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+*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 78434 ***
+                             THE NEGROLAND
+                             OF THE ARABS.
+
+
+                             THE NEGROLAND
+                              OF THE ARABS
+                        EXAMINED AND EXPLAINED;
+                                  OR,
+                          AN INQUIRY INTO THE
+                      EARLY HISTORY AND GEOGRAPHY
+                                   OF
+                            CENTRAL AFRICA.
+
+                                   BY
+                       WILLIAM DESBOROUGH COOLEY.
+
+                                LONDON:
+                 PRINTED BY JAMES HOLMES, TOOK’S COURT.
+              PUBLISHED BY J. ARROWSMITH, 10, SOHO SQUARE.
+                               * * * * *
+                                 1841.
+
+
+
+
+   TO SEÑOR
+                        DON PASCUAL DE GAYANGOS.
+
+ MY DEAR GAYANGOS,
+
+        The following Essay owes its origin wholly to the extracts from
+the writings of Ibn Khaldún and Ibn Baṭúṭah, which you had the kindness
+to communicate to me. Not only did you occasion the present developement
+of my speculations, but you have also at all times cheerfully aided me
+in the researches to which they gave birth; you have placed at my
+disposal, as it were, your perfect knowledge of the Arabic language,
+and, from the abundance of your learning, have in some measure made good
+my deficiency. To whom, then, can this little work be dedicated so
+justly, as to you? Nor, while acknowledging my obligations, can I forego
+the pleasure afforded by such an opportunity of expressing towards you
+the friendship and esteem of
+
+                                         Yours sincerely,
+                                            WILLIAM DESBOROUGH COOLEY.
+
+  _London, March_ 3, 1841.
+
+
+
+
+                                PREFACE.
+
+                               * * * * *
+
+
+The following Essay has for its object to establish the early geography
+of Central Africa on a solid basis. It aims at offering a clear and
+well-grounded explanation of the geographical descriptions of Negroland,
+transmitted to us by Arab writers; and, by thus connecting the past with
+the present, at giving an increased value to the historical information
+derived from the same sources. The attainment of that end will throw a
+steady light on the past condition of a country now awakening a general
+interest. It will enable us to trace some important political
+revolutions; to discern the nations which have stood forth politically
+eminent, and to estimate correctly, by means of a lengthened and
+authentic retrospect, the progress of civilization in Africa.
+
+The task here undertaken has more of novelty in it than may be at first
+suspected. Hitherto no attempt whatever has been made to explain the
+Arab geography of Negroland by treating it as a whole, and as the
+immediate subject of investigation. Yet no department of the wide field
+of literature stands more in need of critical labour, or appears more
+justly entitled to it. The Arabs in the Middle Ages were copious and
+circumstantial writers, though neither profound nor exact. Geography was
+one of their favourite studies. The interests of trade and religious
+zeal led them across the deserts of Northern Africa to Negroland, of
+which they have left us accounts bearing in every lineament the
+expression of unaffected sincerity. Yet such has been the difficulty
+found in recognizing the places described in those accounts, that, up to
+this day, scarcely any addition to our positive knowledge of Negroland
+has been derived from the writings of the Arabs.
+
+Ibn S’aíd, a writer of the thirteenth century, has enumerated thirteen
+nations of Blacks, extending across Africa, from Ghánah in the west, to
+the Bojá on the shores of the Red Sea in the east. Yet it is not till we
+arrive at the tenth of these, or Kánem, that we are able to identify
+satisfactorily the nomenclature of Ibn S’aíd with that of modern
+geography. The first nine nations towards the west, or nearly three-
+fourths of the whole, remain undetermined.
+
+The Arab geography of Africa lies, at present, a large but confused heap
+of materials, into which modern writers occasionally dip their hands,
+each selecting what appears to serve his purpose, and adapting it to his
+views by an interpretation as narrow and partial as his mode of inquiry.
+Modern geographers—D’Anville and Rennell not excepted—have allowed
+fancied resemblances of sound to lead them far away from fact and the
+straight path of investigation. They have, for example, unanimously
+assumed the Kanó of the present day to be the Ghánah of past ages. The
+disorder introduced into the early geography of Central Africa by this
+false method of proceeding, has deprived it of all its value. It seems
+incapable of combining with the results of modern discovery; and instead
+of the harmony which ought to subsist between our present information
+and the ample accounts of Negroland written five or six centuries ago,
+we find in almost every application of the latter, the jarring
+consequences of false assumptions.
