Part 26

I was reclining in the afternoon upon my simple couch, occupied in reading, when I received a visit from three persons. One of them was a man of apparently Negro origin, showing, by his wrinkled countenance, a career of trouble and misfortune, but having otherwise nothing very remarkable about him. It was Háj Áhmed, of Bámbara origin, and formerly an inhabitant of Tawát, but who after a number of vicissitudes, having first been employed in the gold diggings of Bambúk, and afterwards been engaged on small trading expeditions from Tawát to Timbúktu (where he had been twice robbed by the Tawárek), and from the same place to Ágades and Kanó, had at last settled at Medína. From thence he had accompanied the warlike expedition of Íbrahím Bashá, had fought in the battles of ʿAkká and Deraije, and had been sent on several journeys as far as Basra and Baghdád, and at present being employed as servant at the great Mosque, had been dispatched to this country in order to obtain from its sultan a present of eunuchs for the temple of Medína. The second was a venerable-looking man, with a fine countenance, and a bushy half-silvery beard. This man was the religious chief of Bídderí, a place of which I shall speak hereafter.

The third visitor was Fáki Sámbo, a very tall and slender Púllo, with a scanty beard, and an expressive countenance, except that it lacked the most important feature which enlivens the human face, he being totally blind. At that time, however, I did not know him, although, when I heard him convey a considerable degree of knowledge in a lively and impressive manner, I almost suspected he might be the man of whom I had heard so much. I was puzzled, however, at his first question, which was, whether the Christians did not belong to the Bení Ísrʿayíl; that is to say, to the Jews.

This was the first conversation I had with this man, who alone contributed to make my stay in the place endurable. I could scarcely have expected to find in this out-of-the-way place a man not only versed in all the branches of Arabic literature, but who had even read (nay, possessed a manuscript of) those portions of Aristotle and Plato which had been translated into, or rather Mohammedanized in Arabic, and who possessed the most intimate knowledge of the countries which he had visited. His forefathers, belonging to that tribe of the Fúlbe which is called Fittobe, had emigrated into the southern parts of Wádáy, where they settled in the village of Bárek-alla. When he was a young man, his father, who himself possessed a good deal of learning, and who had written a work on Háusa, had sent him to Egypt, where he had studied many years in the mosque of El Ázhar. It had then been his intention to go to the town of Zebíd in Yemen, which is famous amongst the Arabs on account of the science of logarithms, or el hesáb; but when he had reached Gunfúda, the war which was raging between the Turks and the Wahábíye had thwarted his projects, and he had returned to Dár Fúr, where he had settled down some time, and had accompanied a memorable expedition to the south-west as far as the borders of a large river, of which I shall have another occasion to speak. Having then returned to Wádáy, he had played a considerable part as courtier in that country, especially during the reign of ʿAbd el ʿAzíz, till the present king, Mohammed e’ Sheríf, on account of his intimate relation with the prince just mentioned, had driven him from his court and banished him from the country.

After having once made the acquaintance of this man, I used to visit him daily; and he was always delighted to see, or rather to hear me, for he had nobody with whom he could talk about the splendour and achievements of the Khalifat, from Baghdád to Ándalos (Spain)—particularly of the latter country, with the history of whose towns, kings, and literary men he was intimately acquainted. He listened with delight when I once mentioned the astrolabe or sextant; and he informed me with pride that his father had been in possession of such an instrument, but that for the last twenty years he had not met a single person who knew what sort of thing an astrolabe was.

He was a very enlightened man, and in his inmost soul a Wahábi; and he gave me the same name, on account of my principles. I shall never forget the hours I passed in cheerful and instructive conversation with this man; for the more unexpected the gratification was, the greater, naturally, was the impression which it made upon me. Unluckily he died about a year after I left the country. In general it was I who called upon him, when he used to treat me with a very good cold rice pudding, and with dates from Kánem, which were rather of an inferior description; but when he came to me, I used to regale him with a cup of coffee, which was a great treat to him, carrying him back to more civilized regions, and he never omitted to press the cup to each of his temples. The only drawback to my intercourse with this man was, that he was as anxious to obtain information from me with regard to the countries of the Christians, and those parts of the world with which he was less acquainted, as I was to be instructed by him; besides that, he had a great deal of business, being occupied with the Sheríyʿa or Mohammedan law. He had a singular predilection for emetics; and he begged me so urgently to favour him with this treat, that in the course of a few weeks I gave him more than half a dozen for himself, besides those I was obliged to supply to his family. He suffered from bilious affections, and thought that emetics were the best remedies in the world.

