Part 31
With this fellow, therefore, and with Hámma, I continued my walk, passing the kófa-n-alkáli, and then, from the ruins of the quarter Ben- Gottára, turning to the north. Here the wall of the town is in a tolerable state of preservation, but very weak and insufficient, though it is kept in repair, even to the pinnacles, on account of its surrounding the palace of the sultan. Not far from this is an open space called Azarmádarangh, “the place of execution,” where occasionally the head of a rebellious chieftain or a murderer is cut off by the “dóka;” but as far as I could learn, such things happen very seldom. Even on the north side, two gates are in a tolerable state of preservation.
Having entered the town from this side, we went to visit the quarter of the leather-workers, which, as I stated before, seems to have formed originally a regular ward; all this handicraft, with the exception of saddlework, is carried on by women, who work with great neatness. Very beautiful provision-bags are made here, although those which I brought back from Timbúktu are much handsomer. We saw also some fine specimens of mats, woven of a very soft kind of grass, and dyed of various colours. Unfortunately, I had but little with me wherewith to buy; and even if I had been able to make purchases, the destination of our journey being so distant, there was not much hope of carrying the things safe to Europe. The blacksmiths’ work of Ágades is also interesting, although showy and barbarous, and not unlike the work with which the Spaniards used to adorn their long daggers.
[Sidenote: Monday, October 28th.]
During all this time I prosecuted inquiries with regard to several subjects connected with the geography and ethnography of this quarter of the world. I received several visits from Emgédesi tradesmen, many of whom are established in the northern provinces of Háusa, chiefly in Kátsena and Tasáwa, where living is infinitely cheaper than in Ágades. All these I found to be intelligent men, having been brought up in the centre of intercourse between a variety of tribes and nations of the most different organization, and, through the web of routes which join here, receiving information of distant regions. Several of them had even made the Pilgrimage, and thus come in contact with the relatively high state of civilization in Egypt and near the coast; and I shall not easily forget the enlightened view which the mʿallem Háj Mohammed ʿOmár, who visited me several times, took of Islámism and Christianity. The last day of my stay in Ágades, he reverted to the subject of religion, and asked me, in a manner fully expressive of his astonishment, how it came to pass that the Christians and Moslemín were so fiercely opposed to one another, although their creeds, in essential principles, approximated so closely. To this I replied by saying that I thought the reason was that the great majority both of Christians and Moslemín paid less regard to the dogmas of their creeds than to external matters, which have very little or no reference to religion itself. I also tried to explain to him, that in the time of Mohammed Christianity had entirely lost that purity which was its original character, and that it had been mixed up with many idolatrous elements, from which it was not entirely disengaged till a few centuries ago, while the Mohammedans had scarcely any acquaintance with Christians except those of the old sects of the Jacobites and Nestorians. Mutually pleased with our conversation, we parted from each other with regret.
In the afternoon I was agreeably surprised by the arrival of the Tinýlkum Ibrahim, for the purpose of supplying his brother’s house with what was wanted; and being determined to make only one day’s stay in the town, he had learned with pleasure that we were about to return by way of Áfasás, the village whither he himself was going. I myself had cherished this hope, as all the people had represented that place as one of the largest in the country, and as pleasantly situated. Hámma had promised to take me this way on our return to Tintéllust; but having stayed so much longer in the town than he had intended, and being afraid of arriving too late for the salt-caravan of the Kél-owí on their way to Bilma, which he was to supply with provisions, he changed his plan, and determined to return by the shortest road. Meanwhile he informed me that the old chief would certainly not go with us to Zínder till the salt- caravan had returned from Bilma.
Fortunately, in the course of the 29th a small caravan with corn arrived from Damerghú; and Hámma completed his purchases. He had, however, first to settle a disagreeable affair; for our friend Zúmmuzuk had bought in Hamma’s name several things, for which payment was now demanded. Hámma flew into a terrible rage, and nearly finished the rogue. My Arab and Tawáti friends, who heard that we were to start the following day, though they were rather busy buying corn, came to take leave of me; and I was glad to part from all of them in friendship. But before bidding farewell to this interesting place, I shall make a few general observations on its history.
[Footnote 147: I am not quite sure with regard to this place, as I find a note in my memorandum-book, “The name of the place in question is Ingal, on the road to Sókoto, and not Aghíllad.”]
[Footnote 148: Delélti is not a Háusa word.]
[Footnote 149: It is remarkable that while _ba_ in the Háusa language expresses the masculine in the composition of national names, _ma_ originally served to denote the female; but the latter form seems to be almost lost.]
[Footnote 150: I will here only observe, that “bére” is one of those words in the Sónghay language which shows its connection with Sanscrit.]
