bushes of cucifera; and gradually trees
begin to enliven the landscape. The path is broad and well
trodden, but generally consists of a deep sandy soil. There
are no villages along the road, but several at a little
distance. Two miles and a half from Ngornu the trees cease,
giving way to an immense fertile plain where cereals are cultivated as
well as beans.
At Ngornu, the town of “the blessing,” our
traveller arrived about an hour after noon. The heat being
very great, the streets were almost deserted; but the houses, or
rather yards, were crowded, tents having been pitched for the
accommodation of the visitors. Except the sheikh’s
residence, scarcely a clay house was to be seen; yet the town
gave a general impression of comfort and prosperity, and every
yard was fenced with new “séggadé”
mats, and well shaded by leafy koma-trees, while the huts were
large and spacious.
Early next morning the indefatigable traveller started forth
on horseback to refresh himself with a view of Lake Tchad, which
he supposed to be at no great distance, and of which he indulged
the brightest visions. But no shining expanse of fair
waters greeted his eye; wherever he directed his gaze, he saw
only an endless grassy, treeless plain, stretching to the
farthest horizon. At length, riding through grass of
constantly increasing freshness and luxuriance, he reached a
shallow swamp, the irregular and deeply indented margin of which
greatly impeded his progress. After struggling for some
time to get clear of it, and vainly straining his eyes to
discover a shimmer of water in the distance, he retraced his
steps. Mentioning on his return the ill success he had met
with, the vizier undertook to send some horsemen to conduct him
along the shore as far as Káwa, whence he could cross the
country to Kúkáwa.
When the time came, however, the vizier’s promise was
represented by two horsemen only. With them Dr. Barth
started on his excursion, taking a north-east direction.
The broad grassy plain seemed to roll away to an immeasurable
distance, unrelieved by tree or shrub; not a living creature was
visible, and the hot rays of the sun fell all around like burning
arrows. After about half an hour’s ride, he reached
swampy ground, through which he and his companions forced their
horses, often up to the saddle. Thus they arrived on the
margin of a fine open sheet of water, fringed thickly with
papyrus and tall reed, from ten to fourteen feet high, among
which wound and interwound the garlands of a yellow-flowered
climbing plant, called “boibuje.” Turning to
the north, and still pushing onward through deep water and grass,
he made a small creek called Dímbebú, and caught
sight of a couple of small flat boats, each about twelve feet
long, and manned by a couple of men, who, on descrying the
stranger, pulled off from the shore. They were
Búdduma, or Yédiná, the pirates of the
Tchad, in search of human prey; and Dr. Barth hastened to warn of
their presence some villagers who had come to cut reeds for the
roofs of their huts, and evidently had not caught sight of their
enemies. He then continued his march. The sun’s
heat was intense, but a fresh cooling breeze blowing from the
lagoon rendered it endurable. Large herds of kelára,
a peculiar kind of antelope, started up as he advanced, bounding
swiftly over the rushes, and sometimes swimming on the silent
waters. They are like the roe in shape and size, with their
under parts white as snow. At another creek, which the lake
pirates sometimes use as a harbour, river-horses abounded, and
the air echoed with their snorting. This was
the easternmost period of Dr. Barth’s ride; turning then a
little west from north, he and his escort marched over drier
pasture-grounds, and, in about three miles, struck a deeply
indented and well-sheltered creek, called
Ngómaíen. Here the curiosity of the traveller
was rewarded by the sight of eleven boats of the
Yédiná. Each was about twenty feet long,
tolerably broad, with a low waist, and a high pointed prow.
They are made of the narrow planks of the fógo-tree,
fastened together with ropes from the dúm-palm, the holes
being stopped with bast.
Another ride, and Dr. Barth turned westward—a course
which brought him to Maduwári, a pleasant village, lying
in the shade of trees, where he resolved on halting for the
night. From its inhabitants, who belong to the tribe of the
Sagárti, he obtained much information respecting the
numerous islands that stud the surface of the lake. They
also told him that the open water begun one day’s voyage
from Káya, the small harbour of Maduwári, and is
from one to two fathoms deep. It stretches from the mouth
of the Sháry towards the western shore; all the rest of
the lake consisting of swampy meadow-lands, occasionally
inundated. Next morning, on resuming his journey, he was
charmed by the bright and gracious picture before him.
Clear and unbroken were the lines of the horizon, the swampy
plain extending on the right towards the lake, and blending with
it, so as to allow the mind that delights in wandering over
distant regions a boundless expanse to rove in—an enjoyment
not to be found in mountainous regions, be the mountains ever so
distant. Thus they travelled slowly northwards, while the
sun rose
over the patches of water which brightened the grassy plain; and
on their left the village displayed its snug yards and huts,
neatly fenced and shaded by spreading trees. At
Dógoji he came upon a hamlet or station of
cattle-breeders, where a thousand head were collected; the
herdsmen being stationed on guard around them, armed with long
spears and light shields. Equidistant poles were fixed in
the ground, on which the butter was hung up in skins or in
vessels made of grass.
Turning to the eastward, Dr. Barth reached the creek
“Kógorani,” surrounded by a belt of dense
reeds, and was there joined by a Kánemma chief, named
Zaitchua, with five horsemen. The party rode on towards
Bolè, passing through very deep water, and obtained a view
of the widest part of the lake they had yet seen. A fine
open sheet of water, agitated by a light easterly wind, rippled
in sparkling waves upon the shore. A reedy forest spread
all around, while the surface was bright with aquatic plants,
chiefly the beautiful water-lily, or Nymphoea lotus.
Flocks of waterfowl of every description played about. At
length they reached Káwa, a large straggling village,
lying among magnificent trees, where Dr. Barth’s’
excursion terminated; thence he returned to
Kúkáwa.
On the 7th of May he was joined there by Mr. Overweg, and the
two travellers immediately made their preparations for resuming
the work of exploration with which they had been charged by the
British Government. These were completed by the 29th of May
(1851), and the two travellers then set out for the southward,
accompanied by an officer of the sheikh, and attended by a small
company of servants and warriors. A singular variety of
country greeted them as they moved forward: at first it was low
and swampy; then came a bare and arid soil, planted with
scattered tamarisks; next, a dense forest, partly inundated in
the rainy season, and, afterwards, a broad and fertile plain,
sprinkled with villages, and white with thriving crops of
cotton. This was the district of Uji, which comprises
several places of a considerable size. Thence they entered
upon a fine open country, a continuous corn-field, interrupted
only by pleasant villages, and shaded here and there by single
monkey-bread trees, or Adansonias, and various kinds of
fig-trees, with their succulent dark-green foliage, or large
fleshy leaves of emerald green. A fiumara, or water-course,
which rises near Aláwó, traverses the plain with
numerous curves and bends, and passing Dekùa, falls into
the Tchad. The travellers crossed it twice before they
reached Mabani, a large and prosperous town, with a population of
nine or ten thousand souls, which covers the sides and summit of
a hill of sand. From this point their road lay through
fertile fields, where they were greeted by the sight of the first
corn-crop of the season, its fresh and vivid green sparkling
daintily in the sunshine. Having crossed and recrossed the
fiumara, they ascended its steep left bank, which in some places
exhibited regular strata of sandstone. Here they passed a
little dyeing-yard of two or three pots, while several patches of
indigo flourished at the foot of the bank, and a bustling group
of men and cattle were gathered round the well. Villages
were seen lying about in every direction; and single cottages,
scattered about here and there, gave evidence of a sense of
security. The corn-fields were most agreeably broken by
tracts covered with bushes of the wild gónda, which has a
most delicious fruit, of a fine creamy flavour, and of the size
of a peach, but with a much larger stone.
Mount Délabida marked the border line of a mountainous
region. After entering upon the district of Shamo, Barth
observed that millet became rare, and that the sorghum was
generally cultivated. Here he and his party were joined by
some native traders; for robbers haunted the neighbourhood, and
safety was to be found in numbers. At every step they came
upon evidences of the misfortunes which had swept and scathed the
country: traces of ancient cultivation and ruined huts; and thick
interwoven jungles, where the grass grew so high as to hide both
horse and rider. After three hours’ march through
this land of desolation, they arrived at what had once been a
considerable village, but was then inhabited only by a few
natives, recently converted to the religion of the
Crescent. As but a single hut could be found for the
accommodation of the whole company, Dr. Barth preferred to encamp
in the open air. But he had scarcely laid down to rest,
when a terrible storm arose, sweeping his tent to the ground, and
flooding his baggage with torrents of rain. To such
adventures is the daring traveller exposed!
