An Account Of Timbuctoo And Housa Territories In The Interior Of Africa Part 17

271 Much might be done if all the African societies were to unite their interest, knowledge, and abilities for this desired object. If the African Company would unite their energies with the African a.s.sociation, and with the African Inst.i.tution, such an union would promote the civilisation of the African continent, and the conversion of the Negroes to Christianity.

ARCHITECTURE OF THE MOSQUES.

The architecture of this country is of the Gothic character. The mosques are built somewhat like our churches: the body of the mosques are covered with green glazed tiles; the steeples are invariably an exact square, the sides being ten or twelve feet, not tapering as those of Coventry, but the top having the same dimensions as the base. At the top is erected a smaller square, with a flag-staff similar to a gallows, to which is suspended every day at noon, a white flag, the signal of preparation for prayers; but on Fridays, the Muhamedan Sabbath, a dark-blue one is subst.i.tuted for the same purpose. Some of the mosques are paved with white and black chequered marble, some are tessellated pavements, consisting of white, blue, and green glazed tiles, about two inches square, a very pretty mode of paving, extremely clean, and has a very cool appearance; others are terra.s.sed, which is lime 272 and small stones beaten down with wooden mallets. They excel in the art of making terras. The houses are all flat roofed, so as to resist the heaviest rains: the declivity of the terra.s.ses is so imperceptible, that it is just sufficient to give the rains a tendency to the great conduit or pipe that leads to the mitfere underneath the house, which is underground, and has a terras bottom, impervious to the water. Here is collected water sufficient for the family or household during the year; the lime that washes into the mitfere from the terra.s.sed roof, purifies the water, and preserves it from worms and other insects. They have no ornaments in their mosques; but the place where the Mufti or Fakeer reads prayers, is covered with mats or carpets; the rest of the floor is bare, and the respective individuals prostrate themselves on the bare floor, or on an antelope's or _Elhorreh_[180] skin, or the skin of a lion or tiger, prepared in a superior manner by the tanners at Marocco, the leather of which is made soft as silk, and white as snow.

[Footnote 180: For a description of this curious animal, see Jackson's Marocco, page 83, Chapter on Zoology.]

The bodies of the dead are never laid in the mosques or near them, but are invariably carried out of the town, to some coba[181] in 273 the vicinity. The bodies of the dead are washed, and covered with lawn, and placed on an oblong wooden machine, resembling a box without a cover, called a _kiffen;_ it has four legs about six inches long, to uphold it from the ground, and two horizontal projections at each end, to place on the shoulders of four men, generally the nearest relations of the deceased, who thus carry the body to the grave, chaunting with the whole company, amounting sometimes to some hundreds, _La Allah, ila Allah wa Muhamed Ra.s.sule Allah_, "There is no G.o.d but G.o.d, and Muhamed is the prophet of G.o.d." This repet.i.tion may appear extraordinary to the English reader; but let it be observed that the Muhamedans never use the p.r.o.noun for the name of the Omnipotent, but invariably the noun.

The body is taken out of the bier, and laid in the ground, the face upwards, without any coffin or box, the legs towards Mecca, and then covered with earth, so that it might, at the resurrection, rise with its eyes towards (_El Kaaba_) Muhamed's mausoleum. No money is paid for the ground, nor is any expense paid for a monument: a stick or a stone stands erect at the head, and another 274 at the feet. If the deceased lived a moral, inoffensive, and exemplary life, the public, at its own expense, oftentimes erects (_kaba_) a cubical building with a dome at the top to the departed, and he is thence denominated (_fakeer_) a saint.

[Footnote 181: A coba is a cubical building, about forty or fifty feet square, having a dome on the top, inhabited by a fakeer; the ground adjacent to this building is consecrated for the dead, but is never inclosed. The living reverence the dead by never, riding over these grounds; but travellers, in pa.s.sing stop and repeat a fatha. When the ground has been consecrated to the dead, and the _coba_ has an inhabitant, who must be a sanctified person, he immediately a.s.sumes the name of fakeer or priest, and the building, and cemetery attached to it, becomes a _zowia_ or sanctuary.]

The palaces of this country generally consist of a perfect square wall, containing from two to forty acres of land, or more; for the imperial palace at Mequinas covers about two square miles of ground. At each corner of the square is a cubical building, with an angular top, of green glazed tiles, having four windows, one in each side; in the centre of the square is the palace, surrounded by a colonnade one or two stories high. The pavement is either tessellated or of chequered marble; some of the walls of the rooms are also tessellated with arabesque, borders, the ceilings are painted with gay colours, viz. scarlet, sky-blue, green, yellow, and orange, in arabesque, and some of them are very elegant. The houses of the opulent are diminutive imitations of the palaces. The house of (_the Talb Caduse_) the minister of the Sultan Seedi Muhamed ben Abd Allah at Marocco, is a building, elegantly neat.