[Footnote 151: The horse of Tawát is as celebrated amongst the Berber tribes of the desert as the Ímanang woman or “the wealth of Tunis.”]
[Footnote 152: These red caps, however, are an article quite foreign to the original dress of the Tarki, and are obnoxious to the tribes of pure blood.]
[Footnote 153: I have brought home a specimen of these tobes, among various others. The tailelt was my common dress during all the latter part of my journey. A representation of its distinguishing ornaments will be given in the next volume.]
[Footnote 154: Who these Turáwa are I shall explain further on.]
[Footnote 155: Here also the name of the country is written with an _h_—اهير—as is always done by the Arabs (see what I have said above).]
[Footnote 156: ʿAbd el Kerím was the name I adopted from the beginning as my travelling name.]
[Footnote 157: من امحاربين والظالمين.]
[Footnote 158: I follow the translation of the learned Rev. G. C. Renouard.]
[Footnote 159: The Rev. G. C. Renouard, in interpreting this passage, has evidently made a mistake in translating “the Minister _of the_ Sultan,” and adding in a note that Emír “is here a title given to the Emír el Núr,” while it is to be referred to the sultan himself.]
[Footnote 160: By the expression “el fókarah” the Sultan certainly meant us, who were not travelling for trading purposes, but rather like dervishes.]
[Footnote 161: All the tribes in Central Africa, who wear the large tobes or shirts, tuck their sleeves up when about to undertake any work, or going to fight.]
[Footnote 162: Leo, in the interesting description which he gives of this town, l. vii. c. 9., expressly praises the size and architecture of the houses: “Le case sono benissimo edificate a modo delle case di Barberia.” He also speaks here of the great number of male slaves whom the merchants were obliged to keep, in order to protect themselves on the roads to Negroland.]
[Footnote 163: From Leo’s description, l. vii. c. 9., it would appear that the palace of the sultan in former times was in the middle of the town—“un bel palazzo in mezzo della città.” He kept a numerous host of soldiers.]
[Footnote 164: The hostile disposition of the kádhi towards me was most unfortunate, as he would have been the very man to give me the information I wanted; for I did not meet any other native of the place well versed in Arabic literature, and but a few were able to speak Arabic at all.]
[Footnote 165: Whether this name be a corruption of Mghíli, meaning the fanatical Mohammedan apostle Mohammed ben ʿAbd el Kerím el Maghíli, of whom I have spoken above, I cannot say.]
CHAP. XVIII.
HISTORY OF ÁGADES.
If we had before us the historical work upon the authority of which Mohammed el Bágeri assured Sultan Bello that the people of Góber, who formerly possessed the country of Aïr, were Copts[166], we should most probably find in it the history of Ágades. As it is, however, until that book shall come to light, of which I do not at all despair, provided future travellers inquire diligently for it, we must be content with endeavouring to concentrate the faint and few rays of light which dimly reveal to us, in its principal features, the history of this remarkable town.
Previously to Mr. Cooley’s perspicuous inquiries into the Negroland of the Arabs, this place was identified with Aúdaghost, merely on account of a supposed similarity of name. But Ágades, or rather Égedesh, is itself a pure Berber word, in no way connected with Aúdaghost. It is of very frequent occurrence, particularly among the Awelímmiden, and means “family;” and the name was well chosen for a town consisting of mixed elements. Moreover, while we find Aúdaghost in the far west in the 12th century, we have the distinct statement of Marmol[167], that Ágades was founded a hundred and sixty years before the time when he wrote (that is to say, in 1460), the truth of which statement, harmonizing as it does with Leo’s more general account, that it was a modern town[168], we have no reason to doubt. Neither of these authors tells us who built it; but as we know that the great Sónghay conqueror Háj Mohammed Áskiá, who conquered the town of Ágades in the year of the Hejra 921, or 1515 of our era[169], expelled from it the five Berber tribes who, according to the information collected by me during my stay in Ágades, and which I shall soon lay before my readers, must have been long resident in the town, it appears highly probable that these Berbers were its founders. And if this be assumed, there will be no difficulty in explaining why the language of the natives of the place at present is a dialect of the Sónghay language, as it is most probable that that great and enlightened conqueror, after he had driven out the old inhabitants, established in this important place a new colony of his own people. In a similar way we find the Sónghay nation, which seems not to have originally extended to a great distance eastward of Gágho or Gógo, now extending into the very heart of Kébbi, although we shall find other people speaking the same language in the neighbourhood of Ágades, and perhaps may be able in the course of our researches to trace some connection between the Sónghay and ancient Egypt.
