Narrative of a Mission to Central Africa Performed in the Years 1850-51 Volume Ii Part 3

News from Barth--Camels restored--Expensive Journey--Proposed Migration of Males--Supply of Slaves, whence--A new Well--Pagans and Christians--Tibboo Manners--The great Gong--When is a Tibboo hungry?--Hunger-belt--Queen of England in the Sahara--The Shanbah--A hasty Marriage--Sad's new Wife--Wild Cauliflowers--Tolerance of the Kailouees--Men go to fetch Salt from Bilma--Approach of Dr.

Barth--Lion's Mouth--Tibboos and Kailouees--Mysteries of Tintalous--Fewness of Men in Aheer--Trees preserved in the Valley--Bright Stars--Method of Salutation--Purposed Stars--Kailouee Character--Champagne at Tintalous--The Wells.

_Oct. 22d._--A letter was received this morning from Dr. Barth. It appears that the treaty will not be signed, nor even presented to the Sultan. En-Noor paid me a visit, as usual, this morning. I presented to his highness some old boxes, with which he ordered a door to be made for his palace. His politeness does not cease, and the graciousness with which he receives my presents is really remarkable.

The man sent after our camels brought back my poor white maharee, and demanded ten dollars (as good as twenty to me) for his trouble. I refused to give them, preferring to let him have the camel, which is hardly worth ten dollars. This manner of recovering our lost or stolen camels amounts to buying them over again. But it has been our misfortune all along, that our friends, and those who profess to be such, and all who attempt to aid us--every one of them, have profited by our losses, and the disasters which have befallen us. This dispute has been referred to En-Noor, and they have accepted five dollars, which I offered them.

I this day made out the statement of the princ.i.p.al items of expenditure which the expedition has incurred from Mourzuk to Tintalous, including the escort to Zinder. It amounts to the enormous sum of three thousand mahboubs, or about six hundred pounds sterling!! If we do not proceed better than this on the future part of the journey, the expedition will at any rate be bankrupt and ruined for want of funds.

_23d._--Yusuf and I brought before Overweg this morning the necessity of his a.s.sisting in relieving the Government from the double payment of the sums advanced by the Sfaxee. He agreed that it was highly important to save this money, and promised to place his goods at my disposal for sale in Soudan.

On the departure of the caravan for Zinder and Kanou every male inhabitant will leave Tintalous, some starting with it and others going for salt, leaving only the women and children behind. This is considered by the Moors as preferable to leaving a few men behind, because these few would occasion quarrels amongst the women, and, besides, excite the jealousy of the absent husbands.

Most of the men who go with us to Damerghou and forward to Tesaoua will find another wife and family in both these places. This is a regular emigration of males, not the accidental departure of fathers and husbands. These gentlemen pa.s.s half the year in Soudan and half in Aheer. The system does not appear to be advantageous to the increase of population: the wives of these birds of pa.s.sage hardly bear two children a-piece. Indeed there are very few children in Tintalous. We have not yet sufficient data or experience for a conclusion on this part of statistics; but, up to the present, all that we have seen in Africa during this journey exhibits it as singularly miserable and dest.i.tute of population. We can hear of no man, not even a sultan with his fifty female slaves, having more than four or five children. As for the poor, one or two are all that they can bring up.

Whence, then, comes the supply of slaves? So far as this part of Africa is concerned I may observe, in reply, that the annual number of slaves brought is exceedingly limited, amounting only to a few thousands. When we get nearer the western coast, we shall probably be able to account for the supplies of slaves which are transported across the Atlantic.

This afternoon a well was commenced near our tents. The digging of a well is an important matter; his highness En-Noor, therefore, vouchsafed his presence. A number of the excavators came to me to beg for sugar. I brought out a piece of white loaf sugar, and broke it into thirty pieces or so; then ordered one of them to divide it fairly amongst themselves: but this was impossible. Anything like fairness amongst the Kailouees, all of whom are addicted to thieving (a habit acquired from Soudan), was out of the question. As soon as I rose from the ground, after breaking the sugar on a leathern ap.r.o.n, there was a general rush upon it, and some got a great deal and others none. Was not this a fine miniature picture of mankind?

