Part 25
Pursuing from this point my old road through the fine province of Kanó, rich in all kinds of produce, and well stocked with cattle, and encamping the next night close beyond the town of Bíchi, I reached the town of Kanó in the afternoon of the 17th, having sent one of my people in advance.
[Footnote 47: This expedition was led by the Dan-ghaladíma-Góber, and fell upon the border district of Jýju, situated in the rocky district between Giyáwa and Wurnó, and comprising many small hamlets, or gídaje, as the Gída-n-Ríya, Gída-n-Alisówa, Gída-n-Gorgábe, Gída-n-Kóla-Dalládi, Gída-n-Maidanga, Gída-n-Yakúbu, Gída-n-Ruggun-dáji, Rúmde-n-ghaladíma, and Alkáli-Asben. A brother of his ransacked Wáno, separated only by a narrow valley from Saláme.]
[Footnote 48: I here give a list of the towns and villages lying along this river on the side of Dan-Sháura:—Dogáwa, Tungámmaza, Tunsumáwa, Tófa, Gída-n-dan-Damáwa, Gída-n-Laudam, Basánsan, Gída-n-Somába, G. Mágaji, Gelgil, G. Atafíru, Jan Tumbagébe, Birni-n-Dangéda, Gajére, Dorówa-n-birni, Dakuráwa, Kundus, Rára. Between the town of Rába, from whence this river has received the name Gulbi-n-Rába, and Sókoto, there are the places: Kurfi, Torónka, Káwasa, Durbel, Dúnguji, Tunga-dúwatsu, Kabánga (Ungwa Ibrahíma) Garí-n-serkí-n-Ázena.]
[Footnote 49: Close to Gandi is the small hill Dan-Fáwa, where the ancient town was situated; and, at a distance of about ten miles, is the well-known town of Bakúra, after which the river is called Gulbi-n- Bakúra.]
[Footnote 50: The watercourse is here still of considerable size, and comes a good many miles from the south-east, from a place called Gózaki, skirting the towns of Kaúri-n-Namóda, and Góga.]
[Footnote 51: Kámmané is one of those places which are distinguished on account of their granite mounds, and which extend from Áyo and Mágaré to Chábané, Ájjia, and the fifteen rocky mounds of Kotórkoshé, where the Sultan of Sókoto had the preceding year directed his expedition.]
CHAP. LXXXIII.
SECOND RESIDENCE IN KANÓ, UNDER UNFAVOURABLE CIRCUMSTANCES. — MARCH TO KÚKAWA.
On my arrival in Kanó, I found everything prepared, and took up my quarters in a house provided for me; but I was greatly disappointed in finding neither letters nor supplies; being entirely destitute of means, and having several debts to pay in this place,—amongst others, the money due to my servants, to whom I had paid nothing during the whole journey from Kúkawa to Timbúktu, and back. I was scarcely able to explain how all this could have happened; having fully relied upon finding here everything I wanted, together with satisfactory information with regard to the proceedings of Mr. Vogel and his companions, whose arrival in Kúkawa I had as yet only accidentally learned from a liberated slave in Sókoto. But fortunately, without relying much upon Sídi Ráshid, the man whom I knew to be at the time the agent of Her Majesty’s Vice Consul in Múrzuk, I had given my confidence at once to Sídi ʿAlí, the merchant whom I have mentioned already in the account of my former stay in this place, as a tolerably trustworthy person, and whose good-will I endeavoured at once to secure, by sacrificing to him almost everything I had left of value, including a small six-barrelled pistol. In return, he promised to supply my wants till I should be put in possession of the money and merchandise which I had deposited in Zínder.
The first thing, therefore, which I had to do the next morning, after having paid my compliments to the ghaladíma and the governor, and made to each of them a handsome present, such as my means would allow, was to send my servant Mohammed el Gatróni, upon whom I could fully rely, to Zínder; giving him full instructions, and promising him a handsome present, if he should succeed in bringing away all my effects, both those which had been deposited on a former occasion, and the merchandise which had been forwarded on my account at a later period; and a smaller one in case he should only find the latter portion: for, after all, I was by no means sure that the box of ironware and the four hundred dollars had remained safe during the severe civil struggles which had agitated Bórnu during my absence. Meanwhile, till the return of this messenger, I endeavoured to pass my time as usefully as possible, by completing a survey of the town which I had begun during my former residence, but was far from having finished. At the same time the state of my health, on account of the close quarters in which I was here lodged, after having roved about in the open air for so long a time, required uninterrupted exercise. Owing to the change in my mode of living, severe fits of fever attacked me repeatedly.