It is therefore highly probable that those five Berber tribes formed the settlement in question as an entrepôt for their commerce with Negroland, though the foundation of such a grand settlement on the border of the desert presumes that they had at that time a preponderating influence in all these regions; and the whole affair is so peculiar, that its history could not fail to gratify curiosity if more could be known of it. From Bello’s account, it would appear that they, or at least one of these tribes (the Aújila[170]), conquered the whole of Aïr.
It is certainly remarkable to see people from five places separated from each other by immense tracts, and united only by the bond of commerce and interest, founding a large colony far away from their homes, and on the very border of the desert. For, according to all that I could learn by the most sedulous inquiries in Ágades, those tribes belonged to the Gurára of Tawát, to the Tafimáta, to the Beni Wazít, and the Tésko of Ghadámes, to the once powerful and numerous tribe of the Masráta, and finally to the Aújila; and as the names of almost all these different tribes, and of their divisions, are still attached to localities of the town, we can scarcely doubt the correctness of this information, and must suppose that Sultan Bello was mistaken in referring the five tribes (settled in Ágades) to Aújila alone.[171]
Though nothing is related about the manner in which Háj Mohammed Áskiá took possession of the town[172], except that it is stated distinctly that he drove out the five tribes, it seems, from the traditions current in Ágades, that a considerable number of the Berbers, with five hundred “jákhfa” (cages mounted on camels, such as only wealthy people can afford to keep for carrying their wives), left the town, but were all massacred. But no one who regards with the least attention the character of the present population of the town, can doubt for a moment that a considerable number of the Berber population remained behind, and in course of time mixed with the Sónghay colonists; for, even if we set aside the consideration of the language (which is greatly intermixed with Berber words), there is evidently much Berber blood in the population even at the present day,—a fact which is more evident in the females than in the males.
It is a pity that Leo says nothing about the language spoken in Ágades[173]; for he lived just at the very period during which the town, from a Berber settlement, became a Negro town. His expression[174] certainly implies that he regarded it as a Negro town. But, while well- informed in general respecting the great conquests of Mohammed Áskiá (or, as he calls him, Ischia, whom he erroneously styles king of Timbúktu), he does not once mention his expedition against Ágades, of which he might have heard as easily as of those against Kátsena and Kanó, which preceded the former only by two years. From his account it would seem that the town was then in a very flourishing state, full of foreign merchants and slaves, and that the king, though he paid a tribute of 150,000 ducats to the king of Timbúktu (Gágho), enjoyed a great degree of independence, at least from that quarter, and had even a military force of his own. Besides, it is stated expressly that he belonged to the Berber race.[175] But it would almost seem as if Leo in this passage represented the state of things as it was when he visited the town, before Áskiá’s time, and not at the date when he wrote, though the circumstance of the tribute payable to that king may have been learnt from later information. In general, the great defect in Leo’s description is, that the reader has no exact dates to which to refer the several statements, and that he cannot be sure how far the author speaks as an eye-witness, and how far from information.[176]
Of course it is possible that the Berbers found a Sónghay population, if not in the place itself, which most probably did not exist before the time of their arrival, yet in the district around it; and it would seem that there existed in ancient times, in the celebrated valley of Ír-n- allem, a small town of which[177] some vestiges are said to remain at the present day, as well as two or three date-trees—the solitary remains of a large plantation. From this town, tradition says, the present inhabitants of Ágades were transplanted. But be this as it may, it is certain that the same dialect of the Sónghay language which is spoken in Ágades, is also still spoken in a few places in the neighbourhood, by the tribe of the Íghdalén, or Ighedálen, whose whole appearance, especially their long hair, shows them to be a mixed race of Songhay and Berbers; and there is some reason to suppose that they belonged originally to the Zenága or Senhája. These people live in and around Íngal, a small town four days’ journey from Ágades, on the road to Sókoto[178], and in and around Tegídda, a place three days’ journey from Íngal, and about five from Ágades W.S.W. This latter place is of considerable interest, being evidently identical with the town of the same name mentioned by Ebn Khaldún[179] and by Ebn Batúta[180] as a wealthy place, lying eastward from Gógo, on the road to Egypt, and in intimate connection and friendly intercourse with the Mzáb and Wárgela. It was governed by a Berber chief, with the title of sultan. This place, too, was for some time subject to Gógo, or rather to the empire of Mélle or Máli, which then comprised Sónghay, in the latter part of the 14th century; and the circumstance that here too the Sónghay language is still spoken may be best explained by referring it to colonization, since it is evident that Áskiá, when he took possession of Ágades, must have occupied Tegídda also, which lay on the road from Gógo to that place. However, I will not indulge in conjectures, and will merely enter into historical questions so far as they contribute to furnish a vivid and coherent picture of the tribes and countries with which my journey brought me into contact. I will therefore only add, that this place, Tegídda or Tekádda, was famous, in the time of Ebn Batúta, for its copper-mines, the ores of which were exported as far as Bórnu and Góber, while at present nothing is known of the existence of copper hereabouts; but a very good species of salt of red colour (já-n-gísherí), which is far superior to that of Bílma, is obtained here, as well as in Íngal. But I recommend this point to the inquiry of future travellers. I have mentioned above the presence of loadstone on the border of Aïr.