+
+To give a new value to such confused materials, we must have recourse to
+a new and improved method of treating them.
+
+The course here followed is, to examine the Arab authors of greatest
+value, and to develope, as completely as possible, the information found
+in them, their meaning being collected altogether from internal
+evidence, and without any regard to extrinsic systems. Where their
+statements are clear, natural, and consistent, no attempt has been made
+to interfere with or strain them by arbitrary conjectures. Where, on the
+other hand, they are obscure, absurd, or contradictory, care has been
+taken to inquire,—1st, What were the sources or channels of the author’s
+information? 2ndly, How far it must be taken in strictness, or may claim
+the latitude allowed to the language of ordinary discourse? 3rdly, The
+state of knowledge, and prevalent geographical systems in the writer’s
+time? 4thly, What portions may be looked upon as original or authentic,
+and what as founded on inference or surmise?—The point of greatest
+difficulty, and which demands the utmost care and perspicacity, is to
+distinguish between the language of experience and that of system; to
+separate the original information from the supplementary additions made
+to it, for the purpose of filling up or rounding the description, or of
+reconciling it with theoretical conceptions.
+
+In all parts of the world, and in every age, the human mind moves in a
+constant cycle. In like stages of its progress it occupies similar
+positions, and goes through the same round of error. This truth is
+exemplified in the history of Geography, as well as in that of every
+other branch of human knowledge. The corrections made in our maps of
+Africa during the last three centuries; those made by Ptolemy in the
+geography of the same quarter of the globe, written by Marinus Tyrius;
+and those of which the great Alexandrian himself stands in need, are
+nearly all reducible to one common rule. The errors to which
+systematical geography tends, while it is not as yet founded on science,
+are so fully shown by experience, that we can safely derive from our
+knowledge of them a principle of rectification, applicable to all the
+materials of unscientific geography, presented to our notice, and
+obviously needing correction. The endeavour to trace errors according to
+fixed analogies, will at least lead us from mere conjecture towards a
+rule of reason.
+
+The most vexatious and frequently recurring hindrance in researches of
+the kind here undertaken, arises from the defects of the Arabic written
+character, and the uncritical servility of Arab copyists and compilers.
+In Arabic writing, some of the characters closely resemble one another,
+and are distinguished only by diacritic points: the vowels likewise are
+chiefly indicated by points, which, like those of the former kind, are
+often wholly omitted. Hence it follows, that proper names, the correct
+reading of which cannot be inferred from the context, easily sink, when
+written in such ambiguous characters, from corruption to corruption,
+till at last they altogether cease to be recognizable. Misnomers arising
+in this way were perhaps often adopted in discourse, till, in process of
+time, they became authorized by usage. Uncertainty with respect to the
+true reading of proper names, besides being in itself a source of great
+perplexity, has the ill effect of encumbering the truth with much
+preliminary discussion of an apparently trivial kind. Nor are our
+difficulties with respect to proper names confined to the writings of
+the Arabs. In some parts of Africa, different races are so commingled,
+that five or six languages may be heard spoken within a narrow extent of
+territory. Travellers arriving in such a country from different
+quarters, and associating with different portions of the population,
+will naturally report in different ways the names of places. If
+Europeans, they variously represent, each according to the genius of his
+own language, articulations which, being strange to their organs, they
+did not invariably seize correctly. Names have been also transferred
+from one language to another, without due regard to the sound originally
+sought to be represented. Here, then, are abundant sources of confusion,
+which, so far, at least, as it involves the genius and construction of
+African languages, we are not always in a condition to clear up. Yet it
+is necessary, as we proceed, to endeavour to distinguish between the
+more and the less doubtful; and if any one should feel surprised at the
+attention occasionally bestowed in the following pages on proper names,
+let him only reflect, that the errors arising from the neglect of so
+many inevitable causes of variance, would at least equal what may ensue
+from even the least skilful discussion of them.
