Part 37

This interesting visitor was succeeded by a great many tiresome people, so that I was heartily glad when Overweg, who had made a little excursion to a great pond of stagnant water, at the foot of the hill of Farára, the residence of Mákita, returned, and, lying outside the little shed of tanned skins, which was spread over his luggage, drew the crowd away from my tent. Overweg, as well as Ibrahím, who had accompanied him, had shot several ducks, which afforded us a good supper, and made us support with some degree of patience the trying spectacle of a long procession of men and women laden with eatables, passing by us in the evening towards the camping-ground of the chief, while not a single dish found its way to us; and though we informed them that they were missing their way, they would not understand the hint, and answered us with a smile. Many severe remarks on the niggardliness of the old chief were that evening made round our fire. While music, dancing, and merriment were going on in the village, a solitary “maimólo” found his way to us, to console the three forsaken travellers from a foreign land, by extolling them to the skies, and representing them as special ministers of the Almighty.

[Sidenote: Wednesday, January 8th.]

To-day I began a list of the principal towns and villages of Dam-erghú, which I shall now give as it was corrected and completed by my subsequent inquiries; but first I shall make a few general observations.

Aïr, or rather Ásben, as we have seen above, was originally inhabited by the Góber race—that is to say, the most noble and original stock of what is now, by the natives themselves, called the Háusa nation; but the boundaries of Ásben appear not to have originally included the district of Dam-erghú, as not even those of Aïr do at the present day, Dam-erghú being considered as an outlying province, and the granary of Aïr. On the contrary, the name of Dam-erghú (which is formed of the same root as the names Daw-erghú, Gam-erghú, and others, all lying round Bórnu proper) seems to show that the country to which it applied belonged to the Kanúri race, who are in truth its chief occupants even at the present day, the Bórnu population being far more numerous than the Háusa; and though a great many of them are at present reduced to a servile condition, they are not imported slaves, as Mr. Richardson thought, but most of them are serfs or prædial slaves, the original inhabitants of the country. It is true that a great many of the names of the villages in Dam-erghú belong to the Háusa language; but these I conceive to be of a former date. The district extends for about sixty miles in length, and forty in breadth. It is altogether an undulating country of very fertile soil, capable of maintaining the densest population, and was in former times certainly far more thickly inhabited than at present. The bloody wars carried on between the Bórnu king ʿAli ʿOmármi on the one side, and the sultan of Ágades and the Tawárek of Aïr on the other, must have greatly depopulated these border districts.

In giving a list of the principal villages of this region, I shall first mention five places which owe their celebrity and importance, not to their size or the number of their inhabitants, but rather to their political rank, being the temporary residences of the chiefs.

I name first Kúla-n-kérki—not the village mentioned above as being seen in the distance, but another place half-a-day’s journey (“wúëni,” as the Háusa people say) east from Tágelel—of considerable size, and the residence of the chief Músa, who may with some truth be called master of the soil of Dam-erghú, and is entitled serkí-n-Dam-erghú in the same sense in which Mazáwaji was formerly called serkí-n-Ásben; and to him all the inhabitants of the district, with the sole exception of the people of the three other chiefs, have to do homage and present offerings.

Olalówa, about three miles or three miles and a half S.W. of Tágelel, is rather smaller than Kúla-n-kérki. It is the residence of Mazáwaji, a man of the same family as Ánnur, who, till a short time before our arrival in Aïr, was “amanókal-n-Kél-owí,” residing in Ásodi, in the place of Astáfidet. Though he has left Aïr voluntarily, he still retains the title “serkí-n-Kél-owí,” and is a friendly and benevolent old man. Olalówa has a market-place provided with rúnfona, or rúnfas (sheds), where a market is held every Sunday; but it is not well attended by the inhabitants of the other places, owing to the fear entertained of Mazáwaji’s slaves, who seem (mild as their master is) to be disposed to violence.

Farára, the residence of Mákita, or Ímkiten, the man who played the chief part during the interregnum, or rather the reign of anarchy in Ásben, before the installation of ʿAbd el Káder. It is situated about two miles from Tágelel, on the west side of the road which we were to take, on the top of a hill, at the foot of which is a very extensive lagoon of water, from which the inhabitants of Tágelel also, and of many surrounding villages, draw their supply.

Tágelel, the residence of Ánnur, although of small size (the two groups together containing scarcely more than a hundred and twenty cottages), is nevertheless of great political importance in all the relations of this distracted country.