Kanó will always remain one of the most unfavourable localities for Europeans in this region; and it was well that Mr. Vogel, for the first year after his arrival in Negroland, purposely avoided this spot. Even my animals did not escape the malignant effect of the climate. Three of my horses were seized, one after the other, with a contagious disease, commencing with a swelling of the thighs, and from thence spreading to the breast and the head, and generally proving fatal in six or eight days. In this way I lost two out of my three horses, including my old companion, who had carried me through so many dangerous campaigns, and who had shared all my fatigues and sufferings for nearly three years; but the small and ugly, but strong horse which the Sultan of Sókoto had made me a present of, escaped with its life. This disease which attacked my horses, of course, interfered greatly with my excursions, and took away almost all the pleasure which they would otherwise have afforded, as I was reduced to the necessity of making use of very indifferent animals. Nevertheless, I enjoyed greatly the open country which extended outside the gates of this picturesque but extremely dirty town, dotted with large villages at no great distance; and I followed up especially, with great interest, the easterly of the three roads which diverge from the Kófa-n-kúra, and which leads to the small rivulet known as the Kógi- n-Kanó. Occasionally also I went to visit some cattle-pens, in order to get a little fresh milk, which I was unable to procure in the town; for inside the place I succeeded only after great exertion in obtaining a little goat’s milk. The pools produced by the rainy season had now dried up almost everywhere, and that peculiar kind of sorghum called “maiwa” had been harvested; and a few days afterwards, while making another excursion, to the south, I met the servants of the governor gathering the corn for their master.
Besides my own private concerns, and the anxiety produced by the urgency of my debts and the uncertainty with regard to the property left by me in Zínder, there were two objects which attracted my whole attention and caused me a good deal of perplexity and hesitation. The first of these was the expedition sent by the English government up the river Bénuwé, of which I had not the slightest idea at the time when it was carried out, for the despatches which I had received in Timbúktu, after so much delay, did not contain a word about such a proceeding; and the letters which were forwarded afterwards to my address, informing me that such an expedition was to be undertaken, remained in Kúkawa, and I did not get them until my arrival in that place at the end of December. Thus it was not until the 29th October that, just in the same manner as I had heard accidentally in Sókoto of the arrival of Mr. Vogel in Kúkawa, I was informed here, by the report of the natives, of such an expedition having taken place. I at first thought that it was undertaken by Captain M‘Leod, of whose proposal to ascend the Niger I had accidentally gleaned some information through a number of the Galignani, and it was not until the 13th November that I succeeded in meeting the person who had seen the expedition with his own eyes. This man informed me that the expedition consisted of one large boat, he did not know whether of iron or of wood, and two smaller ones, containing altogether seven gentlemen and seventy slaves, he of course taking the Kroomen for slaves. Moreover, I learned from him that the members of this expedition had not gone as far as Yóla, the capital of Ádamáwa, as the governor of Hamárruwa had warned them not to go up to that place with their steamer, on account of the narrow passage between the mountains. He also informed me, that they had commenced their home journey earlier than had been expected, and that he himself, having proceeded to Yákoba in order to procure more ivory for them, had found them gone on his return.
The other circumstance which greatly occupied my mind at this time, was the state of affairs in Kúkawa. For in the beginning, on the first news of the revolution in Bórnu, and of the Sheikh ʿOmár being dethroned and his vizier slain, I had given up my project of returning by Bórnu, intending to try again the difficult road by Áír. At a later season, however, when I heard on the road that ʿOmár was again installed, I cherished the hope that it might be possible to take the safer route by the Tebu country, especially as I received the news of a most sanguinary struggle having taken place between the Kél-owí and the Kél-gerés. In this struggle a great many of the noblest men of the former were said to have fallen, together with several hundred of the common people on both sides. I was sorry to hear that in this struggle my best friends had succumbed.
Meanwhile the news from Kúkawa remained very unsatisfactory, and false rumours were continually brought from thence. Thus it was reported on the 1st November that the Sugúrti had vanquished ʿOmár, who had made his escape accompanied only by a couple of horsemen; and it was not until the 9th that we received trustworthy news that he was holding his position steadily against the intrigues of the party of his brother, whom he kept in prison. It was with great satisfaction, that I saw messengers from ʿOmár arrive, in the course of a few days, in order to present his compliments to the governor of this place. I at once had them called to my house, and made them a few presents, in order to express my satisfaction at their master having recovered his kingdom, and still holding his position; for it was a most important point with me to see my road to Bórnu clear, and to meet there with Mr. Vogel and his party, in order to give him my advice and assistance with respect to the countries which it was most desirable that he should explore. But in the situation in which I was thus placed, it proved most difficult to obtain the means of reaching Kúkawa, as I had no money at my disposal. For, to my great disappointment, the servant whom I had sent to Zínder on the 18th, in order to bring from thence the property which I had deposited there, as well as the merchandise which had arrived afterwards, returned on the 4th November empty-handed, bringing nothing but a few letters. It was now that I heard that the news of my death had been everywhere believed, and that a servant of Mr. Vogel’s, together with a slave of ʿAbd e’ Rahmán’s, had arrived in Zínder from Kúkawa, and had taken away all the merchandise that had reached that place on my account, the box with the 400 dollars and the cutlery having been stolen long before, immediately after the assassination of the sheríf.