+
+It would have been easy to lengthen the list of Arab authors here made
+use of; but little would have been gained for Geography by reference to
+works equally deficient in judgment and originality. The authors chiefly
+relied on are, El Bekrí, Ibn Khaldún, and Ibn Baṭúṭah. El Idrísí is
+analysed in some passages, chiefly for the sake of explaining certain
+discrepancies between him and the first-named writer, and to estimate
+the weight due to his authority. The conjectures scattered through the
+following pages are much fewer than the nature of the subject and the
+course of investigation would have permitted; but it was thought
+advisable to keep conjectures within bounds, even where they could not
+have interfered with the reasoning. Reserve and circumspection are
+especially necessary for an author whose conclusions differ widely from
+those of his precursors in the same field of inquiry, and who aims at
+deciding definitively questions which have long divided the judgments of
+the learned. Reference to the systems of recent authors has been, in
+general, avoided, lest the frequent recurrence of the language of
+refutation might give the whole an air of controversy. Pains have been
+also taken to abridge whatever was not strictly geographical, the object
+here aimed at being properly the consideration of geographical
+questions, the careful and satisfactory discussion of which demands a
+special treatise.
+
+The mode here adopted of writing the Arabic names, is fully explained in
+the Journal of the Royal Geographical Society, vol. VII. p. 245; but in
+its application will probably be found much unsteadiness and
+imperfection, arising partly from the want of familiarity with it, and
+partly from the difficulty of setting exact bounds to the employment of
+a foreign orthography, which jars disagreeably with the necessary
+reference to the orthography of our modern travellers. The attempt at a
+systematic reform of the mode of writing African names, has been
+avoided, and therewith the alternative also, of either multiplying
+without end the subordinate topics of discussion, or else of allowing
+much hypothesis to steal in under the mask of precision.
+
+In conclusion, it may be remarked, that the attempt here made, however
+successful it may be deemed—and it cannot be denied that it broaches
+some truths, and discloses a new and logical method of treating an
+interesting subject—is yet but a sketch, which remains to be filled up,
+after a careful examination of the numerous Arabic MSS. preserved in the
+public libraries here and abroad, by some one better qualified for that
+labour, and enjoying fairer opportunities than the writer of these
+pages.
+
+
+
+
+                               CONTENTS.
+
+                               * * * * *
+
+
+  INTRODUCTION                                                        1
+
+                       GHÁNAH, AÚDAGHOST, AÚLÍL.
+
+  Támedelt — Route to Aúdaghost — Line of Drifting Sands —            5
+  Position of Aúdaghost — Route to Ghánah — The Desert — Tíser —
+  Azawad — The Zenágah — Genéwah — Lumtúnah — Goddálah — Aúlil
+  — Trade of Aúdaghost — Aúkar — Sínghánah — Tekrúr — Tádmekkah
+  — River of Ghánah — Samaḳanda — Ghaïárú — Bokmo — Manners of
+  Ghánah — Ghánah near the site of Tomboktú
+
+                   EL IDRÍSÍ COMPARED WITH EL BEKRÍ.
+
+  Measures of El Idrísí — His delineation of the Great River —       48
+  History of the Maghráwah
+
+                                 MÁLÍ.
+
+  Ghánah subjected by the Molaththemún — The Ṣúṣú — The People of    61
+  Málí — The Kings of Málí — Table of their succession
+
+                        IBN BAṬÚṬAH’S JOURNEY.
+
+  Tegháza — The Desert — Aïwalátin — Kársekhó — The Ṣanṣarah —       70
+  Málí — Manners of the Court — Departure from Málí — Position
+  of that capital — Mímah — Tomboktú — Kaúkaú — The Berdámah —
+  Tekaddá — Káhir — Limits of Málí — Múlí and Malla — Kombori —
+  Yúfí — Remarks on Ibn Baṭúṭah’s Journey — Kanó not Ghánah
+
+                                TEKRÚR.
+
+  Zághah — The Zagháï — Sanghee — Sungai — Sokai — Zachah —          97
+  Eastward Movement of the Tekrúr — Abuse of the name Tekrúr
+
+                    KÚGHAH, KÁGHÓ, KAÚKAÚ, KARKAR.