Here also I will mention Dankámsa, the residence of an influential man of the name of Úmma, which in a certain respect enjoys the same rank as the four above-named villages.[206]

I will also add in this place the little which I was able to learn about the mixed settlements of Tawárek and black natives between Dam-erghú and Múniyo. As these places are the chief centres whence proceed the predatory excursions which are carried on continually against the northern districts of Bórnu, information with regard to them is not easily obtained. The chief among them is the principality of Alákkos or Elákwas[207], about three (long) days N.E. from Zínder, and two from Gúre, the present residence of Muniyóma. The ruling class in this sequestered haunt of robbers and freebooters seems to belong to the tribe of the Tagáma; and the name of the present chief is Abu-Bakr, who can lead into the field perhaps two hundred horsemen. The chief place bears the same name as the whole principality; and besides it there are but a few small places, among which I learnt the name of Dáucha. Alákkos is celebrated among the hungry inhabitants of the desert, on account of its grain; and in the desert-song, the verse which celebrates the horse of Tawát, is followed by another one celebrating the grain of Alákkos, “tádak Elákwas.”

Quite apart seems to be a place called Gáyim, which is governed by a chief called Kámmedán; and I know not whether another place called Kárbo be comprised in the same principality or not. These are the great haunts of the freebooters, who infest the border districts, from Dam-erghú to the very heart of Kánem.

[Sidenote: Thursday, January 9th.]

This was the great market-day in Tágelel, on which account our departure was put off till the following day; but the market did not become thronged until a late hour. I went there in the afternoon. The market- place, which was about 800 yards distant from our encampment, towards the west, upon a small hilly eminence, was provided with several sheds or rúnfas. The articles laid out for sale consisted of cotton (which was imported), tobacco, ostrich-eggs, cheese, mats, ropes, nets, earthenware pots, gúras (or drinking-vessels made of the _Cucurbita ovifera_ and _C. lagenaria_) and kórios (or vessels made of a fine sort of reed, for containing fluids, especially milk); besides these there were a tolerable supply of vegetables, and two oxen, for sale. The buyers numbered about a hundred.

In the afternoon two magozáwa, or pagans, in a wild and fanciful attire (the dry leaves of Indian corn or sorghum hanging down from their barbarous headdress and from the leather apron, which was girt round their loins and richly ornamented with shells and bits of coloured cloth), danced in front of our tents the “devil’s dance”—a performance of great interest in regard to the ancient pagan customs of these countries, and to which I may have occasion to revert, when I speak about Dodó, or the evil spirit, and the representation of the souls of the dead.

Tágelel was a very important point for the proceedings of the mission on several accounts. For here we had reached the lands where travellers are able to proceed singly on their way; and here Overweg and I were to part from Mr. Richardson, on account of the low state of our finances, in order to try what each of us might be able to accomplish single-handed and without ostentation, till new supplies should arrive from home. Here, therefore, the first section of my narrative will most appropriately terminate.

[Footnote 200: The Tagáma were said by some of our informants to have come from Jánet; but I was not able to confirm this piece of information. However I am sure that they belong to a stock settled in these regions long before the Kél-owí. We find them settled on the borders of Negroland in very ancient times. Horneman, from what he heard about them, believed them to be Christians.]

[Footnote 201: Clapperton and Denham’s Travels, vol. ii. p. 107.]

[Footnote 202: The Western Tawárek call the doctor “anéssafar.”]

[Footnote 203: I shall describe this sort of tent in the narrative of my stay amongst the Western Tawárek.]

[Footnote 204: This name means “the mosque;” and the tribe, apparently, has formerly been settled somewhere in a town. By the Arabs it is regarded as greatly Arabicized, and is even called ʿÁraba. We shall meet another tribe of the same name in the West.]

[Footnote 205: A representation of such a stack of corn is given in the next volume.]