Though they had embraced Islam, the natives wore no other
clothing than a strip of leather passed between the legs, and
even this seemed by some of them to be considered a
superfluity. The observer could not fail to remark their
harmonious proportions, their regular features, undisfigured by
tattooing, and, in not a few cases, presenting no resemblance to
the negro type. The difference of complexion noticeable in
individuals presumably of the same race, was remarkable.
With some it was a brilliant black; with others a rhubarb colour,
and there was no example of an intermediate tint; the black,
however, predominated. A young woman and her son, aged
eight years, formed a group “quite antique,” and
worthy of the chisel of a great artist. The child,
especially, in no respect yielded to the ancient Discophorus; his
hair was short and curled, but not woolly; his complexion, like
that of his mother and the whole family, was of a pale or
yellowish red.
Re-entering the forest, Dr. Barth observed that the clearings
bore the imprints of the feet of elephants of all ages. A
wealth of flowers loaded the atmosphere with fragrant
incense. But the soil soon deteriorated; the trees were
nearly all mimosas, and nearly all of indifferent growth, with
here and there a large leafless Adansonia flinging abroad, as if
in despair, its gaunt gigantic arms; while the herbage consisted
only of single tufts of coarse grass, four or five feet
high. When things are at their worst they begin to mend;
and for the traveller there is no motto more applicable than the
old proverb, that it is a long lane which has no turning.
With intense delight Dr. Barth and his companions saw the
monotonously gloomy forest giving way to scattered clusters of
large and graceful trees, such as generally indicate the
neighbourhood of human labour. And they soon emerged upon
bright green meadow-lands extending to the base of the Wandala
mountain-range, which rose like a barrier of cloud upon the
horizon, from north to south. The highest
elevation of this range is about 3000 feet; its average elevation
does not exceed 2500 feet. Behind it, to a point of 5000
feet above the sea, rises the conical mass of Mount Mendefi,
first seen by gallant Major Denham. The country now
gradually assumed a wilder aspect; rocks of sandstone and granite
projected on all sides, while, in front, a little rocky ridge,
densely crowded with bush and tree, seemed to form a ne plus
ultra. Suddenly, however, a deep recess opened in it,
and a village was seen, lying most picturesquely in the heart of
the rocks and woods. This was Laháula, where the
travellers rested for the night. Next day they reached Uba,
on the border of A’damáwa; A’damáwa,
described by Dr. Barth as “a Mohammedan kingdom engrafted
upon a mixed stock of pagan tribes—the conquest of the
valorous and fanatic Pállo chieftain, A’dáma,
over the great pagan kingdom of Fúmbiná.”
Here the camels greatly excited the curiosity of the
population; for they are rarely seen in A’damáwa,
the climate of which these animals are unable to endure for any
length of time. Still more vivid was the curiosity of the
governor and his courtiers, when they saw Dr. Barth’s
compass, chronometer, telescope, and the small print of his
Prayer-Book. The Fulbi, he says, are intelligent and
civilized, but prone to malice; they lack the good nature of the
real blacks, from whom they differ more in their character than
their colour.
At Bagma our travellers were struck by the size and shape of
the huts, some of them being from forty to sixty feet long, about
fifteen broad, and from ten to twelve feet high. They
narrowed above to a ridge, and were thatched all over, no
distinction being made between roof and wall. They are so
spaciously constructed, in order to provide a shelter for the
cattle against the inclemency of the weather. The river
separates the village, which is inhabited entirely by
Mohammedans, into two quarters. “The news of a
marvellous novelty soon stirred up the whole place, and young and
old, male and female, all gathered round our motley troop, and
thronged about us in innocent mirth, and as we proceeded the
people came running from the distant fields to see the wonder;
but the wonder was not myself, but the camel, an animal which
many of them had never seen, fifteen years having elapsed since
one had passed along this road. The chorus of shrill
voices, ‘Gelóba, gelóba!’ was led by
two young wanton Púllo girls, slender as antelopes, and
wearing nothing but a light apron of striped cotton round their
loins, who, jumping about and laughing at the stupidity of these
enormous animals, accompanied us for about two miles along the
fertile plain. We passed a herd of about three hundred
cattle. Gradually the country became covered with forest,
with the exception of patches of cultivated ground.”
Through scenery of this interesting character, the travellers
pushed on to Mbtudi.
Next day their route laid through well-wooded and well-watered
pastures, and immense fields of millet and ground-nuts, which
here form as large a proportion of the food of the people as
potatoes do in Europe. Dr. Barth liked them very much,
especially if roasted, for nibbling after supper, or even as a
substitute for breakfast on the road. From Segero the
travellers proceeded to Sara’wu, and thence to
Béhur. Forest and cultivated land alternated with
one another to the margin of a little lake, lying in a belt of
tall thick grass, where the unwieldy river-horse snorted
loud. The sky was dark with clouds, and a storm was
gathering, when the caravan entered the narrow streets of
Salléri. That night it obtained but scanty
accommodation, and everybody was glad to find the next morning
bright and cheerful, so that the march could be resumed.
Their course was directed towards the river
Bénuwé. The neighbourhood of the water was
first indicated by numerous high ant-hills, which, arranged in
almost parallel lines, presented a sufficiently curious
spectacle. To the north-west towered the insulated colossal
mass of Mount Atlantika, forming a conspicuous and majestic
object in the landscape. The savannas were now overgrown
with tall rank grass, and broken by many considerable pools,
lying in deep hollows; every year, in the rainy season, they are
under water. Crossing these low levels with some
difficulty, Dr. Barth arrived on the banks of the
Bénuwé. A broad and noble stream, it flowed
from east to west through an entirely open country. The
banks were twenty to thirty feet high; while, immediately
opposite to the traveller’s station, behind a pointed
headland of sand, the river Fáro, which has its source on
the eastern side of Mount Atlantika, came in with a bold sweep
from the south-east, and poured its tributary waters into the
Bénuwé. The Bénuwé, below the
point of junction, bends slightly to the north, runs along the
northern foot of Mount Bágelé, thence traverses the
mountainous region of the Báchama and Zina to
Hamárruwa and the industrious country of Korórofa,
until it joins the great western river of the Kwára, or
Niger.
The passage of the Bénuwé, which is here about
eight
hundred yards wide, was safely accomplished in the native canoes,
nor did any mishap occur in the transit of the Fáro, which
measures about six hundred yards. The current of the
Fáro has a velocity of about five miles an hour; that of
the Bénuwé does not exceed three miles and a
half. By way of Mount Bágelé, and through the
rich low lands of Ribágo, the travellers repaired to Yola,
the capital of A’damáwa.
Yola, the capital of A’damáwa, lies four degrees
to the south of Kuka, on the Fáro, in a marshy plain,
which presents nothing attractive to the eye of an artist.
Dr. Barth describes it as a large open place, consisting mainly
of conical huts, surrounded by spacious court-yards, and even by
corn-fields; only the houses of the governor and his brothers
being built of clay. When he entered it, Lowel, the
governor, was in his fields, and could not be seen; but on his
return the travellers proceeded to his “palace” to
pay their respects. They were not allowed an interview,
however, until the following day, and then it was anything but
satisfactory. The officer who had accompanied them from
Kuka took the opportunity of delivering certain despatches; and
as they proved displeasing to the governor, he immediately vented
his wrath upon Dr. Barth, accusing him of treacherous
intentions. The audience terminated in confusion, and next
day but one, Dr. Barth was ordered to leave Yola, on the pretence
that his sojourn there could not be allowed unless he obtained the
authorization of the Sultan of Sokoto. He was suffering
from fever, and the heat of the day was excessive, but at once
made preparations for departure. Sitting firmly in his
large Arab stirrups, and clinging to the pommel of his saddle, he
turned his horse’s head towards Bornú, and, though
he fainted twice, was soon invigorated by a refreshing breeze,
which opportunely rose with healing on its wings.
But he was really ill when he arrived at Kúkáwa,
and, unhappily, the rainy season had begun. During the
night of the 3rd of August, the storm converted his sleeping
apartment into a small lake, and his fever was seriously
aggravated. The pools which formed in every nook and corner
of the town were rendered pestiferous by the filth of all kinds
which stagnated in them. He ought to have withdrawn to some
healthier country, but, in order to pay the debts of the
expedition and prepare for new explorations, was compelled to
remain and sell the merchandise which had arrived in his
absence. He made all haste, however, to discharge this
duty; and when, early in September, the Government despatched a
body of the Welád Shinán—Arab mercenaries
whom they had enlisted—to reconquer the eastern districts
of the province of Kánem, he attached himself to the
expedition, accompanied by his fellow-traveller, Overweg.