+
+  El Bekrí’s account of Kúghah and Kaúkaú — El Idrísí’s hesitation  103
+  — More than one Kaúkaú — Karkar — Gargari — Surmise as to the
+  present existence of Kághó
+
+                  LEMLEM, REMREM, DEMDEM, EL-LÍMIYÍN,
+
+  Various names of one people — Originally one name — Its probable  111
+  origin — Refers to Houssa — The modern Yemyem — El-Límiyín
+
+                    NEGROLAND DIVIDED INTO NATIONS.
+
+  Ibn Sʿaíd’s list — Makrízí’s additions — Ibn Sʿaíd compared       116
+  with Leo — Results of the comparison — Kingdom of Kúra — Lake
+  Kúra — Compared with the Kowára — Interference of theory —
+  Recapitulation
+
+                              POSTSCRIPT.
+
+                          REMARKS ON HOUSSA.
+
+  Routes from Ashantí to the Kowára — The letter r often changed    140
+  into a ḍ — The Kambaroa — The Kadunía — The River Kowára
+  probably so called from the country in which the Quorrama rises
+
+
+                              CORRECTIONS.
+
+  Page 14, note 31—for Moallakah read Maḳámah.
+
+  Page 60, note 107—for A’walílí read Awalílí.
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration: Sketch _of a_ Map _to illustrate_ the ARAB GEOGRAPHY of
+NEGROLAND _By_ W. D. Cooley, Esqr.
+
+_London, John Arrowsmith, 10 Soho Square 1841._]
+
+
+                                  THE
+                               NEGROLAND
+                             OF THE ARABS.
+
+                               * * * * *
+
+                             INTRODUCTION.
+
+
+Nature has marked out, in a plain and peremptory manner, the chief lines
+of communication between the maritime regions of North Africa and the
+fertile Interior beyond the great desert. The Oasis, or habitable tract
+of Fezzán, south of Tripoli, projects far into the barren waste, and a
+journey of not more than forty days conducts thence to Kánem or Bornú.
+In the west, a route of equal length connects the last traces of
+cultivation at the back of Atlas, with the Great River of Negroland,
+where, winding in a long circuit towards the north, it seems to drive
+back desolation, and narrows the limits of the desert. The two routes
+here described, are those chiefly frequented at the present day by
+caravans proceeding to Central Africa; and the preference given to them
+is due to their combining such advantages of convenience and security,
+as must have constituted them the chief routes in all ages.
+
+The first of these, or the road between Fezzán and the interior, may be
+presumed to have been frequented by the ancients. If we assume that
+commerce spread westward from Egypt, or if we fix our eyes on Augila or
+the Greek colony of Cyrene, the eastern route will certainly seem
+entitled to be the channel of the earliest intercourse with the Blacks.
+But the discussion of such questions does not lie within the scope of
+our present inquiry; and it will be here sufficient to observe, that so
+far as the Arabs were concerned, the western route, though last reached,
+was the most frequently trodden and most diligently explored. The stream
+of Arab invasion in Northern Africa flowed rapidly to the west, till
+accumulating between the shores of the Ocean and Atlas, it pressed on
+the Berber clans inhabiting all the fertile recesses of this range of
+mountains. Continual wars thence ensued, in the course of which the
+discomfited party always fled to the desert, wherein they wandered to
+the borders of Negroland.