[Footnote 206: Besides these I learnt the names of the following places of Dam-erghú:—Nimináka, Gómtu, Sabón-garí, Dágabi, Dagábitáng, Bírji-n- bága; Kúfkúf (called Kobkob by Mr. Richardson in the itinerary which, on his first journey to Ghát, he forwarded to Government[a]), in the W., with a lake of very great dimensions; Babá-n-bírni, a place which I think in former times has been the chief town of the district; Kuyáwa, Da-n-kúmbu, Da-n-gérki, Marké (a very common name in Central Sudán); Zozáwa, at the foot of the high cone of the same name mentioned above; Lekári, also S.; Dammágaji, the place mentioned above; Ngól-mata, N.; Ngól-ganó, Ngól-kalé, Banwélki, Gagáwa, Karíkau, Keshír-keshír, Dammókochi, Nakéfadáng, Damméle, Guyé-guyé, Kabíwa, Fókeni, Gámakay, Burúru, Gángará, Tágelel-ta-Dágabi (different from Ánnur’s residence); Maryámatángh, Kusúmmetángh (both these places are Tawárek settlements); Maizáki, Málemrí, Malenkáderi (prop. Mʿallem Káderi), Chíririm, Esúwi, Músherí, Músajá, Aikáuri, Addankólle, Jémagu-Gomaigéne, Lamá, Hámedan, Karáza, Alkúre, Dantánka, Agwá, Makárarí, Kasallíya, Fárag, Gámaran, Ungwa Sámmit, Yesíyu-Négdar, Chílim-potúk (N. of Kulankérki), Ginnári, Golmaija, Kúnkuré (the tortoise), Báya-n-Dúchi (a village so called on account of its being situate behind a hillock or rocky eminence, and the birthplace of the chief Músa), Dakári, Majá, Gílmirám, Maihánkuba.]

[Footnote a: _b_, _p_, and _f_ (or rather _ph_, _ʿp_) are frequently interchanged in all the dialects of the Central African languages.]

[Footnote 207: There can scarcely be any doubt that this place has some connection with the tribe of Ilasgwas, mentioned by Corippus.]

APPENDIX.

APPENDIX.

* * * * *

I.—ROUTE FROM ÁGADES TO SÓKOTO.

Day.

1st. Leaving Ágades in the afternoon, you encamp in the valley called Úleye, where there is a well.

2nd. Kerbúb, a valley with water in the sand; start at daybreak, arrive after sunset.

3rd. Aʿazeru; arrive at sunset, having started before daylight. The whole ground travelled over is covered with pebbles, and now and then with a little sand.

4th. Tebérkurt; arrive after sunset, having passed a watering-place called Arúthes. All pebbles and stones.

5th. Íngal, a small town; salt of very good quality, and of red colour, is obtained, but only in small quantities. The inhabitants, mostly belonging to the tribe of the Íghdalén, speak a dialect of the Sónghay, and possess much cattle, with which they supply the market of Ágades. Formerly the S.W. gate of that town was therefore called “Kófa-n-Íngal.” Arrive at sunset; ground pebbly, very few large stones.

6th. ——, a well, the name of which my informant did not remember; arrive about 4 o’clock in the afternoon.

7th. Afáyen, a valley, where you arrive about the same time; pebbles and sand.

8th. Encamp on the pebbly plain a little before sunset.

9th. The same; the plain here is overgrown with a little herbage.

10th. A spot called Semye-táyen; arrive at sunset.

11th. Jóbeli, a considerable place belonging to the province of Ádar, the territory of which begins here.[208] It is the market of the Kél- gerés. The language of the inhabitants is said to be a dialect of the Sónghay; you arrive at about three o’clock P.M., after having passed on your road “Tésaki,” a locality probably so called from the “capparis sodata.”

12th. Awelímmiden, an encampment of the section of this great Tawárek tribe which is called “Awelímmiden wuén Bodhál”; at sunset.

13th. Ir-zaghúr, a village; arrive about one o’clock P.M.; road very rugged.

14th. Tinfáf, a village (N.B. I forgot to ask my informant to what tribe belong the inhabitants of these two places); road rocky.

15th. Dúk-rausu, a village; about one o’clock P.M.

16th. Múzki, a village; at sunset; stony.

17th. Kónni, a considerable place, residence of Ádam, a chief who commands a large body of cavalry; arrive a little after mid-day; road very rocky.

18th. Jáni, a village; at sunset.

19th. Wúrno, a considerable place, the present residence of Emír el Mumenín Alíyu, son of Bello; arrive at one o’clock P.M., after having passed Saláme and other villages.

20th. Sókoto, after a march of about eight or nine hours.

II.—ROUTE FROM ÁGADES TO MARÁDI, ACCORDING TO THE INFORMATION OF THE KÉL-GERÉS GOJÉRI AND HIS COMPANION GHÁSER.

1st. Érazar, a valley, where you arrive about three o’clock P.M., having started from Ágades in the morning.

2nd. Ém-réndel, a valley; arrive about the same hour.

3rd. Urzédem, a valley; arrive at sunset, your march having led over a sandy region.

4th. A valley, with water, which (according to Gojéri) is called Témiye, but according to Gháser, Afénkúk; at about four o’clock. Probably these are different valleys at a short distance from each other.

5th. A valley, Tewuílu, or another called Bégem; at sunset.