In the course of this new journey they obtained another view
of Lake Tchad, under peculiar circumstances. It was about
seven o’clock in the morning. Far to their right, a
whole herd of elephants, arranged in almost military array, like
an army of rational beings, slowly proceeded to the water.
In front appeared the males, as was evident from their size, in
regular
order; at a little distance followed the young ones; in a third
line were the females; and the whole were brought up by five
males of immense size. The latter, though the travellers
were riding along quietly, and at a considerable distance, took
notice of them, and some were seen throwing dust into the air;
but no attempt was made to disturb them. There were
altogether about ninety-six.
Barth and Overweg returned to Kúkáwa on the 14th
of November, but ten days afterwards they again sallied forth,
accompanying another warlike expedition, which had been ordered
to march against Mánderá. It presented,
however, few features of interest or importance. The
indefatigable pioneers were back again in Kúkáwa on
the 1st of February, 1852, and there they remained until the 1st
of March. Though crippled by want of means, enfeebled by
fever, and beset by a thousand difficulties, Dr. Barth resolved
on continuing his work of exploration, and, on the 17th of March,
entered into Bagirmi, a region never before visited by
Europeans.
Bagirmi forms an extensive table-land, with an inclination
towards the north, and an elevation of 900 to 1000 feet above the
sea-level. It measures about 240 miles from north to south,
and 150 from east to west. In the north lie some scattered
mountain ranges, which separate the two basins of Lake Fittri and
Lake Tchad. The chief products are sorghum, millet,
sesamum, poa, wild rice, haricot beans, water-melons, citron, and
indigo. Very little grain is cultivated. The
population numbers about 1,500,000 souls.
On reaching the broad stream of the Koloko, Dr. Barth found
that he was suspected of treacherous designs against the throne of
Bagirmi, and the boatmen refused to ferry him across, unless he
obtained the Sultan’s permission. Resolved not to be
baffled on the threshold of his enterprise, he retraced his steps
for about two miles, then turned to the north-east, and at Mili
succeeded in effecting the passage of the river. The
country through which he advanced was fertile and well
cultivated; village succeeded village in an almost unbroken
series; here and there groups of natives issued from the thick
foliage; numerous herds of cattle were feeding in the rich green
water-meadows, and among them birds of the most beautiful
plumage, and of all descriptions and sizes, sported upon nimble
wing. The gigantic pelican dashed down occasionally from
some neighbouring tree; the marabout stood silent, with head
between its shoulders, like a decrepit old man; the large-sized
azure-feathered “dédegami” strutted proudly
along after its prey, the plotus, and extended its long
snake-like neck; and the white ibis searched eagerly for food,
with various species of ducks, and numerous other lesser birds,
in larger or smaller flights.
But an unexpected obstacle arrested his progress; an official
arrived with an intimation that he could not be allowed to
continue his advance without the formal consent of the supreme
authority. He therefore sent forward a messenger with
letters to the capital, and retraced his steps to Mili, to await
his return. He had not long to wait. The messenger
made his appearance on the following day, bearing a document with
a large black seal, which directed him to proceed to
Búgomán, a place higher up the river, until an
answer could be obtained from the Sultan, who was then absent
on a campaign in Gógomi. But on his arrival at
Búgomán, the governor refused to receive him, and
the unfortunate traveller was glad to find a resting-place at
Bákadá. There he had time and opportunity to
meditate on the vast numbers of destructive worms and ants which
afflicted the land of Bagirmi; especially a terrible large black
worm, as long as, but much bigger than, the largest of European
grubs, which, in its millions, consumes an immense proportion of
the produce of the natives. There is also an injurious
beetle, yellow as to colour, and half an inch as to length; but
the people of Bagirmi take their revenge upon this destroyer by
eating him as soon as he has grown fat at their expense. As
for the ants, both black and white, they are always and
everywhere a scourge and a calamity. Of the termites, or
so-called white ants, which, by the way, are not really ants, Dr.
Barth had unpleasant experience. As early as the second day
of his sojourn at Bákadá, he observed that they
were threatening his couch, which he had spread on a mat of the
thickest reeds, with total destruction. To circumvent their
devices, he elevated it upon three large poles; but in two
days’ time they had not only raised their entrenchments
along the poles to the very top, but had eaten through mat and
carpet, and accomplished much general depredation.
No reply arriving from the Sultan, Barth not unnaturally lost
patience, and decided on quitting the inhospitable Bagirmi, and
returning to Kúkáwa. But he was closely
watched; and on arriving at Mili, was arrested by order of the
governor, who took possession of his arms, his baggage, his
watch, his papers, his compass, and his horse, and placed
him in charge of a couple of sentinels. Happily, while at
Bákadá he had made a powerful friend, who, making
his appearance at Mili, interfered on his behalf, obtained the
restoration of his property, and conducted him in person to
Másená, the capital. There he was lodged in a
clay house standing in an open courtyard, which was likewise
fenced by a low clay wall. The house contained an airy
front room, which he found very comfortable, and four small
chambers at the back, useful for stowing away luggage and
provisions.
Másená occupies a considerable area, the
circumference of which measures about seven miles; but only about
half this space is inhabited, the principal quarter being formed
in the midst of the town on the north and west of the
Sultan’s palace, while a few detached quarters and isolated
yards lie straggling about as outposts. Its most
distinctive feature is a deep trough-like bottom, running from
east to west, which in the rainy season is filled with water, in
the summer with verdure of the greatest luxuriance. To the
south of this hollow, or bedá, lies the principal quarter,
which, however, is by no means thickly inhabited. In the
centre stands the palace; which is simply an irregular cluster of
clay buildings and huts, surrounded by a wall of baked
bricks. Generally speaking, the appearance of the town was
one of decay and dilapidation; yet, as all the open grounds were
enlivened with fresh green pasture, it was not deficient in a
certain charm. There are no signs of industrial
activity. The market-place is rather small, and without a
single stall or shed. The chief feature of interest is the
bedá, which is bordered on the south-west by picturesque groups of
dúm-palms and other trees of fine foliage; while at the
western end, as well as on the south-east, spreads a large tract
of market-gardens.
In general, the houses are well built, and the thatched roofs
are formed with care, and even with neatness; but the clay is not
of a good kind for building, and the clay houses afford so little
security from the rains, that most persons prefer to reside
during that part of the year in huts of straw and reed.
While waiting the Sultan’s arrival, Dr. Barth’s
time was chiefly occupied in defending himself against the
attacks of the large black ant (Termes mordax). One
day, in particular, he maintained a long and desperate encounter
with a host of these voracious little insects. In a thick
unbroken column, about an inch broad, they had marched over the
wall of the courtyard, and entering the hall where he abode both
day and night, advanced right upon the store-room. But his
couch being in their way, they immediately assailed his own
person, and compelled him to decamp. Assisted by his
servants, he then fell upon the bandits, killing all the
stragglers and foragers, and burning the main body of the army as
it proceeded on its way. But fresh legions arrived on the
scene of war, and it took a struggle of two hours’ duration
thoroughly to break up their lines, and put them to flight.
The insects seemed to have been attracted by the corn which
Dr. Barth had stored up. But it must be owned that, if
inconvenient in one respect, their attacks are beneficial in
another; for they destroy all kinds of vermin, mice
included. And while they thus act as the “scavengers
of the houses,” in many parts of Negroland
they also render service through their very greediness in
gathering what man would fain appropriate for himself. They
lay in such considerable stores of corn, that the poor natives
frequently dig out their holes in order to gain possession of
their supplies.
It was on the 3rd of July that the Sultan appeared before the
walls of his capital, escorted by about eight hundred
cavalry. At the head of the cortége rode the
lieutenant-governor, surrounded by a troop of cavaliers.
Then came the Barma, followed by a man carrying a spear of
ancient and peculiar shape, designed to represent the
“fetish,” or idol of Kénga-Matáya, the
original patrimony of the kings of Bagirmi. Next rode the
Fácha, or commander-in-chief, who is the second person in
the kingdom; and after him the Sultan himself, attired in a
yellow burnous, and mounted on a grey charger, the points of
which could hardly be seen owing to the amplitude of the
war-trappings that hung about him. Nor was the head of his
rider much more plainly visible, not only on account of the
horsemen gathered round him, but more particularly owing to two
umbrellas—one of green, the other of red—borne on
each side of him by a couple of slaves.