_24th._--En-Noor paid me a very early visit, and drank coffee. I heard that a courier to Mourzuk would cost forty dollars. I begin to learn a little Soudanese; there are some beautiful soft words in it. Yusuf says there is no name for G.o.d in this language; but his statement requires further examination.

From what we learn respecting Barth's reception at Aghadez, it would appear that the people were disposed to look upon him with the same complacency as they are wont to regard the pagans, or En-sara as they call them, of Gouber and Maradee. Indeed, the Tanelk.u.ms and Kailouees consider that we shall be well received by our brethren, the pagans of Soudan.

Here is a most extraordinary trait of the barbarity of the Tibboos. It often happens that they are out foraging for twenty days without finding anything to eat. If they light upon the bones of a dead camel, they take them and pound them to dust; this done, they bleed their own living camels (maharees) from the eye, and of the blood and powdered bones they make a paste, which they eat! This is somewhat a.n.a.logous to what Bruce relates of the Abyssinians cutting out beefsteaks from the rump of a live bullock. The Tibboos possess the finest maharees; and the breed in the rest of the Sahara is always being improved or kept up by a constant supply from their country.

I continue to supply his highness En-Noor with either tea or coffee every day. I sent him some early this morning. He is a greedy old dog, and will not buy a loaf of sugar because I will not give it him at the price of Mourzuk, and thus lose the freight. I hold out, and we have sold him none for the present.

Overweg is making a small commercial lexicon of the things brought to the market of Kanou: a most excellent idea. I myself intend, if I go to Kanou, to make a list of all the things I find in the Souk, with some account of their produce and mode of importation into that mart.

The great gong sounded throughout the village this afternoon, to give note of preparation to all the people, that every one of the males must be ready to leave this place in the course of three or four days. The Sheikh says he is determined to leave in three days, whether the people come from Aghadez or not. Yusuf laid before En-Noor this evening the necessity of our sending a courier to Mourzuk, stating that we had nothing left. His highness pitied our case, and said he would look about for a courier; observing, "The Consul has need of much money and many presents in Soudan." He said, also, that he would recommend us to go to Bornou.

_25th._--The days are now pretty hot, and the nights correspondingly cool. We have a good deal of wind. I wrote a letter to Drs. Overweg and Barth jointly, calling upon them to a.s.sist me in case the Sfaxee would not wait for his money until the return of the courier. Dr. Overweg consents. I wrote out the Tuarick alphabet.

The account of the Tibboos pounding the camels' bones and bleeding their animals to make paste, is confirmed by the Gatronee of the Germans.[4]

He says, moreover, that this is the way in which they proceed. Every Tibboo must fast three days before he thinks about eating. If on the fourth day he do not arrive at the _belad_, or country, he then takes his left sandal from his foot, and stews or soddens it, making something of a soup. These sandals being leather, or untanned hide, it is, perhaps, not impossible to make of them a palatable soup! If on the fifth day he find no village, he then devours the sandal of his right foot. After this, still not finding a village, he collects bleached camels' bones and bleeds his camel as before mentioned.

[4] People are called here by the nation, and even town, to which they belong, or in which they were born, as sometimes in Europe.

A Tibboo always has a girdle with seven knots, and when travelling hard takes in, as the sailors would say, a reef every day; if after seven days he find nothing to eat, he is considered hungry and unfortunate.

The three Tuaricks who followed us from the well of Aisou declared that they had had nothing to eat for fifteen days; and there cannot be a doubt of the fact, that both the Tibboos and the Tuaricks can, on a pinch, remain without food for a considerable time--say ten or twelve days.