6th. Akúku; at ʿaser (about four o’clock), after having passed a valley called Zeríten, where you fill your water-skins. The whole road consists of pebbles.

7th. Tígger-áderez, a valley; at four o’clock.

8th. Etíddul, high sand-hills, where you arrive about noon.

9th. Jénkeb, a valley; about two o’clock P.M.

10th. Yamímma, a valley with water; arrive at ʿaser.

11th. Zermenétta, a village; about ʿaser.

12th. Awelímmid, a considerable place called after a settlement of the Awelímmiden; arrive about one o’clock P.M.

13th. Ladémmau, or Eladémmau, the northernmost village of the province of Góber, and the residence of Ittegáma, the brother of ʿAbd el Káder, the sultan of Ágades.

14th. Gudunnézna, a village; arrive about one o’clock P.M.

15th. Ákerúf, a village; at the ʿaser.

16th, and the two following days travel over the Hammáda, or sárari.

19th. Arrive at Marádi, Mariyádi, or, as the Emgédesi people frequently call it (apparently adopting the Berber idiom), Amrádi. I shall have to say more about this country in the course of my narrative, and therefore omit a list of the places in Góber, which I collected in Ágades.

III.—ITINERARY FROM ÁGADES TO DAM-ERGHÚ, ACCORDING TO VARIOUS INFORMANTS.

1st. Leave the town in the afternoon, and sleep in Tésak-n-tállemt.

2nd. Valley Ériyán, with water; about ʿaser.

3rd. Sofó-n-bírni, a place now deserted, with a well filled up, but evidently once a seat of government, being called “the old capital;” the whole country is flat; arrive about three o’clock in the afternoon.

4th. Faífaí, a place with plenty of herbage; no water on the roadside except in holes in the rocks.

5th. Lágato, a basin or pool of water, “tébki,” of very remarkable extent, and surrounded with abundant herbage.

6th. Riyán, or “Eriyán-embísge,” with plenty of herbage; about sunset. Another road from Lágato to Téténi seems to touch at the village Takóko.

7th. Téténi, with much herbage, no water; between four and five o’clock P.M.

8th. Gagáwa, a village belonging to the district of Dam-erghú, with a basin of water which is said to be connected in the rainy season with that of Lágato; arrive about ʿaser.

9th. Tágelel, the village belonging to the chief Ánnur; about noon.

IV.—ROUTE FROM ÁGADES TO BÍLMA, ACCORDING TO THE EMGÉDESI ÉDERI.

1st. Leaving Ágades in the evening, sleep the first night at about half an hour’s distance from the town, in the depression called Efígi-n- tághalamt.

2nd. Tin-tabórak, a valley with water, where you arrive at the ʿaser, after having passed early in the morning the valley called Amelúli.

3rd. Binébbu, a valley ornamented with dúm-palms, where you arrive a little before sunset. In the morning you keep for a while along the valley of Tin-tabórak, after which your way lies over the rocks, crossing three different valleys, viz. Eméller, Aráta, and the valley of Amdégeru, before you arrive at that called Binébbu.

4th. Tín-dawén, a valley with water; arrive about one o’clock P.M.

5th. Atezérket, after the ʿaser; all rocky ground.

6th. Encamp on the Hammáda, or ténere, consisting of pebbles; about the ʿaser.

7th. Tázel, a spot among the rocks; about the same hour.

8th. Efígagén, a locality of similar character; about sunset.[209]

9th. Débradu Ezákker, a hollow between the rocks; halt two hours after sunset and rest awhile, then start again.

10th, and the four following days, you travel night and day over the Hammáda, making only a short halt from ʿAshá to about midnight. On the Hammáda there are neither trees nor stones, and scarcely any herbage.

15th. Fáshi, the westernmost oasis of the “Hénderi Tedá,” or, as it is called by the Arabs, Wádi Kawár, with plenty of date-trees and two castles, one of which is in ruins, while the other is in good condition.

16th. About two hours after sunset, encamp on the Hammáda, when, after about three or four hours’ repose, you start again, and continue the whole of the night.

17th. Encamp late in the evening and start again, as the day before.

18th. Bílma, the well-known town in Kawár, with the salt-pits. The Tawárek call all the Tedá or Tébu Beraúni, a name which in the following volume I shall endeavour to explain, from the original connection between this people and the Kanúri or Bórnu race.

V.—ROUTE FROM ÁGADES TO TAWÁT ACCORDING TO ʿABD-ALLA.