Besides this man and Háj Áhmed, the man with whom I had most frequent intercourse during my stay in this country was Slímán, a travelling Arab sheríf, as he called himself, but in reality a Felláh, a native of Egypt, at present settled in Mekka, who had roved about a great deal, was very polite in his manners, and, although not a very learned man, possessed a certain degree of general information, especially with regard to the countries of Wádáy and Dár Fúr (where he had made a longer stay), and, having been assisted on his journey to Constantinople by Mr. Brand, Her Majesty’s consul at Smyrna, had a certain degree of attachment to Europeans.

But the greatest amount of information which I obtained, principally with regard to the country of Wádáy, proceeded from a young native of that country of the name of Íbrahím (the fáki Íbrahím), of the tribe of the Ábú-Shárib, with whom I passed several hours every day very pleasantly and usefully, and who attached himself so much to my person that I would freely have taken him with me to Sókoto, where he wanted to go in order to improve his learning under the tuition of the Fúlbe.

My relations with the lieutenant-governor were rather cool; and after he had given me a first treat, he left me for some days without any sign of hospitality, except that he once sent me a quantity of the fruit of the bíto tree or hájilíj, which I returned. He was a man without much intelligence, and had no idea of the scientific researches of a European.

Having but little exercise, I became very ill towards the end of this month, so that I thought it prudent to abstain entirely from food for five days, living exclusively upon an infusion of the fruit of the tamarind-tree and onions seasoned with some honey and a strong dose of black pepper,—a sort of drink which must appear abominable to the European, but which is a delightful treat to the feverish traveller in those hot regions. Convinced that my stay in this place, if I were not allowed to travel about, would be too trying for my constitution, I requested the lieutenant-governor to allow me to retrace my steps westward; but he would not consent, upon any condition whatever, that I should stir from the place.

This unfavourable disposition towards me assumed by degrees a more serious character, as, being unable to understand my pursuits, he could not but become suspicious of what I was doing. On the 21st of June when I was quietly sitting in my house, one of his servants, Agíd Músa, who was well disposed towards me, and who used to call occasionally, suddenly made his appearance with a very serious countenance, and after some hesitation, and a few introductory remarks, delivered a message from the governor to the following effect. He wanted to know from me whether it was true (as was rumoured in the town, and as the people had told him) that, as soon as a thunderstorm was gathering, and when the clouds appeared in the sky, I went out of my house and made the clouds withdraw; for they had assured him that they had repeatedly noticed that, as soon as I looked at the clouds with a certain air of command, they passed by without bringing a single drop of rain.

However serious the countenance of the messenger was, the purport of his message was so absurdly ridiculous that I could not help breaking out into a loud laugh, highly amused at the really pagan character of these _soi-disant_ Mohammedans; but my friend begged me to regard the matter in a more serious light, and to take care what sort of answer I sent to his master. I then begged him to tell the governor that no man either by charm or by prayer was able either to prevent or to cause rain, but that God sent rain wherever and whenever it pleased him. I added, however, that if he believed my presence in the country was causing mischief, he might allow me to go, that I did not desire anything better than that, and should then pray night and day for rain, but that at present I myself could not wish for much rain, as I was afraid lest it should cut off my retreat, by swelling the river to too great a height.

The messenger departed with my answer, and returned after a while with the _ultimatum_ of the governor, to the effect that it was his own opinion that no human being was able to prevent rain, but that all of us were servants of the Almighty, and that as they were praying for rain, I myself should add my prayer to theirs; I should then be allowed, at the proper time, to depart from them in safety, but that if I was ill- disposed towards them he likewise would do me evil, informing me at the same time that, for a similar reason, they had once killed two great religious chiefs from Bídderí.

Such was the character of the people with whom I had to deal, although they regarded themselves as enlightened Mohammedans. In order to show his good disposition, or most probably rather in order to see whether his good treatment of me would have any effect upon the amount of rain (as he seemed to take me for a “king of the high regions”), he sent me in the evening a dish of an excellent pudding, with plenty of butter, and a small pot of medíde, or gruel seasoned with the fruit of the dúm- palm, and even promised me corn for my horse; but as I did not send him rain in return, as he seemed to have expected, his hospitality did not extend further.