Six slaves, their right arms clad in iron, fanned the
magnificent prince with ostrich feathers attached to long poles,
while round about him were gathered a motley array of his
captains and courtiers, gay in burnouses of various colours, or
in shirts of black or blue. Behind them followed the
war-camel, bestridden by the drummer, Kodgánga, who made
the echoes resound with the clang of a couple of kettle-drums,
fastened on each side of the animal; and the charivari was swelled
by the exertions of three musicians, two of whom played upon
horns, and the third upon a bugle. Mention must be made of
the long train of the Sultan’s female slaves, or
favourites, forty-five in number, all mounted upon horseback, all
dressed from head to foot in black cloth, and all guarded by a
slave on either side. The procession was terminated by a
train of eleven camels, carrying the baggage.
A day or two afterwards, an officer of the Sultan demanded Dr.
Barth’s attendance at the palace. He hastened
thither; and being admitted into an inner courtyard, found the
courtiers sitting on either side of a door, which was protected
by screenwork made of very fine reeds. Being desired to sit
down, along with his companions, and ignorant whom he should
address, he asked in a loud voice if the Sultan
’Abdel-Kadir were present. A clear voice, from behind
the screen, answered that he was. When fully satisfied that
he was addressing the prince, he proceeded to offer his respects,
and present the compliments of the great and powerful British
Government, which desired to be on terms of unity with so
illustrious a prince. His speech, which he delivered in
Arabic, was translated by an interpreter, and received a
favourable reply. His presents also were accepted with
satisfaction, and the audience ended. Next day he had a
second audience, at which he expressed his desire to return to
Kúkáwa. After some slight delay, he obtained
the Sultan’s leave to depart, and was supplied with a camel
and two horsemen to assist him on his journey. Well pleased
with the result of his visit to Másená, after the
inauspicious circumstances which had attended its commencement,
he set out on his return to the capital of
Bornú, and arrived there in safety on the 21st of
August. He was glad to find Mr. Overweg in excellent
spirits, for liberal supplies had been forwarded by the British
Government, though looking physically weak and exhausted.
The sheikh received him with great cordiality, and he enjoyed a
degree of comfort and repose to which he had long been a
stranger.
His business, however, was to explore unknown countries, and
to open up new paths to the enterprise of commerce.
Considering it almost impossible to penetrate southward, on
account of the obstacles thrown in his way by the native princes,
he meditated a journey westward in the hope of reaching the
celebrated city of Timbúktu, at one time the centre of so
many extravagant legends. The fulfilment of his projects
was delayed by an unhappy calamity. During a short
excursion in the neighbourhood of Kúkáwa, Mr.
Overweg got wet, caught a chill, and was afterwards seized with a
violent fever, which carried him off in a few hours (September
27th). He died, a martyr to science, and one of the many
victims of African exploration, in his thirtieth year.
A delay of some weeks was the necessary result of this
melancholy event; but Barth, though left alone, was not to be
turned aside from the great object of all his labours. His
gaze was directed towards the Niger—towards the terra
incognita which lay between the route pursued by the French
traveller, Caillé, and the region in which Lander and
Major Clapperton had achieved so many important
discoveries. His preparations completed, he took final
leave of Kúkáwa on the 25th of November; and on the
9th of December had crossed the frontier of Háusa.
On the 12th he directed his course towards the north-east, and the
mountain region of Múniyo. The road waved,
serpent-like, through a succession of valleys, the green sides of
which were covered with groves and villages. Múniyo
takes the form of a wedge, or triangle, the apex projecting
towards the desert. The home of a peaceful and industrious
population, who flourish under a mild and orderly government, it
presents an agreeable contrast to the neighbouring territories,
inhabited by nomads. Its rulers, men of courage and energy,
have not only been able to defend their country against the
attacks of the Babus, but to encroach upon the district of
Diggéra, which had submitted to the latter. The
chief of this independent province can bring into the field, it
is said, an army of 1500 horse and 9000 or 10,000 archers; and
his revenue amounts to 30,000,000 kurdi (about £6000) a
year, without counting the tax which he levies on the crops.
Barth diverged somewhat to the westward in order to visit
U’shek, the largest corn-producing district in western
Bornú; it is characterized by a curious alternation of
luxuriance and sterility. At the foot of a mountain lies a
barren, desolate tract, on the very threshold of which lies an
undulating country, bright with date-palms and tamarisks, with
crystal pools and rich grasses. Around the town of
U’shek spreads a glittering girdle of corn-fields,
onion-beds, cotton-fields, in various stages of
development. Here the labourer is breaking up the clods and
irrigating the soil; there, his neighbour is weeding out his
blooming crops. The vegetation everywhere is
abundant. The accumulation of refuse prevents you, however,
from gaining a general view of the village, which lurks in the
sheltering folds of the soil; but the main group of houses
surrounds the foot of an eminence, crowned by the habitation of
the chief. Observe that while the huts are made of reeds
and the stems of millet, the towers in which the grain is pounded
are constructed of clay, and ten feet in height.
Beyond U’shek stretches a sandy table-land, waving with
a dense growth of reeds, and intersected by fertile
valleys. Then comes a spur of the mountain-range which
rises in the south-west; an irregular and broken plain, carpeted
with grass and broom; a jungle of mimosas, dense thickets of
capparis, and at intervals small patches of cultivated
land. The climate is intensely hot; the very soil seems to
burn; and our traveller, feeling himself ill, was forced to
rest. During the night, a cold north-east wind covered him
and his followers with the feathery awns of the pennixtum; and
they rose in the morning in a condition of indescribable
uneasiness. The next night was also cold; but there was no
wind.
At Badámuni, the fertile fields are brightened with
springs, which feed a couple of lakes, connected by a
canal. Notwithstanding this channel of intercommunication,
one of these lakes is of fresh water; the other brackish, and
strongly impregnated with natron. It is noticeable that in
this region all the valleys and all the mountain-chains run from
north-east to south-west, and the direction of the two lakes is
the same. Their margin is fringed with papyrus, except that
at the point where the water turns brackish the papyrus is
succeeded by the kumba, the pith of which is edible. Dr.
Barth’s two attendants, born on the shores of the Tchad, immediately
recognized this species of reed as growing in a similar manner at
the point where that great inland sea touches the basins of
nature that surround it. It is a curious circumstance that
while the lake of fresh water is of a bright blue, and calm and
smooth as a mirror, the other is green as the sea, and heaves to
and fro in constant commotion, rolling its foamy waves to the
beach, which they strew with marine weeds.
The town of Zindu is protected by a rampart and ditch.
Its aspect is remarkable: a mass of rock rises in the western
quarter; and outside the walls stony ridges run in all
directions, throwing forth a myriad crystal streams, which
fertilize the tobacco-fields, and secure for the immediate
neighbourhood an exceptional fertility. The landscape is
enlivened by frequent clumps of date-palms and by the huts of the
Touaregs, who conduct a brisk trade in salt. To the south
extends an immense piece of ground, utilized, at the time of Dr.
Barth’s visit, as a garden of acclimatization. It is
easy, let us say, to define the ground-plan of Zindu, but not to
depict the stir and movement of which it is the centre, limited
as that activity may be, compared with the feverish and
far-reaching life of the industrial centres of Europe.
Zindu has no other manufacture than that of indigo; nevertheless,
its commercial energy is so great that it may justly be termed
“the port of the Soudan.”
Here Dr. Barth received the welcome supply of a thousand
dollars, which, not to excite suspicion, had been carefully
concealed in a couple of sugar barrels. He was enabled,
therefore, to purchase the articles necessary for barter or gifts
in his expedition to Timbúktu, such as red, white,
and yellow burnouses, turbans, cloves, cutlery, beads, and
looking-glasses; and on the 30th of January, 1853, he resumed his
march.
The country he had to traverse was the scene of incessant
warfare between the Fulbi and the independent tribes. At
the outset he met with some salt merchants from A’ir, whose
picturesque encampments would have delighted an artist’s
eye, but did not add to the security of the roads. He
arrived in safety, however, on the 5th of February, at
Kátséna, and took up his quarters in a residence
specially assigned to him. The house was spacious; but so
full of ants, that, having rested himself for an hour on a bank
of clay, he found that the freebooters had climbed the wall,
constructed covered galleries right up to his person, and
delivered a combined attack upon his shirt, in which they had
eaten large holes.