Abd Rahamen ben Na.s.sar's house at MoG.o.dor, is well deserving the investigation of an European architect, and his magnificent new house at Saffee, is a model of a particular style of architecture.

Some of the houses of the princes and the military at Mequinas are 275 handsome buildings, and many of the houses of the opulent merchants at Fas, who have their commercial establishments at Timbuctoo, and other countries of Sudan, are extremely neat and truly unique, having beautiful gardens in the interior, ornamented with the choicest and most odoriferous flowers and shrubs; with fountains of running water, clear as crystal, delectable to behold in this warm climate, and such as are not to be seen in any part of Europe.

276

FRAGMENTS, NOTES, AND ANECDOTES;

_Ill.u.s.trating the Nature and Character of the Country_.

INTRODUCTION.

In recording the following Anecdotes and Fragments the naked truth is stated, without the embellishments of language, or the labour of rhetoric, which the wiser part of mankind have always approved of as the most instructive way of writing; and all such as are acquainted with books will readily agree with me, that many authors stretch, even to the prejudice of truth, from an affectation of elegance of style.

The following facts, therefore, will form the materials for a history, rather than a history itself.

The study of the _language and customs of the Arabs is the best comment upon the Old Testament_. The language of the modern Jews is little to be regarded; their dispersion into various nations, 277 having no fixed habitation, being _wholly_ addicted to their own interest, their conformation to the respective customs of the various nations through which they are dispersed; have caused them, in a great measure, to forget their ancient customs and original language, except what is preserved in the Bible and in the exercise of their religion. Whereas the Arabs have continued in the constant possession of their country many centuries, and are so tenacious of their customs and habits, that they are, at this day, the same men they were three thousand years ago. Accordingly, many of their customs, at this day, remind us of what happened among their ancestors in the days of Abraham.

_Trade with Sudan_.

1795, June 14th. Two (_Akkabas_) acc.u.mulated caravans of Gum Sudan, called in England "Turkey[182] Gum Arabic," have reached the Arab encampment of Dikna, not far from the northern confines of the Sahara; and will be at Santa Cruz, in the province of Suse, in a fortnight.

[Footnote 182: This gum is conveyed from Sudan to Alexandria, in Egypt; there it is s.h.i.+pped off for Smyrna, or Constantinople, and from thence imported into England.]

_Wrecked s.h.i.+ps_.

278 A large s.h.i.+p, supposed to be Spanish, bound to Lima, has been wrecked near Cape Noon; the cargo consists of lace, silks, linens, superfine cloths, and is estimated by the Jews, at Wedinoon, to be worth half a million of dollars.

_Wrecked s.h.i.+ps on the Coast_.

Extract of a Letter from James Jackson, and Co. at MoG.o.dor, to their correspondents in London. January, 1801.

The wine and dollars per the Perola de Setubal, wrecked on the coast of Suse, have been recovered from the Arabs, by Alkaid Hamo, the governor of Santa Cruz; and we have just received them safe by a boat. If this vessel had been wrecked on the coast of Cornwall, it is more than probable that the cargo would have been plundered.

We have presented the governor with twenty dollars, for his extraordinary energy, exertions, and great merit in the recovery of the whole of this property.

The Prosperous, Captain Driver, a southwhaler, was wrecked near Cape Noon, in 1790; the crew was redeemed by me, and brought to my house at Santa Cruz, after being upwards of two years in captivity in the Desert: and I sent them all from Santa Cruz to MoG.o.dor on mules, where, after remaining about two months, the Bull-dog sloop of war came down from Gibraltar for them, and they were sent off to her by the imperial order.

279 _Wrecked Sailors_.

English seamen that are so unfortunate as to be wrecked on the coast of Sahara, are generally better treated than the French, Italian, or Spanish, because there is a greater probability of a ransom; and because it is well known that the English admit no slaves in their own country.

_Timbuctoo Coffee_.

Coffee grows spontaneously in the vicinage of Timbuctoo, _south of the Nile Elabeed_. I sent a quant.i.ty to Mr. James Willis, formerly Consul for Senegambia: it was of a bitter taste, which is the general character of this grain before it is improved by cultivation.

_Sand Baths_.

The Arabs bury the body erect in sand, up to the chin, as a remedy for several disorders, particularly syphilis.

_Civil War common in West Barbary_.

In the provinces of Haha and Suse, particularly in the mountainous districts, intestine wars frequently prevail: kabyl against kabyl, village against village, house against house, family against 280 family. In these lamentable wars, which so continually disturb the peace of society, retaliation is considered an inc.u.mbent duty on every individual who may have lost a relation, so that the embers of hostility are thus incessantly fanned; and this lamentable revenge pervades whole clans, to the utter destruction of every humane and philanthropic propensity, converting the human race to a degradation below the beasts of the field.