It had been my custom, when a thunderstorm was gathering, to look out, in order to see from what quarter it was proceeding, which is a question of great interest in these regions; but the absurd superstition of these people so alarmed me, that I scarcely dared to do so again. With regard to the superstition of the natives I must here mention a case which happened to my friend Sámbo. One day while I was engaged in earnest talk with him respecting the many sects of Islám, our conversation was suddenly interrupted by one of the daughters of the sultan entering abruptly, and accusing my friend, in the most offensive terms, of having abstracted from her, by his witchcraft, one of her slaves. But it was rather astonishing that a man with so vast an amount of learning was allowed to live at all, in the midst of such barbarians as these, without being continually suspected of sorcery and witchcraft. I shall not forget the day when I went to call on my friend, and found the unfortunate blind old man, sitting in his courtyard, in the midst of a heap of manuscripts which he could then only enjoy by touching them with his hands. Involuntarily I was reminded of a saying of Jackson’s, that the time would come when the texts of the classics would be emendated from manuscripts brought from the interior of Negroland.[42] From the very beginning, when I became aware of the character of these people, I had taken the greatest precautions; and hearing that the privilege of using a carpet was restricted to certain officers, I had stowed my old carpet away, although my couch, being on the bare ground, was not very soft.

The market, or “kaskú,”[43] occupied a great deal of my time and of my thoughts during my monotonous stay in this place, not so much on account of its importance as of my own poverty, as I was compelled to become a retail dealer on the smallest scale; for, hardly possessing anything except a small quantity of needles, I was obliged to send one of my servants daily to the market, in order to endeavour, by means of that very trifling article of European industry, to obtain the currency of the country. The currency of Bagírmi consists in strips of cotton, or fárda, like those which I have described on my journey to Ádamáwa—of very irregular measures, longer or shorter, in general of two “drʿa” length, and a hand in width—but of very different quality. Larger articles are bought and sold with shirts, “khalag (_pl._ kholgán”), as they are called by the Arabs, “bol,” as they are called by the natives, the value of which, according to their size and quality, varies from 70 to 150 fárda. I obtained a fárda for one large English darning-needle, or for four common German needles; but afterwards I doubled the price. Besides these I had very little left, with the exception of a few looking-glasses of that round kind which are sold in Lyons for one _sou_ each, and which I sold here for the high price of one shirt or “khalag,” while a better sort of looking-glass, bought in London for eightpence, brought four khalag or kholgán, which are worth about a dollar. As for shells, called here “kemé-kemé,” they have no currency in the market, but form a merchandise by themselves, as an article of export into the pagan countries—at least those of larger size, which are in great request with the inhabitants of those countries as well as with the Welád Ráshid, it being said that 2,000 will fetch a young slave of the kind called “khomási,” and 3,000 a “sedási;” for those simple people not only wear these shells as ornaments, especially the women, who are said to cover their hinder parts with them, but they make also caps of them, with which they adorn the heads of their deceased relations, while the Welád Ráshid adorn principally the heads of their camels and horses with the favourite kemé-kemé, or “kémti,” as they are called in Wádáy.

Formerly there had been a market held only every Thursday; but a short time previous to my arrival the people had found it advantageous to have a market every day, so that there was a daily market from eight in the morning till eleven in the forenoon, and from three in the afternoon till sunset. Of course it was not very well supplied, and was confined to the mere necessaries of life, the greatest luxury it contained consisting of onions, an article which is not to be procured in every part of Central Africa. At first they were very cheap, eight being sold for a fárda; but with the approach of the rainy season they increased in price, and I thought it prudent to lay in a supply, as I found this article extremely conducive to my health. And I would advise every traveller in these regions to be always provided with this vegetable; for they may be either used for seasoning food, or cut in slices and mixed with tamarinds, making, as I have stated, a cool and refreshing drink. But the black natives, as I have already mentioned on another occasion, do not in general make use of onions for seasoning their food, their cultivation having been introduced into the country by the Arabs from the north, together with wheat. But the native Arabs, or Shíwa, and the Arabs from the coast, or Wáselí, use this vegetable to a great extent, as well for seasoning their food as for medicine, especially in case of fever, small-pox, and obstruction of urine, from which latter inconvenience they suffer very much, in consequence of their marching during the heat of the day.