Having thus attempted to elucidate and illustrate the remarkable fact, that the language of Ágades is derived from and akin to the Sónghay,—a fact which of course appeared to me more surprising before I discovered, in the course of 1853, that this language extends eastward far beyond the so-called Niger,—I return once more to the settlement of the Berbers in Ágades. It is evident that this settlement, if it was of the nature described above, was made for the purpose of serving as a great commercial entrepôt for the commerce with another country; and if we duly consider the statements made by El Bekri[181], Ebn Batúta[182], Leo[183], Ca da Mosto[184], and by the author of the “History of Sónghay,” with regard to the importance of the market of Gógo, and if we pay due attention to that circuitous route which led from Gógo by way of Tegídda not only to Egypt, but even to Tawát[185], there cannot be the least doubt that Ágades was founded by those Berber tribes, with the distinct purpose that it might serve them as a secure abode and fortified magazine in their commercial intercourse with that splendid capital of the Sónghay empire, the principal article of which was gold, which formed also the chief article in the former commerce of Ágades. For Ágades had its own standard weight of this precious metal,—the mithkál, which even at the present day regulates the circulating medium. And this mithkál of Ágades is totally different from the standard of the same name which is in use in Timbúktu, the latter being, in regard to the value of the Spanish dollar, as 1⅓ to 1, and the former only as ⅖ to 1. But for wholesale business a greater weight was in use, called “kárruwe,” the smaller kárruwe containing thirty-three mithákel or mithkals and a third, equal to two rottls and a sixth, while the larger kárruwe contained a hundred mithkals, and was equal to six rottls and a half.
The importance of the trade of Ágades, and the wealth of the place in general, appear very clearly from the large tribute, of a hundred and fifty thousand ducats, which the king of Ágades was able to pay to that of Sónghay, especially if we bear in mind that Leo, in order to give an idea of the great expense which this same king of Sónghay had incurred on his pilgrimage to Mekka, states in another passage[186] that having spent all he took with him, he contracted a debt amounting to that very sum. As for the king of Ágades, his situation was at that time just what it is now; and we cannot better describe his precarious position, entirely dependent on the caprice and intrigues of the influential chiefs of the Tawárek, than by using the very words of Leo, “Alle volte scacciano il re e pongono qualche suo parente in luogo di lui, nè usano ammazzar alcuno; e quel che più contenta gli abitatori del diserto è fatto re in Agadez.”
Unfortunately, we are not able to fix a date for that very peculiar covenant between the different tribes with regard to the installation of the sultan of Ágades, and the establishing of the principle that he must belong to a certain family, which is regarded as of sheríf nobility[187], and lives not in Ágades, nor even in the country of Aïr, but in a town of Góber. I was once inclined to think that this was an arrangement made in consequence of the power and influence which the Emír of Sókoto had arrogated to himself; but I have now reason to doubt this, for even the grandfather of ʿAbd el Káder was sultan. Certainly even now, when the power of the Fulfúlde or Féllani empire is fast crumbling to pieces, the Emír of Sókoto has a certain influence upon the choice of the sultan of Ágades. Of this fact I myself became witness during my stay in Sókoto in April 1853, when Hámed e’ Rufäy was once more sent out to succeed ʿAbd el Káder. Indeed Ittegáma, ʿAbd el Káder’s brother, who thought that I enjoyed the favour and confidence of the Emír, called upon me (as I shall relate in due time) expressly in order to entreat me most urgently to exert my influence in order to restore my former host to his authority.
I have described already in what way the union of the tribes of the Itísan, the Kél-gerés, and the Kél-owí is expressed in installing the sultan; but though without the presence and assent of the former the new prince could never arrive at his place of residence, the final decision seems to rest with the chief Ánnur, the inhabitants of the town having no voice in the matter. The sultan is rather a chief of the Tawárek tribes residing in Ágades than the ruler of Ágades. How difficult and precarious his position must be, may be easily conceived if it be considered that these tribes are generally at war with one another; the father of Hámed e’ Rufäy was even killed by the Kél-gerés. Nevertheless, if he be an intelligent and energetic man, his influence in the midst of this wild conflict and struggle of clashing interests and inclinations must be very beneficial.