A Tuatee, who knows Algiers well, arrived here this afternoon, and is going with us to Zinder. He brings an extraordinary report about the copy of the treaty which I left with Haj Ahmed at Ghat. He says he heard it read, and from it learned that "the Queen of England is now in Tripoli, and wishes to come and live in Ghat, and has offered to buy half Ghat." Such is the nature of Saharan reports.

More authentic intelligence arrived to-day by a courier, who made the journey from Ghat to Seloufeeat in fourteen days--sufficiently quick.

This courier brings a warning from Khanouhen to the caravans now proceeding to Ghat, not to come in twos or threes, as they were wont, but to come altogether, as he fears reprisals from the Shanbah and the Haghar.

The history of the thing is this:--A tribe of Tuaricks has always acted as the guides of the Shanbah in their foraging parties--on the Tuarick territory, for example--always pointing out to them the camels of the people of Ghat. Khanouhen has chastised this treacherous tribe, destroying a great many of them; but the Shanbah and Haghar not choosing to desert their old friends, have determined to take vengeance upon the Ghat Tuaricks. It is this revenge which Khanouhen fears. He antic.i.p.ates a combined attack on the caravans. The wonder is how these routes are kept open at all, when these distant tribes, who have no interest in the commerce that moves along them, are notorious for their predatory feelings and education. It is now said that the Fadeea, our friends on the frontier, are in league with the Shanbah against the Ghat Tuaricks.

En-Noor, it appears, had sent his son to salute the new Sultan of Aghadez, and to a.s.sist in establis.h.i.+ng or placing him on his throne. He got as far as Asoudee, when he fell in love with a pretty woman of the town, and at once married her, proceeding no farther on his mission.

Yesterday evening a man arrived mounted on a maharee, bringing with him all the finery of the bride, which he exhibited to the people, riding about the town! All were greatly astonished at the splendour of the bride's dowry. Are not these fit materials for an Arabian Night's entertainment? My servant, Sad, also married the other evening, but not so romantically; taking up with the divorced wife of another freed black. I heard nothing of it until all was over. The parties guessed rightly that I should take no interest in the matter, or rather disapprove of it, as the fellow has abandoned his own and natural wife.

This divorced negress, who has at last found a master, has gone the round of all the tents since she has parted from her former husband, and is a little intriguing wretch. The Sfaxee and Yusuf countenanced the affair, but kept it quite unknown to me. They, however, fetched Overweg, and presented him with a portion of the marriage-supper--bazeen. I felt much disgusted on hearing of the affair. The old wife is a native of Kanemboo, and is going thither. She will, of course, gladly take leave of her husband and this young wife and rival. Marriage is an excessively loose tie here, at any rate amongst the poor. The rich pretend to respect marriage.

We have all done little in clearing up difficulties, or obtaining correct information of the Tuaricks of the Sahara. No good informants are to be found. From the Sheikhs of Ghat it is quite impossible to learn anything. We hope to get some information from a Tanelk.u.m now going with us. Many tribes have been mentioned, casually; but the princ.i.p.al are--the three great tribes of Ghat, those to which Khanouhen, Shafou, Jabour, and Hateetah belong--a tribe in Janet--the Haghar of Ghamama--the Isokamara, located on the Tuat route from Aisou--the Tanelk.u.ms of Fezaan--the Maraga, a breed produced from the slaves of the Haghar and the Sorgou of Timbuctoo.

_26th._--The sky is now frequently cloudy, but no rain falls. The valley of Tintalous is looking fresh, on account of the great quant.i.ty of wild cauliflower overspreading its surface, called by the Arabs _liftee_.

This word _liftee_, is evidently derived from _lift_, "turnip." The vegetable grows in lines and circles, determined apparently by the action of the water, which deposits the seeds. No use is made of this wild cabbage; it is very bitter, and no animals even eat it.