Thus, then, I was left destitute also from this side, and I felt the want of supplies the more, as my headman, ʿAlí el Ágeren, supported by the wording of the contract which I had entered into with him, had claimed here peremptorily the payment of the rest of his salary, which amounted to 111 dollars, and I had been obliged to request Sídi ʿAlí to pay him this sum on my account. This man had cost me very dear, and if I had possessed sufficient means I should have discharged him in Timbúktu, as he there threw off all allegiance and obedience to me as soon as he became aware of the dangers which surrounded me. He was likewise of very little service to me on my return journey; but of course he was now anxious to excuse himself for his conduct on the road, and even laid claim to the present which I had promised him in the event of his conduct proving quite to my satisfaction. This, however, I refused with good reason; and I was glad to find that my other servants, whose salaries amounted altogether to nearly 200 dollars, were willing to wait for their payment until we reached Kúkawa.
However, the parcel which my servant brought me from Zínder was not quite devoid of subjects of gratification, as, besides a few letters from Europe, including a map of South Africa by Mr. Cooley, it contained two beautifully written Arabic letters, one addressed to ʿAlíyu, the emír of Sókoto, and the other, a general letter of recommendation addressed by Her Majesty’s consul in Tripoli to the chiefs of the Fúlbe. These letters I had expressly written for, and if I had received them two years earlier, they would have been of great service to me. As it was, I sent the letter destined for ʿAlíyu to the governor, who was so much pleased with it that he forwarded it by a special messenger, accompanied by a letter from myself, wherein I expressed my regret that I had not been able to present this letter to him on my personal visit, while at the same time I excused myself for not being able at the time to send him a small present, not having found here any supplies, and being entirely destitute of means. Having heard a report, which afterwards proved to be false, that the governor of Hamárruwa had formed the intention of attacking the people in the English steamer with a large force, I took the opportunity of protesting, in this letter, against such proceedings, giving the chief a plain statement of the peaceable intentions of the expedition.
The parcel which my servant had brought me from Zínder seemed also to hold out the prospect of material aid; for the letter from Mr. Dickson, dated the latter part of 1853, wherein he at the same time informed me, to my great disappointment, that he was about to leave his post for the Crimea, contained two letters of recommendation to a couple of Ghadámsi merchants, of the names of Háj Áhmed ben Slímán and Mohammed ben Músa, who, as he informed me, had property of his own in their hands, in order to assist me in case I should be in want of money. But when I sent these letters to their destination they were very coldly received, and it was intimated to me that I could not be accommodated. The disappointment which the awkwardness of my pecuniary circumstances caused me, was soothed in some degree by the offer which the Fezzáni merchant Khweldi, whose kindness to me I have mentioned on a previous occasion, made me at the same time, of lending me 200 dollars in cash. In the afternoon of the 14th, a servant of his arrived with the money, which, however, did not suffice for my actual wants, as I had to return to Sídi ʿAlí the 111 dollars which he had paid to my servant ʿAlí el ʿAgeren. After having made a suitable present to the messenger, I had therefore only a very small sum remaining; and the disappointment which I had experienced with regard to my luggage, made me reluctant to forego the project which I had formed of taking home with me specimens of the manufactures of this place. I had also to buy two horses and a couple of camels, together with sundry other articles, and I was therefore obliged to procure further means, however difficult it might be. I had even a great deal of trouble with Sídi ʿAlí, who put off his promise to accommodate me from day to day.