The governor of Kátséna gave our traveller a
courteous reception, and deigned to accept with evident
satisfaction the burnouses, cafton, cup, two loaves of sugar, and
pistol, which Dr. Barth offered him. The pistol gave him so
much pleasure that he asked for a second; and, of course, a
refusal was impossible. Thenceforth he ate and drank and
walked and slept with his two pistols in his belt, and terrified
everybody who approached him by snapping caps in their
face. It happened that, at this time, the ghaladima of
Sikoto, inspector of Kátséna, was in the town
collecting tribute. He was a frank and simple-natured man,
neither very generous nor very intelligent, but of benevolent
disposition and sociable character. Dr. Barth purchased
some silk and cotton stuffs from the looms of Mepè and
Kanó, and being very anxious to pursue his journey, waited
for the ghaladima to set out, in order to enjoy the advantage of
his escort. It was on the 21st of March that this high
official, accompanied by our traveller, took his departure.
The governor attended them as far as the limits of his
jurisdiction, and they had a numerous guard; while, as a further
protection against mishaps, they steered to the south, instead of
to the west, in which direction war was raging.
It was the happy time of spring; a bloom was on the earth, and
a light and perfume in the air; nature put on her greenest
attire; the alleluba, the parkia, the cucifera, the bombyx rose
in masses of foliage. The country through which the
travellers rode was fair and fertile, populous and well
cultivated; the pastures echoed with the low of cattle; the
fields rejoiced in profuse crops of yams and tobacco. In
the district of Maja, cotton, indigo, potatoes were grown on a
very large scale. Beyond Kuruyá, a town of 5000 to
6000 souls, the fertility of the land increased, if such increase
were possible; the many-rooted banyan, or Indian fig-tree,
displayed its colossal splendour:—
“Irregularly
spread,
Fifty straight columns propped its lofty head;
And many a long depending shoot,
Seeking to
strike its root,
Straight, like a plummet, grew towards the ground;
Some on the lower boughs, which curved their way,
Fixing their bearded fibres, round and round,
With many a ring and wild contortion wound;
Some to the passing wind, at times, with sway
Of gentle motion
moving;
Others of younger growth, unmoved, were hung
Like stone-drops from the cavern’s fretted
height.”
Bassiaparkia, sorghum, and millet were abundant.
But at Kulfi the travellers reached the limit which divides the
Mohammedans from the heathens—civilization (imperfect and
undeveloped, if you will, but not wholly without a respect for
law and order) and barbarism. As Dr. Barth advanced, he
seemed to pass from spring to winter; cultivation disappeared;
villages ruined and silent bore witness to the desolating work of
war; and it was only by the cattle browsing in the scanty
pastures that he knew the land was not entirely deserted.
At Zekka, a town of some importance, with wall and ditch, he
separated from the ghaladima, and, through a dense forest, pushed
forward to the ruins of Moniya. He had intended to halt
there, but an armed force had encamped at Moniya on the preceding
evening, and he retreated into the shelter of the forest until
the morning. A day’s march brought him to Zyrmi, a
considerable town, the governor of which was formerly chief of
the whole province of Zanfara.
On the 31st of March, he stood on the border of the
Gúndúmi Desert, of the passage of which Major
Clapperton has left so exciting a narrative. It is passable
only by a forced march. Dr. Barth began by striking too far
to the south, and lost valuable time in the midst of an
impervious jungle. Recovering the direct track, he marched
all that day, all that night, without seeing any sign of human
life, and until the middle of the following day, when he met some
horsemen who had been sent forward to meet him, with vessels of
water. Two miles further, and he could see the village
where the Emir Aliyú had pitched his camp; he was then at
war with the people of Gober. For thirty hours he and his
followers had marched without a halt; they were completely spent,
and the men, in their absolute weariness, fell prostrate upon the
ground. The intrepid Barth rallied his energies; his
excitement dispelled the sense of fatigue; and he searched his
baggage for some valuable gift to the Emir, who was to depart on
the following day, for upon him and his favour the success of his
enterprise wholly depended. The day glided by, and he had
begun to despair of being admitted to an audience; but in the
evening the Emir sent him an ox, four fat sheep, and four hundred
parcels of rice, and a message to the effect that he awaited his
visit. It must be owned that some of these barbaric
potentates do things right royally!
Dr. Barth entered the august presence. The Emir
immediately seized him by the hand, made him sit down, and
interrupted him when he began to excuse himself for not having
visited Sokotó before he went to
Kúkáwa. His two requests, for the
Emir’s safe-conduct as far as Timbúktu, and a royal
letter guaranteeing the lives and property of Englishmen visiting
his territories, he received very favourably; affirming that his
sole thought was for the welfare of humanity, and, consequently,
he desired to promote the friendly intercourse of all
nations. Next day Barth had another interview, and offered
a second supply of presents. He describes the Emir as a
strongly built man, of average stature, with a round, full, but
not unpleasant face.
On the 4th of April, with the royal letter, of which he had
dictated the terms, and a hundred thousand kurdis which the
prince had generously sent to him to defray his expenses during his
absence, he took up his residence at Vurno, the Emir’s
usual abode. The unsavoury condition of the town, which was
traversed by a cloaca more disgusting even than those of
Italy, surprised and shocked him. Outside the walls, the
Gulbi-n-rima formed several basins of stagnant water in the
middle of a plain, where the traveller’s camels sadly pined
for pasture. The frontiers of three provinces—Kebbi,
Adar, and Gober—meet in this arid plain, which, however,
after the rainy season, wears a completely different aspect.
The town became more and more deserted; daily its notables
departed to join the Emir; though, as a rule, these warriors
cared only for their own pleasure, and would sell their weapons
for a dram of kola-nut wine. In no part of Negroland did
Dr. Barth see less military ardour or more physical
depression. Meanwhile, he amused himself by collecting
topographical details, studying the history of the country, and
making excursions in the neighbourhood; among others to
Sokotó, on the river Bugga. It was not until the
23rd of April that the Emir returned to his capital, after an
expedition which, if not glorious, had been at least
successful. Always generous towards Dr. Barth, he had
invited him to meet him, and king and traveller went together to
the palace. On the same day, Barth made him a present of a
musical box, which appears to be the prize most eagerly coveted
by African potentates. The Emir, in his rapture, summoned
his grand vizier to see and hear the marvel; but the mysterious
box, affected by the climate and the length of the journey it had
undergone, refused to pour forth its melodious treasures.
However, after a day or two’s labour, Dr. Barth
succeeded in repairing it, and releasing its imprisoned streams
of music. Who shall describe the Emir’s excess of
joy? He proved the sincerity of his gratitude by
immediately giving Dr. Barth a commendatory letter to his nephew,
the chief of Gando, and the long-expected permission to
depart.
Leaving Vurno on the 8th of May, Dr. Barth reached Gando on
the 17th. It was the capital of another Fulbi chief,
scarcely less powerful than the Emir, whose protection was of the
greatest importance to the traveller, because both banks of the
Niger were within his territory. It was not obtained
without persevering effort—and many gifts, besides frequent
bribes to an Arab consul, who had contrived to make himself
indispensable to the feeble prince.
On the 4th of June our indefatigable explorer entered the deep
valleys of Kebbi, which, in the rainy season, are converted into
extensive rice-fields. At Kombara, the governor hospitably
sent him all the constituents of a first-class Soudanian repast,
from the sheep to the grains of salt and the Dodua cake.
Gaumaché, formerly a thriving town, is now a village of
slaves. A similarly fatal change has passed over Yara;
formerly rich and industrious, rank weeds now grow in its silent
streets. But life and death lie cheek by jowl in these
fertile regions; and to the ruined towns and deserted villages
immediately succeed prolific rice-fields, shaded by clumps of
trees.
The whole country was overshadowed by the thunder-clouds of
war; yet the traveller passed continuously through plantations of
yams, and cotton, and papyrus, whose fresh green foliage waved
above the walls. He halted at Kola, where the governor
could dispose of seventy matchlocks and the men who handled
them; an important personage in the disturbed condition of the
country, whom it was politic to visit. The sister of this
lord of warriors presented Dr. Barth with a fine fat
goose—an addition to his dietary which rejoiced him
greatly. As he approached Jogirma, the three sons of its
chief came forth to salute him in their father’s
name. It proved to be a much more considerable town than
the traveller had expected, and the palace was a spacious and
even imposing building, in its architecture recalling the
characters of the Gothic style. The population numbered
seven to eight thousand souls, whom civil discord had reduced to
a pitiful extremity. It was with no little difficulty that
Dr. Barth obtained even a supply of millet.