_Policy of the Servants of the Emperor_.

The Bashaws, and others holding responsible situations in the empire, are continually purchasing a good name and good report at court, by courtesy to and by feeing the ministers of the Emperor to report favourably of them, whenever opportunity may offer.

Incredible sums are sometimes expended in this way.

_El_[183] _Wah El Grarbee, or the Western Oasis_.

The prince, Muley Abd Salam, elder brother of the reigning Emperor, Muley Soliman, purchased, on his return from the pilgrimage to 281 Mecca, a domain in (Santariah[184]) the Oasis of Ammon or Siwah, as a retreat; and being appointed by his father Seedi Muhamed, viceroy of the province of Suse[185], he was enabled to give succour to the Sh.e.l.luhs, inhabitants of that province, on their pilgrimage to Mecca, and to entertain them with the comforts of hospitality on their pa.s.sage through the Desert. This was the more agreeable to these Sh.e.l.luhs, because, after pa.s.sing a long journey of some thousands of miles through Sahara, they reached, at Santariah, not only a territory yielding every comfort and necessary of life, but a country wherein their own prince had authority, and wherein their own native language is spoken and understood.

[Footnote 183: In the Lybian Desert there are three _Wahs_ (or _Oasises_, as we call them): the greater, called _El Wah El Kabeer_; the lesser, called _El Wah Segrer_; and the Oasis of Ammon, called _El Wah El Grarbie_, i. e. the Wah of the West.]

[Footnote 184: The Wah of the West is also called by the Mograbines _Santariah_.]

[Footnote 185: See the map of West Barbary.]

When this prince's father, the emperor Seedi Muhamed died[186], the prince Abdsalam engaged Alkaid Hamed ben Abdsaddock, late governor of MoG.o.dor, to go to Santariah, and sell this domain for him; which he accordingly did. It is more than probable that the Sh.e.l.luhs of Siwah are an _emigration_ from Suse.

[Footnote 186: About twenty-eight years since.]

_Prostration, the etiquette of the Court of Marocco_.

282 An amba.s.sador from Great Britain was sent to the court of Marocco, during the reign of Seedi Muhamed, father of the present emperor, Soliman. On his arrival at Fas, (where the court was at that time held,) the (_Mule M'sh.o.e.r_) Master of the Audience, who was the (_Sherreef_) Prince Muley Dris, came up to the amba.s.sador and informed him, that it was customary for all persons coming into the imperial presence to take off their shoes, and to prostrate themselves. To these ceremonies the amba.s.sador objected, alleging that he was received by the king his master with his shoes on; and that he presumed the Emperor, on a proper representation being made to him, would not exact from him greater obedience than he paid to his own sovereign. The master of the audience reported the interpretation of the amba.s.sador's remarks to his imperial master.

The emperor paused, and (insinuating that the amba.s.sador was somewhat presumptuous in placing a Christian king on a par with a Muselman emperor) commanded the prince to dismiss the amba.s.sador for that time, till the following day. In the interim, the Emperor urged the master of the audience to make diligent inquiry how the Christians conducted themselves in the act of prayer before the Almighty G.o.d; and whether they then uncovered their feet, and prostrated themselves, as Muhamedans did. The morning following, the master of audience procured the necessary information respecting this point, and acquainted the Emperor that the English 283 Christians, like the Jews, prayed erect; but that they uncovered their heads, and bowed at the name of Jesus of Nazareth. "Go, then," replied the emperor, "and let the amba.s.sador be presented to me without uncovering his feet, and without prostration; for I cannot require more obeisance from a foreigner, than he himself pays to Almighty G.o.d."

_Ma.s.sacre of the Jews_, _and Attack on Algiers_.

In the year 1806, when Algiers was attacked by the Arabs of the mountains, and by the inhabitants of the plains, the Jews of the city were ma.s.sacred. It was suggested to the present Emperor of Marocco that a favourable opportunity now offered to subdue Algiers, and add it to the empire: but the Emperor replied, "That it was wiser to secure and keep together all those provinces that his father had left him, than to endeavour by _uncertain and expensive_ warfare to extend his dominions, by invading a neighbouring nation."

_Treaties with Muhamedan Princes_.

Treaties of peace and commerce between the Muselmen princes and Christian powers, are regarded by the former no longer than it is 284 expedient to their convenience. Muselmen respect treaties no longer than it is their apparent interest so to do. When an amba.s.sador once expostulated with his imperial majesty for having infringed on a treaty made, an emperor of Marocco replied--"Dost thou think I am a Christian, that I should be a _slave_ to my word?"