+
+It is by the western route that we have derived, through Arab writers,
+the amplest and earliest accounts of Central Africa. For the Arabs in
+Spain who cultivated letters maintained a constant intercourse with
+their rude but active brethren of Western Barbary, whom trade and
+warfare alike occasionally impelled to visit the countries beyond the
+desert. In the beginning of the eleventh century of our era, the hills
+on the south side of Wád Nún and Darʿah, or the northern portion of the
+western desert, were occupied by the Lumtúnah, a tribe of the
+Zenágah.[1] Separated from them by an uninhabited tract, were the Benú
+Goddálah of the same nation, whose territory, comprising the southern
+zone of the Ṣaḥrá, extended eastward from the sea shore to the country
+of the Blacks.[2] The more sterile tracts of the desert in the interior,
+within the limits possessed by the Zenágah, were abandoned to the
+wandering tribe of the Benú Masúfah, by their more powerful brethren
+near the coast.[3] These three tribes, inflamed with religious zeal, to
+which their intestine feuds had given a martial character, shaped their
+course northward, and being united under the name of Al Morábiṭún, or
+Champions of the Faith, they subjugated the fertile countries on both
+sides of the southern Atlas, and founded, in 1073, the empire and city
+of Morocco. The Al Morábiṭún, or Morabites, subsequently extended their
+sway into Spain, in the history of which country they figure under the
+name of Almoravides. But long before they carried their arms into
+Europe, they corresponded intimately with the polished courts of
+Mohammedan Spain; and while they had not yet quite relinquished the
+desert, nor forgotten their acquaintance with the frontiers of
+Negroland, they communicated their information to the inquisitive, and,
+for that age, well instructed Spanish Arabs. The age immediately
+preceding the foundation of Morocco is that in which we should
+accordingly expect to find the most valuable accounts of the Western
+Desert, and of the Negro kingdoms contiguous to it. The events of that
+period were calculated to bring within the reach of literary activity,
+full, fresh, and authentic information respecting the interior of
+Western Africa. It is fortunate for us, therefore, that we possess an
+account of that country written in the very age referred to, by one who
+resided at the most accomplished court in Spain; whose station in
+society and official rank afforded him the amplest means of satisfying
+his curiosity; and whose perspicuity and good sense entitle him to a
+distinguished place among Arab writers. The author here alluded to, Abú
+ʿObeïdi-llah Abdullah el Ḳorṭoby, was son of the independent ruler of
+Huelva. He resided chiefly in Cordova, at that time the centre of Arab
+refinement, and filled the highest offices in that kingdom. His account
+of Negroland, entitled ‘Kitábu-l-mesálek wa-l-memálek,’ or the Book of
+Roads and Realms, was written in the year of the Hijra 460, or A.D.
+1067, just fourteen years after the first rise of the Morabites, and six
+before the foundation of Morocco. We shall therefore take El Bekrí as
+our guide while endeavouring to determine the true position of Ghánah,
+in his age the principal kingdom of Negroland.[4]
+
+
+[Footnote 1: Wád Nún is also called by early writers Núl, or Núl el
+aḳṣa. Darʿah دَرعَه is also written Dirʿah دِرعَه (MS. B.M. fol.
+101)—Lumtúnah لمتونه—The Berber name Zenághah زناغه was corrupted by the
+Arabs, as Ibn Khaldún informs us, into Ṣinhájah صنهاجه, pronounced in
+the west Ṣinhágah.]
+
+[Footnote 2: Goddála, so pronounced, though written by El Bekrí Joddála
+جدَّاله (MS. B.M. fol. 106); by Ibn Khaldún and others, Godálah ڭداله.]
+
+[Footnote 3: Benú Masúfah بنو مسوفه.]
+
+[Footnote 4: For an account of this valuable author, see the recently
+published History of the Mohammedan Dynasties in Spain, by Don Pascual
+de Gayangos, p. 324. The excellent MS. in the library of the British
+Museum (No. 9577) there described, shall be here briefly cited as MS.
+B.M. A translation of El Bekrí’s Book of Roads and Realms, by M.
+Quatremère, has appeared in the 12th volume of the Collection entitled
+‘Notices et Extraits des MSS. de la Bibliothèque du Roi.’ But the
+Parisian MS. is so deficient in points, that the translator,
+notwithstanding his learning and acuteness, has not always been able to
+divine the true reading. A fragment of the same work, containing what
+relates to Ghánah, has been translated by M. Jaubert, to whom it was
+sent from Barbary, and inserted in the 2nd volume of the ‘Recueil des
+Voyages et Mémoires,’ &c. published by the Société de Géographie in
+Paris. Wherever this extract, which is taken from a MS. of inferior
+authority, is quoted alone in the following pages, the reader may
+understand that the readings so adopted agree in characters with the
+readings found in the MS. B.M., and have in addition the vowel points.]
+
+
+
+
+                      GHÁNAH — Aúdaghost — Aúlíl.