On the 10th he entered a beautiful forest, where the air was
heavy with the sweet odours of flowering trees; but the place is
noted for its insalubrity. Dr. Barth was compelled to
remain there for twenty-four hours, one of his camels having gone
astray; and this circumstance appeared so extraordinary, that the
neighbouring peasants were in the habit of referring to him as
“the man who passed a whole day in the deadly
desert.”
On a quadrangular eminence, about thirty feet high, in the
valley of Fogha—an eminence built up of refuse—stands
a village with some resemblance to the ancient town of
Assyria. The inhabitants extract salt from the black mud
out of which their little hillock rises. There are other
villages of a similar character. The condition of the
population is most wretched; they suffer continually from the
forays of the robbers of Dendina.
After
a march of two or three miles over a rocky soil, sprinkled with
bushes and brushwood, Dr. Barth, with intense satisfaction,
caught the glimmer of water, as if the sun were lighting up a
broad mirror, and rapidly pushing forward, came, in an
hour’s time, to Say, a ferry on the great river of the
Soudan—the river which has divided with the Nile the
curiosity of geographers, and attracted the enterprise of the
adventurous; the river which, perhaps, surpasses the Nile in its
promise of future commercial industry; the river which we
associate with the names of so many heroic travellers, from Mungo
Park to Cameron,—the Niger.
The Niger—all the various names of which (Joliba, Mayo,
Eghirrau, Isa, Kuara, Baki-a-rua) signify one and the same thing,
the River—is about seven hundred yards broad at the
Say ferry, and flows from north-north-east to south-south-west
with a velocity of three miles an hour. The left bank has
an elevation of about thirty feet; the right bank is low, and
crowned with a town of considerable size. The traffic is
incessant; Fulbis and Sourays, with their asses and oxen,
continually pass to and fro. The boats in use are
constructed of two hollow trunks of trees, fastened together, and
measure a length of forty feet and a breadth of four feet and a
half. With feelings of a mingled character Dr. Barth
crossed this stately river, the exploration of which has
necessitated the sacrifice of so many noble lives, and entered
the busy town of Say. Its walls form a quadrilateral of fourteen
hundred yards; the houses of the inhabitants, all built of reeds
except the governor’s, are scattered in groups over the
area they enclose. In the rainy season, a hollow or valley,
which cuts across it from north to south, is filled with water,
which impedes communication, and renders the place
insalubrious. When the river is flooded, the town is
entirely inundated, and all its inhabitants are compelled to
migrate. The market of Say is not well provided: the supply
of grain is small, of onions nil, of rice nil,
though the soil is well adapted to their cultivation; of cotton,
however, there is always a large quantity; and Say will prove an
important position for Europeans as soon as the great river route
of Western Africa begins to be utilized.
Dr. Barth was told by the governor—who had the manners
of a Jew, but was evidently born of a slave-mother—that he
should welcome with joy a European vessel bringing to the town
the many articles its inhabitants needed. He was astonished
to find that the traveller was not a trader; and believing that
only some very powerful motive could induce any man to undertake
such an expedition, he grew alarmed at the possibility of
treacherous and insidious designs, and requested him to leave the
place. Dr. Barth was by no means unwilling, and on the
following day left behind him the Niger, which separates the
explored regions of Negroland from the unexplored, and eagerly
directed his course towards the mysterious zone which stretched
before him.
He had crossed the low swampy island occupied by the town of
Say, and the western branch of the river, at that
season entirely dry, when a great storm of thunder and rain broke
upon him, and his progress was arrested by the rolling clouds of
sand which the wind accumulated in his path. After a halt
of three hours his march was resumed, though the soil was flooded
with water to a depth of several inches. The country
through which he passed had been colonized by the Sourays; it is
a dependency of the province of Guinea, and the natives were at
war both with the colonists and the Fulbi. Thence he
entered a well-cultivated district, where the Fulbi, who regard
the cow as the most useful member of the animal world, breed
large herds of cattle. The scenery was varied by thickets
of mimosas, with here and there a baobab or a tamarisk.
More attractive to the traveller, because more novel, were the
numerous furnaces, six or seven feet high, used for casting
iron.
The ground broke up into great irregularities; ridges of rock
ran in all directions; formations of gneiss and mica schist
predominated, with rare and beautiful varieties of granite.
There, through banks of twenty feet in height, picturesque and
rocky, flowed the deep waters of the Sirba. To effect the
passage, Dr. Barth’s followers could obtain only some
bundles of reeds; the chief and all the inhabitants of the
village sitting calmly on the bank, and watching their operations
with lively interest. The men had expressive countenances,
with effeminate features; long plaited hair, which fell upon the
shoulders; a pipe in their mouths; and, for attire, a blue shirt
and wide blue trousers. The women were dumpy and ill
proportioned; they wore numerous collars, and pearls in their
ears; their bosom and legs were naked.
Another storm overtook the travellers, and converted
the jungles through which they wound their way into a wide
expanse of water. The solitariness of the land was broken
at one point by a village, charmingly enclosed within a quickset
hedge; fields of maize were succeeded by a tract of forest; then
they entered a populous district, where the loaded camels
laboured heavily through the clayey soil. At Sibba, where
the governor, standing at the gate, was explaining to his people
certain verses of the Koran, Dr. Barth was handsomely lodged in a
hut newly built, with walls excellently polished, and quite an
attractive and refreshing appearance. But, in life, there
is always a flavour of wormwood in the cup of joy; appearances
are proverbially deceitful; and Dr. Barth’s beautiful abode
proved to be a nest of ants, which committed wholesale
depredations on his baggage.
The day after his arrival chanced to be the last of the great
Mohammedan feast of the Ramadan. That it was to be a day of
festival was announced at earliest dawn by the sound of merry
music; the Fulbi streamed forth from their houses, clad in white
chemises, as a sign of the white purity of their faith; and the
governor paraded through the town at the head of a
cortége of forty horsemen. As the cadi showed
an inclination to represent Dr. Barth in the unwelcome capacity
of a sorcerer, he deemed it prudent to distribute a largess among
the people of the procession.
He arrived at Doré, the chief town of Libtako, on the
12th of July. The soil is dry, and troops of gazelles
frolic about the arid plain which borders on the
market-place. The market, on the occasion of Dr.
Barth’s visit, was frequented by four or five hundred
persons, who were buying or selling salt, and cotton stuffs, and
copper vessels, and corn, and kola-nuts, and asses. The
inhabitants of Doré are partial to ornaments made of
copper; and Dr. Barth noticed two young girls wearing in their
hair a copper device of a horseman, sword in hand and pipe in
mouth. The pipe, be it observed, is in great request among
the Sourays, who seem to be of the opinion of Lord Lytton, that
“he who doth not smoke hath either known no great griefs,
or refused himself the softest consolation, next to that which
comes from heaven.”
Beyond Doré the country was a network of rivers and
morasses. Buffaloes were exceedingly numerous. A
venomous fly, very rare to the east of the Soudan, seriously
annoyed Dr. Barth’s cattle. It was the wet season;
rain descended perpetually, as if the floodgates of heaven had
been opened, and water was everywhere—in front, in rear, on
either side; water, water, water! For quiet English
gentlemen, living at home at ease, or occasionally indulging in a
railway journey of a few hundred miles, in a comfortable
carriage, through fields well cultivated and well drained, where
rivers seldom break their bounds, or if they do, never accomplish
greater injury than the overflowing of a green meadow or two, it
is almost impossible to conceive the difficulty, and even danger,
of traversing the African plains in the rainy season, of
conveying heavy baggage through leagues upon leagues of swamps,
which the unloaded camel finds it laborious to cross. More
than once Dr. Barth was afraid that his horse, in spite of its
robust vigour, would fail to extricate its limbs from the deep mud,
and sink with its rider in the slough. So tremendous are
the rains, that in a single night they have been known to sweep
away the fourth part of a large village, and in one house eleven
goats have perished.
Hitherto Dr. Barth had maintained his quality as a Christian;
but on entering Dalla, a province belonging to the fanatical
chief of Masina, who would never have permitted “an
infidel” to traverse his territories, Dr. Barth thought it
advisable to assume the character of an Arab. But a dispute
which he had with his host, respecting a pack of dogs that showed
a decided unwillingness to give place to a stranger, indicated no
great religious fervour on the part of the population. Good
Mohammedans have no liking for the canine race. The Fulbi
will not employ them even as guides for their cattle, which they
direct by the voice. All the dogs were black; the poultry
were black and white. Dr. Barth observed that the crops
suffered greatly from the ravages of a large black worm, which he
had not met with since his expedition into Bagirmi.