En-Noor paid me a visit this morning before I was up; he drank some coffee, and went off to see his camels. The Tanelk.u.ms were quite wrong in their surmisings about En-Noor and his religious fanaticism. He has shown less fanaticism than any prince with whom we have had yet anything to do during the present journey. All the Kailouees of Tintalous are equally tolerant. We have now three quasi-princes, or sons of sultans, in Tintalous, besides the son of En-Noor. We have Mousa Waled Haj-Ali, who takes our despatches to Mourzuk, with Yusuf my interpreter, and a Tibboo, the son of the Sultan of Kouvar. As we proceed onwards, princes and sons of princes will thicken upon us.

_27th._--I packed up and sent off all my despatches to Mourzuk, together with a few trifling things for my poor wife, by the hand of Mousa Waled Haj-Ali, the virtual Sheikh of the Tanelk.u.ms.

_28th._--All the male inhabitants, with the exception of five or six, have gone off this morning to fetch salt from Bilma. They return here in the course of a month, and the greater part of the salt is transported from hence to Soudan by the next caravan. We have heard of our friends at Aghadez. They are expected here in a few days. The new Sultan of Aghadez is said--but there is little accuracy in these desert reports--to have gone on an expedition west, to settle some differences between some tribes in arms against one another. The people also say that the new Sultan is "hungry," and is glad of such an opportunity to get "something to eat." This is the way in which they would describe a Chancellor of the Exchequer planning a new tax.

Some say the object of the razzia is to chastise the Fadeea for attacking us; but still the main object is to fill the Sultan's "own hungry belly." Such are Asbenouee politics.

_Bakin-Zakee_, the Soudanese name of the Kailouee green cap, I know here means the "_lion's mouth_." This is the phrase with which I always salute Zangheema, En-Noor's chief slave; but the terms are much more appropriate for his master, as intimating his avaricious, nay voracious, disposition. Zangheema, however, might be called "Karen Zakee,"

the jackal of the lion, or "the lion's provider," so anxious is he to minister to the voracious appet.i.te of his lord.

We have received the news that Dr. Barth is near. He is expected to-morrow evening, or early next day.

_29th._--En-Noor paid me a visit at sunset to-day, and talked of how many children people had in this country. His highness said he knew a sultan in Soudan who had seven hundred children.

_30th._--The Gatronee of the Germans confirms the report of the circ.u.mstance, that, when the Kailouees go to the Tibboos to trade for salt, all the male Tibboos run away, leaving all the business in the hands of the females; which latter, besides trading in salt with the Kailouees, make a good mercantile speculation with their charms. Each woman, in fact, has her Kailouee husband or lover, during the carrying on of this singular commerce. If the traders catch a single Tibboo man staying behind, they at once murder him, with the most marked approbation of the Tibboo women. Such is the state of connubial fidelity in this part of the Sahara.

The Tibboos have been very greatly neglected by persons writing on Africa, chiefly on account of the slighting, summary way in which they are spoken of by the members of the former English expedition to Bornou.

They are, however, divided into a great number of tribes, are spread over a considerable extent of country, and are partly the guardians of the Bornou route. We must pay them some attention when they come under our observation.

There is a man come from Dr. Barth and his party. They are expected in the course of forty-eight hours. En-Noor is very angry that they do not mend their pace. We are all ready to start. An immense caravan is waiting for their arrival.

_31st._--The people begin to pester me to marry another wife in Soudan,--one very young and with large b.r.e.a.s.t.s is the kind of article they recommend.

The mysteries of Tintalous are celebrated at the well in the evening, under the bright, glowing light of Venus, which star is now seen a couple of hours above the horizon after sunset. On the margin of the well, which is on the other side of the wady, at the distance of a quarter of a mile, the damsels of Tintalous regularly meet their lovers, and spend with them half an hour of sweet communion. Some even retire to the shade of a large-spreading tholukh near, or behind blocks of rock rising on the edge of the valley, and indulge in lawful or unlawful embraces. The strangers who come here, the Moors of Tripoli and Fezzan, are freely initiated into these mysteries.