Besides the articles above-mentioned, the commodity most plentiful in the market was grain, especially Guinea grain or _Pennisetum typhoïdeum_, the dealers in which had a special place assigned to them in the northern part of the market, under a fine tamarind-tree, or “más,”—the oldest part of the town,—which is even said to have given origin to the name Más-eñá, as I shall have occasion to describe further on. Besides beans (“mónjo”), and ground-nuts, called here “wúli” or “búli,” salt too (“kása”), owing to the presence of the Jelába from Wádáy, some of whom I had met on my road, was very plentiful; but it was only sold in very small portions. The same people also sold natron (“ngíllu”), which is brought by the Tebu from the border of the desert. Milk (“sí”) and butter (“búgu”) were dear, but sour milk (“sí chále”) in abundance—it is principally brought into the town by the daughters of the Bení Hassan. Honey (“téji”), which in many countries is so plentiful, is scarcely to be got at all. There were always a few head of sheep and cattle, and sometimes a few fowls were to be seen; occasionally also a horse of indifferent description made its appearance. Cotton (“ñyíre”) was rather scarce; and I did not see any indigo, “alíni.” Red pepper (“shíta”) formed a peculiar article of commerce, which was retailed in small parcels by the Bórnu traders.

The most important and almost only article of European produce (“ngásan Zaila”) consisted of beads, called “múnjo,” especially the small red ones, which are sold here in great quantities, and exported to the pagan countries. I also sold a few of the large species, called “nejúm,” of which the Shúwa are very fond. Calico, called here “shóter,” is a great rarity, and rather sold privately to the great men of the country. Kanó manufactures, called here “kálkobángri” or “ngásan degó,” form a prominent feature in the statistics of this market, especially túrkedí (“bolné”), while the Kanó and Nyffi tobes, called “bol godáni,” can only with difficulty compete with the native manufacture, the Bórnu people, or rather the Mákarí or Kótokó, having introduced into the country the art of dyeing. No slaves (“béli”) were brought into the market, all being sold in the houses, a circumstance which seemed to indicate a certain feeling of decency; but at a later period this article was by no means wanting in the market.

Ivory is not brought into the market, but the little which is sold is disposed of in the houses; but sometimes the Arabs who visit this country do a very profitable business in this article. The price of horses in general is estimated by slaves; and the value of the latter is very low in this country, as may be inferred from what I have said above respecting the small sum paid for them in the countries towards the south: but slaves exported from here are not esteemed, as they are said to be more subject to disease than those from other countries, and generally die in a very short time. Female slaves certainly, natives of the country of Bagírmi, are highly esteemed; but as almost all the inhabitants of the country, at least outwardly, profess Islám, very few are at present sold into slavery, while formerly they were scattered all over the north of Africa, in consequence of the great slave-hunting expeditions of the Bashá of Fezzán. The Shúwa or Shíwa generally effect their purchases with cows.

Although my means when I undertook this journey were extremely small, nevertheless I had not thought it impossible that I might succeed in penetrating into Wádáy, or even in reaching the lands of the Nile; and I often indulged in the pleasure of counting over my small stock of goods, and conceived the idea how, by giving away everything I possessed, I might accomplish such an enterprise; but I soon found that I was compelled to give up all such plans, and although I think that a traveller with sufficient means, and a great deal of patience and endurance, might succeed in entering Wádáy from this side, I am sure that the ruler of that country would certainly keep him back for a whole year. I therefore only aspired at visiting some places in the neighbourhood; and I was particularly anxious to obtain a sight of that small branch of the river which, having separated from the principal trunk near the town of Miltú, approaches to within about nine miles of the capital. But the lieutenant-governor would not allow me to leave the place, neither would he suffer me to visit Ábú-Gher, which is situated at about the same distance in a N.N.W. direction, and where a considerable market is held every Saturday, although I told him that it was essential for me to go, in order to procure there my necessary supplies; and I was therefore obliged to content myself with sending my servants.

They found the market of Ábú-Gher of about the same importance as the little market or durríya in Kúkawa, with this exception, that cattle were more numerous in Ábú-Gher; and they counted about a hundred head of large beasts, and about the same number of sheep. There was a great deal of sorghum and cotton, but little Guinea corn or millet. Besides tobes, hoes for field-labour, cowries, and natron from the Bahr el Ghazál form the principal commodities. As a sort of curiosity, my servants mentioned a kind of bread or tiggra made of the fruit of the hájilíj or _Balanites Ægyptiaca_ (the “bíto” of the Kanúri), and called “sírne.” As a specimen of the great diversity of individual manners which prevails in these regions, I will here mention that the fárda in Ábú-Gher, which is the standard currency of the market, is different from that used in Más-eñá, measuring three drʿa in length and one hand in width. The village of Ábú-Gher consists of two separate groups divided by a vale or depression, where the market is held, and containing a considerable proportion of Fúlbe or Felláta inhabitants, who were the founders of the village.