On the 5th of August he entered into a region of swamp and
morass, and he was glad when, to relieve the monotony of the
landscape, he caught sight of the picturesque Souray villages and
the fantastic outline of the chain of the Hombori
mountains. The various forms of this singular range, none
of the peaks of which rise more than eight hundred feet above the
level of the plain, can hardly be imagined; they irresistibly
attract the traveller’s eye. On a gentle slope,
composed of masses of rock, is built a perpendicular wall, the
terraced summit of which is inhabited by a native race who have
ever maintained their independence. That these heroic
hillmen sometimes descend from their fastnesses is shown by their
flocks of sheep and crops of millet. Starting from this
point, a twofold range of remarkable crests extends along the
plain, with a curious similitude to the ruins of mediæval
castles.
Refused admission at Boná, and afraid to enter Nuggera,
well known to be a hot-bed of fanaticism, Dr. Barth solicited the
hospitality of some Towaregs, who were encamped in the
neighbourhood. Their chief, a man of agreeable physiognomy,
with fine features and a fair complexion, placed one of his huts
at the traveller’s disposal, and sent him some milk and a
sheep ready cooked. Next day, his tents of canvas figured
in the midst of those of his host, and he was besieged by a
number of very stout ladies, all importunate for gifts. At
Bambara, a considerable agricultural centre, surrounded by the
canals and affluents of the Niger, he resided for several
days. It is situated upon a backwater (mariyet) of the
river, which, at the time of Barth’s visit, was almost
dry. In the ordinary course of things, it ought, in three
weeks, to be crowded with boats, going to Timbuktú by
Oálázo and Saráyamó, and to
Dirá by Kanima. The prosperity of the town depends,
therefore, on the rains; and as these had not begun, the whole
population, with the Emir at their head, implored the pretended
Arab doctor, whom they chose to regard as a great magician, to
exercise his powers to obtain from the skies a copious
benediction. Dr. Barth eluded the request for a formal
ceremony, but expressed a hope that Heaven would listen to wishes
so very
reasonable. As it happened, there was a slight fall of rain
next day, which drew from the inhabitants the sincerest
gratitude; but, for all that, Dr. Barth was very glad to put some
distance between himself and Bambara.
On the 1st of September, at Saráyamó, Dr. Barth
embarked on one of the branches of the Niger, and sailed towards
Timbuktú. The stream was about a hundred yards wide,
and so thick with aquatic plants that the voyagers seemed to be
gliding over a prairie. Moreover, in its bed the asses and
horses obtained the chief part of their sustenance. In
about two miles and a half they entered open water, and the
boatmen, whose songs had rung the praises of the Julius
Cæsar of Negroland, the Sultan Mohammed ben Abubakr,
carried them, from winding to winding, between banks clothed with
cucifers, tamarinds, and rich grasses, on which sometimes cattle
were feeding, and sometimes the gazelle. The presence of
alligators was a sign that they approached a broader water, and
the channel suddenly widened to two hundred yards; its banks
alive with pelicans and other water-birds, while men and horses
went to and fro. The curves and bends of the stream
increased, and the banks assumed a more defined and regular
formation; wider and wider became the water-way, until it reached
three hundred and forty yards. Some fires shone out against
the evening shadows. At the bottom of a little creek
clustered a little village. In no part of the course could
any current be discerned; it was a kind of lagoon which the
voyagers were crossing, and sometimes the wave flowed in one
direction, sometimes in another. After two centuries of
war, its shores, once so animated, have sunk into silence;
and Gakovia, Sanyara, and many other villages have ceased to
be. There, on the edge of the bank, towered aloft a clump
of graceful trees, the haunt of numerous bees; here, a patch of
greensward brightened with the colours of many blossoms.
The river now flowed from south-west to north-east, with a noble
expanse of six hundred yards; its majestic flood rolling like a
volume of silver in the moonlight, with the reflection of stars
sparkling thickly on the crests of its waves.
After a pilgrimage of eight months’ duration, Dr. Barth
arrived at Kabara, the river-port of Timbuktú; and was
lodged in a house on the highest ground, which contained two
large and several small rooms, and a first floor. The inner
court was occupied by a numerous and varied assortment of sheep,
ducks, pigeons, and poultry. At early dawn, on the day
after his arrival, our traveller, almost suffocated, left his
room; but he had scarcely begun his walk before a Towareg chief
interrupted him, and demanded a present. Receiving a prompt
refusal, he coolly announced that, in his quality as a bandit, he
could do him a good deal of harm. Dr. Barth, in fact, was
hors la loi, and the first wretch who suspected him of
being a Christian might slay him with impunity. He
succeeded, however, in getting rid of the Towareg.
Meanwhile, the house was crowded with visitors from
Timbuktú, some on foot, some on horseback, but all wearing
blue robes, drawn close to the figure by a drapery, with short
breeches and peaked straw hats. All carried lances, while
some had swords and guns; they seated themselves in the
courtyard, overflowed the chambers, staring at one another, and
asking
each other who this stranger might be. In the course of the
day, Dr. Barth was “interviewed” by fully two hundred
persons. In the evening, a messenger whom he had despatched
to Timbuktú returned, accompanied by Sidi Alawat, one of
the Sultan’s brothers. Dr. Barth confided to him the
secret of his Christian profession, but added that he was under
the special protection of the sovereign of Stamboul.
Unfortunately, he had no other proof of his assertion than an old
firman dating from his former residence in Egypt; the interview,
however, passed off very agreeably.
On the following day, they crossed the sand-hills in the rear
of Kabara; the yellow barrenness of the country contrasting
vividly with the fertility of the verdurous borders of the
river. It is, indeed, a desert, infested by roving bands of
murderous Towaregs. Such is the well-known insecurity of
the route, that a thicket, situated midway, bears the significant
name of “It does not hear”—that is, it is deaf
to the cries of a victim. To the left stands the tree of
Wely-Salah, a mimosa which the natives have covered with rags in
the hope that the saint will replace them by new clothes.
As they drew near Timbuktú, the sky clouded over, the
atmosphere was full of sand, and the city could scarcely be seen
through the rubbish surrounding it. A deputation of the
inhabitants met Dr. Barth, and bade him welcome. One of
them addressed him in Turkish. He had almost forgotten the
language, which, of course, in his character of a Syrian, he
ought to have known; but he recalled a few words with which to
frame a reply, and then avoided awkward questions by spurring his
horse and entering the city. The streets were so narrow,
that not more than two horsemen could ride abreast; Dr. Barth was
astonished, however, by the two-storied houses, with their
ornamented façades. Turning to the west, and passing
in front of the Sultan’s palace, he arrived at the house
which had been allotted for his accommodation.
He had attained the goal of his wishes; he had reached
Timbuktú; but the anxieties and fatigue of his journey had
exhausted him, and he was seized with an attack of fever.
Yet never had he had greater need of his energy and
coolness. A rumour had already got abroad that a Christian
had obtained admission into the city. The Sultan was
absent; and his brother, who had promised his support, was
sulking because he had not received presents enough. On the
following day, however, the fever having left him, Barth received
the visits of some courteous people, and took the air on the
terrace of his lodging, which commanded a view of the city.
To the north could be seen the massive outlines of the great
mosque of Sankora; to the east, the tawny surface of the desert;
to the south, the habitations of the Ghadami merchants; while the
picture gained variety from the presence of straw-roofed huts
among houses built of clay, long rows of narrow winding streets,
and a busy market-place on the slope of the sand-hills.
A day or two later, there were rumours of a meditated attack
upon his residence, but his calm and intrepid aspect baffled
hostile designs. The sheikh’s brother made an attempt
to convert him, and defied him to demonstrate the superiority of
his religious principles. With the help of his pupils, he
carried on an animated discussion; but Dr. Barth confuted him, and
by his candour and good sense secured the esteem of the more
intelligent inhabitants. A fresh attack of fever supervened
on the 17th; his weakness increased daily; when, at three
o’clock in the morning of the 26th, a blare of instruments
and a din of voices announced the arrival of the sheikh, El
Bakay, and his warm welcome to the stranger dispelled his pains
and filled him with a new vigour. He strongly censured his
brother’s ungracious conduct; sent provisions to Barth,
with a recommendation to partake of nothing that did not come
from his palace; and offered him his choice between the various
routes that led to the sea-coast. Could he have foreseen
that he was fated to languish eight months at Timbuktú,
Dr. Barth thinks that he could not have supported the idea; but,
happily, man never knows the intensity or duration of the
struggle in which he engages, and marches courageously through
the shadows which hide from him the future.