N.B. Although the first part of this route, as far as Neswa, coincides in many places with my own route, I shall nevertheless not omit it, as the coincidence in question proves the accuracy and intelligence of the informant.

1st. Leaving the town in the afternoon, you encamp the first night near the village called El Khasás, or El Hakhsás, in the fertile valley of the same name, distant from Ágades about eight miles.

2nd. Télwa, a valley, where you arrive about the ʿaser, after having passed on your road several valleys separated from each other by rocky ground, more or less elevated. Early in the morning you cross the valley called Ázal, then that called Tufátekín; after which, about noon, you pass the celebrated valley of Ír-n-allem, with ruins of old houses, and two fruit-bearing date-trees; after which, before you arrive at Télwa, there is still another valley to be crossed, which is called Isérserén.

3rd. Úklef, a valley with water, like Télwa; arrive at the time of the ʿaser, after having crossed the Wadi Ása, and afterwards gone over a pebbly level called Tínin.

4th. Makám e’ Sheikh ben ʿAbd el Kerím, a sort of mosque known to some under the name of Msíd Sídi Baghdádi, where you arrive about an hour before sunset, after having rested, during the greatest heat, near Aúderas. In the morning, your road passes for some time along the valley Úklef.

5th. Tíggeda; about ʿaser.

6th. Encamp about sunset on rocky ground. Pass in the morning the valley called Tefárrowet; then cross for some hours gravelly ground, with a few large white projecting stones; after which you descend into the valley called Ágaten, where, near a well, you pass the hours of the greatest heat.

7th. Ténsif; arrive before the ʿaser.

8th. Iferwán, one of the finest valleys of Aïr, with a village of the same name, and plenty of date-trees bearing excellent fruit. Arrive at sunset, after having passed a number of small valleys called Aghítam.

9th. Tídik, a valley, with a village of the same name, where you arrive before the ʿaser, after having passed the well called Néggaru.

10th. Súf méllel, “the white sand,” a place in the gravelly ground, over which your route lies the whole day; arrive about ʿaser.

11th. Zelíl, an inhabited spot, where you arrive about one o’clock P.M., after having passed valleys called respectively Ageléndi, Fadé, and Merátha. (N.B. The valley can be called by this last name only by the Arabs.)

12th. Ifígi or Ifíne-makkéder, called by others Ifíne-bákka, where you arrive at sunset, after having marched the whole day over a pebbly plain called by the Arabs “Shʿabet el Ahír.” The reason why this plain received such a remarkable name was evidently because it was here, in the neighbourhood of the hill Máket-n-ikelán[210], that the ancient Góber country of Asben was changed into the Berber country of Aïr, or, as the Arabs call it, Ahír.

13th. You encamp on the Hammáda, where there is a little herbage, after having crossed a rocky ground full of pebbles, and having passed a valley called Tiyúten.

14th. You encamp at one o’clock P.M. on a spot with a little herbage of the species called “el hád,” after having crossed a stony tract called by the people Tim-ázgaren.

15th. Néswa, a well, not far west of the well Asïu, where you arrive after the ʿaser, after having crossed a valley called Tafsástan.

16th. Teráf, a place on the Hammáda, where you encamp at the ʿaser.

17th. Tin-terámbe, a valley, with a famous cavern called Aʿagídet e’ Níb, where you arrive at the ʿaser, proceeding always on the Hammáda.

18th. Encamp at sunset between sand-hills called by the Arabs “el Ark,” or “Irk” (the Hills).

19th. Tageréra, a valley, where you arrive about one o’clock P.M., after having entered a mountainous tract called “Aghíl.”

20th. El Ághsul, a valley with water, where you arrive a little after noon, after having passed over rugged ground called Esfaméllesa.

21st. Tékderen, a valley, where you arrive after the ʿaser.

22nd. Egháraghén, a valley, where you arrive at the time of the ʿaser, after having crossed a flat plain covered with pebbles.

23rd. Zérzer, a valley with water; arrival at the ʿaser. The ground of the same character.

24th. Ifék, a valley; arrival at the ʿaser. Country the same.

25th. _El Imkám_[211], a valley, where you arrive at one o’clock P.M., pebbly ground.

26th. Ágnar, a plain inclosed by ridges; arrive at the ʿaser, after having kept first along the valley which is called by the Arabs el Imkám, and leads into another valley called Temághaset, from which you enter upon the plain.

27th. Turaghén, a valley, where you encamp about the ʿaser, after having crossed another valley called Utúl, into which you descend from the gravelly level.

28th. Tílak, a valley; where you arrive after the ʿaser, having crossed another valley called Éheri.