I am told by our servants, who have been round to all the villages or towns in the neighbourhood of Tintalous for the purchase of ghaseb, that these places, small or large, are none of them equal to Tintalous, although the houses are much the same--bell-shaped huts, and the people are of the same character. What has greatly astonished our servants is the fewness of the men; indeed, in some villages they saw no other persons but women and children, and scarcely any children. What is the cause of this? It would seem that the men are consumed by the women.

These women bear few children, and perhaps this may in part account for, if it be not produced by, their excessive licentiousness. Yet the men are on the wing a great part of the year. The Kailouees, however, wherever they go, have their women at hand, and during a journey many of them take two or three female slaves. How is this superabundant supply of the softer s.e.x kept up? If I am noticing a mere temporary phenomenon, the destruction of men in the razzias may account for the disproportion.

Besides, the Kailouees are always imparting fresh slaves into their country.

The poor people of Tintalous are fed chiefly on the pounded grains of the herb _bou rekaba_. It is a real Asbenouee dish. Overweg made a supper of it one evening. I tasted it, and find it has a very strong flavour of herbs; that is to say, what is commonly imagined to be the flavour of herbs in general. The people now go a long way for wood. The tholukh-trees of the valley are not allowed to be cut down; they are always preserved as a resource for the time of drought and dearth, when the flocks can find no herbage in the valley. The boughs are at such junctures lopped off, and the flocks are fed on the leaves. Thus I have seen the goats and sheep fed on the tholukh-leaves on the plains of Mourzuk, as well as near this place. Another reason may induce En-Noor to save the tholukh-trees,--that there may be a perpetual shade and verdure in the valley of Tintalous. There are many finer valleys than this in Asben, and were the trees not preserved, it would be a very barren, unlively spot.

This evening, two hours after sunset, Venus exhibited her most splendid phasis: the west, where she was setting, about half-an-hour before she disappeared, was lit up as if it was moonlight. On concealing the planet, the effect produced was that of the setting of the moon. Every star was eclipsed in the western circle of the heavens, I never saw anything before equal to this. I could here fully realise the words of Scripture, that the stars were made also "to give light upon the earth."

The manner of saluting and shaking hands amongst the Kailouees deserves notice: they first hold up the right hand with the palm outspread, like the Tuaricks of Ghat. Afterwards, when more companionable and familiar, they take hold of hands, and press them lightly some five or six times or more, if great friends, and conclude this pressing of the hand with a sort of jerk, drawing quickly off each other's hand. In taking hold of the hand of your friend, you fit your thumb in the circle formed by his thumb and fingers, and every time you press his hand, and he presses yours, you separate the hands from each other.[5]

[5] This mode of shaking hands is common among the Fellahs of Egypt.--ED.

_Nov. 1st._--The month has set in with wind,--not gusts, but steady wind, continually blowing from E.N.E. It is stated positively that we leave here to-morrow morning, whether the people return or not from Aghadez. I register all reports as I hear them, though perfectly aware that we have not been yet quite let into the secret of the singular migration in which we are about to bear a part. The greater number of the men of Tintalous have gone to Bilma in search of salt; and I originally understood that the great annual caravan was for the transport of this necessary article. Perhaps En-Noor means to go slowly on, just to keep us in good humour. Our intercourse with the Kailouees has taught us to consider them a very mild, companionable race. Often indeed, like children, I wonder what the Tibboos can see in them to make them so desperately afraid, for I am told ten Kailouees will frighten away fifty Tibboos of Bilma. But the Tibboos of Tibesty are considered a braver race. It is worthy of remark, that these cowardly Tibboos have a bad character, and, like most cowards, are very treacherous.

I determined not to carry the little box in which the two bottles of champagne were packed any further; so I, Overweg, Yusuf, and the servants, set to work and drank a bottle of it, to the toast, "that we might have better luck higher up than all have hitherto experienced."