Ahmed El Bakay was tall of stature and well proportioned, with
an open countenance, an intelligent air, and the bearing and
physiognomy of a European. His complexion was almost
black. His costume consisted of a short black tunic, black
pantaloons, and a shawl bound negligently round his head.
Between him and Dr. Barth a cordial understanding was quickly
formed and loyally maintained. He spoke frequently of Major
Laing, the only Christian whom he had ever seen; for, thanks to
the disguise assumed by the French traveller, Caillé, no
one at Timbuktú was aware that he had at one time resided
in their city.
Timbuktú is situated about six miles from the Niger, in
lat. 18° N. Its shape is that of a triangle, the apex
of which is turned towards the desert. Its circuit at the
present time is about three miles and a half; but of old it
extended over a much larger area. It is by no means the
wealthy, powerful, and splendid city which was dreamed of in the
fond imaginations of the early travellers. Its streets are
unpaved, and most of them narrow. There are a thousand
houses clay-built, and, in the northern and north-western
suburbs, some two hundred huts of reeds. No traces exist of
the ancient palace, nor of the Kasba; but the town has three
large and three small mosques, and a chapel. It is divided
into seven quarters, inhabited by a permanent population of
thirty thousand souls, which is increased to thirty-five or forty
thousand from November to January, the epoch of the
caravans. Founded early in the twelfth century by the
Towaregs, on one of their old pasture-grounds, Timbuktú
belonged to the Souray in the first half of the fourteenth.
Recovered, a century later, by its founders, it was snatched from
them by Sami Ali, who sacked it, then rebuilt it, and drew
thither the merchants of Ghadami. As early as 1373 it is
marked upon the Spanish charts, not only as the entrepôt of
the trade in salt and gold, but as the scientific and religious
centre of the Western Soudan; and exciting the cupidity of Mulay
Ahmed, it fell, in 1592, with the empire of the Askias, under the
sway of Marocco. Down to 1826 it remained in the hands of
the Ramas, or Maroccan soldiers settled in the country.
Next came the Fulbi; then the Towaregs, who drove out the Fulbi
in 1844. But this victory, by isolating Timbuktú on
the border of the river, led to a famine. Through the
intervention of El Bakay, however, a compromise was effected in
1848; the Towaregs recognized the nominal supremacy of the Fulbi,
on condition that they should keep no garrison in the city; the
taxes were to be collected by two cadis, a Souray and a Fulbi;
and the administration, or rather the police, was entrusted to
two Souray magistrates, controlled simultaneously by the Fulbi
and the Towaregs, between whom was divided the religious
authority, represented by the sheikh, a Rama by origin.
Dr. Barth’s residence in Timbuktú was a source of
intense dissatisfaction to some of the ruling spirits. Even
in the sheikh’s own family it led to grave dissensions; and
many demanded that he should be expelled. El Bakay remained
firm in his support, and, to protect the life of his visitor,
moved him to Kabara. Dr. Barth speaks in high terms of this
liberal and enlightened man, and of the happiness of his domestic
circle. Europe itself could not produce a more affectionate
father or husband; indeed, Dr. Barth hints that he yielded too
much to the wishes of his august partner.
Week after week, the storms of war and civil discord raged
more and more furious; the traveller’s position became
increasingly painful. His bitterest enemies were the
Fulbi. They endeavoured to drag him from the sheikh’s
protection by force, and when this failed, had recourse to an
artifice to get him into their power. The Welád
Shinan, who assassinated Major Laing, swore they would kill
him. On the 27th of February, 1854, the chief of the Fulbi
again intimated to the sheikh his request that Barth should be
driven from the country. The sheikh peremptorily refused. Then came a fresh demand, and a fresh
refusal; a prolonged and angry struggle; a situation more and
more intolerable; while commerce suffered and the people were
disquieted by the quarrels of their rulers. So it came to
pass that, on the night of the 17th of March, Sidi Mohammed,
eldest brother of El Bakay, beat the drum, mounted his horse, and
bade Dr. Barth follow him with two of his servants, while the
Towaregs, who supported them, clashed their bucklers together,
and shouted their shrill war-cry. He found the sheikh at
the head of a numerous body of Arabs and Sourays, with some
Fulbi, who were devoted to him. As might be expected, Dr.
Barth begged that he might not be the cause of any bloodshed; and
the sheikh promised the malcontents that he would conduct the
obnoxious Christian beyond the town. He encamped on the
frontier of the Oberay, where everybody suffered terribly from
bad food and insects.
At length, after a residence of thirty-three days on the creek
of Bosábango, it was decided that the march should be
begun on the 19th of April. On the 25th, after having
passed through various encampments of Towaregs, they followed the
windings of the Niger, having on their left a well-wooded
country, intersected by marshes, and enlivened by numerous
pintados. Then they fell in with the valiant Wughduga, a
sincere friend of El Bakay, and a magnificent Towareg warrior,
nearly seven feet high, of prodigious strength, and the hero of
deeds of prowess worthy of the most famous knight of the Table
Round. Under his escort Dr. Barth reached Gogo—in the
fifteenth century the flourishing and famous capital of the
Souray empire, now a small and straggling town with a few hundred
huts. Here he took leave of his kind and generous
protector; and, with an escort of about twenty persons, recrossed
to the right bank of the river, and descended it as far as Say,
where he had passed it the year before. In this journey of
one hundred and fifty leagues, he had seen everywhere the
evidence of great fertility, and a peaceable population, in whose
midst a European might travel in security; speaking to the
people, as he did, of the sources and termination of their great
fostering river—questions which interest those good negroes
as much, perhaps, as they have perplexed the scientific societies
of Europe, but of which they do not possess the most rudimentary
knowledge.
Arriving at Sokotó and Vurno in the midst of the rainy
season, Dr. Barth was warmly welcomed by the Emir; but, with
strength exhausted and health broken, he could not profit by his
kindness.
On the 17th of October he arrived at Kanó, where he had
been long expected; but neither money nor despatches had been
forwarded for him—no news from Europe had been
received. Yet at Kanó he had arranged to pay his
servants, discharge his debts, and renew his credits, long since
exhausted. He pledged the little property remaining to him,
including his revolver, until he could obtain the cutlery and
four hundred dollars left at Zindu; but, alas! these had
disappeared during recent intestine commotions. Kanó
must always be unhealthy for Europeans; and Dr. Barth, in his
enfeebled condition, acutely felt the ill effects of its climatic
conditions. His horses and camels fell ill, and he lost,
among others, the noble animal which for three years had
shared all his fatigues.
Over every difficulty, every obstacle, that splendid energy
which had carried the great explorer to the Niger and
Timbuktú ultimately prevailed; and on the 24th of November
he set out for Kúkáwa. In his absence it had
been the theatre of a revolution. A new ruler held the
reins of government, and Dr. Barth was doomed to encounter fresh
embarrassments. It was not until after a delay of four
months that he was able to resume the journey through the
Fezzan. He followed this time the direct route, by
Bilma—the route formerly taken by the travellers, Denham
and Clapperton.
At the end of August he entered Tripoli, where he spent only
four days. By way of Malta he proceeded to Marseilles; and
thence to Paris; arriving in London on the 6th of September,
1855.
It may be doubted whether the English public have fully
appreciated the labours of this persevering explorer. To us
it seems that he occupies a high place in the very front rank of
African travellers, in virtue not only of the work he did, but of
the courage, perseverance, skill, and energy which he
displayed. He failed in nothing that he undertook, though
his resources were very limited, and the difficulties in his path
of the gravest character. He explored Bornú,
A’damáwa, and Bagirmi, where no European had ever
before penetrated. He surveyed, over an area of six hundred
miles, the region which lies between Katséna and
Timbuktú, though even to the Arabs it is the least known
portion of the Soudan. He formed friendly relations with
the powerful princes on the banks of the Niger, from
Sokotó to the famous city which shuts its gates upon the
Christian. Five of his best years he dedicated to this
astonishing enterprise, enduring the gravest privations, and
braving the most pestilential climates, as well as the most
implacable fanaticism. All this he did, without friends,
without companions, without money. Of the five brave men
who undertook this adventurous expedition, he alone returned; and
returned loaded with treasure, with precious materials of all
kinds for the use of the man of science or the
merchant—with maps, drawings, chronologies, vocabularies,
historical and ethnological notes, itineraries, botanical and
geological data, and meteorological tables. Nothing escaped
his attention; he was not only a traveller and an observer, but a
scientific pioneer. Let us give due honour to a
Livingstone, but let us not forget the debt we owe to a Barth. [156]