At length, having, on the 10th of November, written an energetic letter to this merchant, it was agreed that the affair between myself and the Ghadámsi merchants, who refused to lend me money, although they had English property in their hands, should be referred to the ghaladíma, who granted me a public interview for the purpose. In this audience, in which a great number of other people were present, the merchants founded their refusal to comply with my request on the old date of the letter in which they were ordered to attend to my wishes; and it was not until the ghaladíma had ordered them to bring into his presence all that they possessed of the British agent’s property that they agreed the following day to lend me a sum of money, at the usual rate of one hundred per cent. Being obliged to agree to this condition, as it had never been my intention to oblige them by force to grant me a loan without allowing them their usual profit, I stipulated to receive from them 500,000 shells, equal in this place to 200 dollars, on the condition that 400 should be repaid in Tripoli, at four months’ date. This loan, which would not have been necessary at all if I had found my supplies, enabled me, on the other hand, to send off my despatches with the greatest ease and security, as it was, of course, the interest of these merchants to have these letters forwarded to Tripoli by the safest and shortest route. A courier was therefore despatched immediately, who being an experienced and well-known person, would be able to make his way through the country of Áír, which in its temporarily disturbed state was closed to any one else. The only thing which caused me some displeasure in this transaction, was the circumstance that these merchants from Ghadámes had the insolence, although half of the money with which they trade is Christian money, to call the Christians, in the presence of the ghaladíma, by the offensive name of “Káfaráwa,” (“the infidels,”) and I made a serious protest against such a term being employed in official transactions.
The difficulty which I had in supplying my wants, and purchasing the articles that in my opinion were necessary for my outfit, was the greater, as everything was very dear at the time, the merchants being of opinion, on account of the turbulent state of the road, that no caravan from the north would arrive that year. Camels especially were exceedingly dear, seven fine animals which Khweldi had sent from Zínder, being sold for 60,000 shells each, a very high price for a camel. I deemed myself therefore very fortunate in being able to purchase a she- camel of inferior quality for 45,000. I also was so lucky as to buy an excellent mare for 70,000 shells, or less than thirty dollars. Having thus at length provided for all my wants, I got everything ready for starting on the 21st; and heartily glad I was when I was fairly embarked on this the last stage of my journeying in Negroland, with the prospect before me, that, in six months or so, I might again breathe the invigorating air of the north.
I therefore cheerfully took leave of my friends from the far-west, who were to follow as soon as possible to Kúkawa, for although they were not likely to be of any further assistance to me, they wanted to lay the chief of that country under some contribution for their own benefit and that of their master. I then pursued my journey with great cheerfulness; and although the general character of the country was not new to me, yet the route which I was obliged to take, had not been travelled by me before. The road, although perhaps less populous, seemed to possess the advantage of richer vegetation, and deléb-palms especially formed the ornament of many a hamlet, or of the open scenery. Fine cattle also were to be seen in considerable numbers, and altogether it was a pleasant ride. Thus, after a march of about eleven miles, we reached the town of Wáse, or Wása, and here took up our quarters. But, as usual, we found the gate so narrow, that we were obliged to take most of the luggage off the camels, and this was the reason that we always preferred encamping outside; although here it was deemed too unsafe. Even inside the place, the people were very much afraid of thieves. The town was tolerably populous, and the courtyards were fenced with hedges of living trees, almost in the same way as Úba, and the one where we lodged was well shaded. Although, in the present disturbed state of the country, and with the prospect of another expedition of Bokhári, the inhabitants did not feel much at their ease, we were nevertheless tolerably well treated.
[Sidenote: November 24th.]
We had the same difficulty in getting out of the town, as we had in entering it, so that I was quite sick of these places, and resolved if possible never to enter one again. The sorghum, or Indian corn, had just been cut, but was lying on the ground unthrashed, or rather unbeaten. The dorówa-tree, or _Bassia Parkii_, which seemed to be the prevailing tree in this district, appeared in great numbers a little further on, and even date-trees were seen, close to a hamlet. Having then passed through a more open country, the scenery became exceedingly fine, and continued so as far as the town of Sabó-n-garí, which we passed at some distance on our left. The market-place, enlivened by two beautiful baúre-trees, remained close at the side of our track. It was here that the governor of Kanó intended to collect his troops in order to oppose Bokhári; but it was not very likely, taking into account his own want of energy, and the cowardly disposition of his host, that he would offer serious resistance to that energetic and enterprising chief, with his warlike bands, elated by victory and pillage.
Twelve miles beyond Sabó-n-garí, through a less favoured district, we reached the town of Yerímarí, surrounded with a keffi, while on its outer side a market was just being held. But there being here no food for the camels, we proceeded on, through a district covered with underwood, until we reached, about two miles beyond, a village called “Gída-n-Alla,” (“the house of God,”) which, besides being surrounded with a keffi, was so completely hidden behind a dense covert of trees, which form a natural defence, that we could scarcely discover it. But inside this covert there was a fine open field, whereon we pitched our tent, and were soon visited by the mayor and the chief inhabitants, who behaved in a very friendly manner towards us, and provided us with everything we wanted, the place being rich in small millet and Indian corn. The village was however very badly supplied with water, the well being at a great distance. The camping-ground was extremely pleasant, the open green being varied by dense groups of trees, and the vegetation being moreover enlivened by a good many deléb-palms.