+
+
+Previous to the foundation of Morocco, all the trade of Negroland with
+Western Barbary was directed towards Sijilmésah, a town on the eastern
+side of Atlas, eight or ten days from Fás or Fez, and in the district
+which is now called Táfílélt.[5] From Sijilmésah, a two months’ journey
+southward conducted to the nearest kingdom of the Blacks, which was that
+called Ghánah.[6] But in propriety of speech Ghánah was the title of the
+king, whose dominion, anterior to the rise of the Al Morábiṭún or
+Morabites, extended to Aúdaghost, a town on the southern border of the
+great desert, and containing a Berber population.[7] Driven from
+Aúdaghost, the negro king fixed his residence at Aúkár, fifteen days’
+journey south-westward from the former place, and not far from the great
+river of the interior, called by Arab writers the Nile of the Blacks.[8]
+But the new capital, as well as the kingdom, was still generally known
+by the name of Ghánah.
+
+A desert of forty days’ journey in extent lay between Aúdaghost and
+Támedelt,[9] a town of Sús el Aḳṣa, on the verge of the desert, and
+eleven days from Sijilmésah. The two months’ journey between Ghánah and
+Sijilmésah, would, if literally interpreted, place the capital of the
+Blacks forty-nine days distant from Támedelt. But where could a route of
+forty-nine days southward from the borders of Sús el Aḳṣa meet the Great
+River, unless in the vicinity of Tomboktú?[10] This city is distant
+about two months from Táfílélt, and not more than fifty days from Sús el
+Aḳṣa.[11] It owes all its importance to its advanced position, near the
+very point where the river turns eastward, after repressing the desert
+in its northerly course, and making its nearest approach to Western
+Barbary. The advantages of such a position could never have been
+overlooked while caravans traversed the desolate plains of the interior.
+The site of Ghánah then, and Tomboktú, being equidistant from Sús el
+Aḳṣa, both in a southerly direction from it, and both in the vicinity of
+the Great River, which, within the distance of fifty days from Sús el
+Aḳṣa, washes the desert during only a short part of its course, cannot
+have been far asunder. This brief argument is in reality unanswerable.
+Within the assigned time, a caravan travelling at the ordinary pace,
+could reach the Great River nowhere but in the vicinity of Tomboktú. The
+site of Aúkár then being near Tomboktú, Aúdaghost fifteen days distant
+from it towards the north-east, must have been situate in the same tract
+as the modern town or encampment of Mabrúk.[12] Thus the first view of
+the routes to the chief towns of the ancient Ghánah suggests the
+approximate positions of those towns. Let their positions be assumed
+accordingly, so as to give distinctness to our conceptions, while we
+follow, step by step, the routes to them across the desert; and the
+examination of these routes in all their particulars will, in turn,
+illustrate and confirm our assumptions, if they be correct.
+
+The position of Támedelt, the starting point of the caravans to
+Negroland, must be in the first place determined. That town is stated to
+have been five days westward (or, we must rather suppose, south of
+westward) from Darʿah, and six days south-eastward from Iklí, the
+capital of Sús, which town, situate on a river flowing northward, was
+two days from Mésah and five from Wád Nún. Now the capital of Darʿah was
+five days distant from Sijilmésah, which was nine ordinary journeys from
+Fez.[13] Támedelt was therefore twenty days from Fez, by the road on the
+eastern side of the mountains, and it was also six days south-eastward
+from Iklí, which town must accordingly be so placed within five days of
+Wád Nún, and two days northward from the river of Mésah, as to allow
+Támedelt a somewhat westerly bearing from Darʿah. These conditions being
+fulfilled, the position of Támadelt will be nearly in lat. 28° 45′ N.,
+long. 7° 10′ W., and not far from the modern Tatta.[14] The position
+thus assumed, though not quite free from uncertainty, will yet involve
+no inaccuracy capable of endangering the argument depending on it.
+
+The starting point being ascertained, there remains no difficulty in
+tracing the route to Aúdaghost. The first day’s journey from Támedelt
+conducted to a deep well called Bír el Jemmálín:[15] the second led
+through a narrow defile. Then for three days the road went over the
+mountains of Azawwar,[16] strewed with masses of iron-stone. These
+mountains extend, according to El Bekrí, ten days’ journey from the
+ocean to the road (from Támedelt probably) to Sijilmésah. They are
+evidently the same chain of mountains which caravans now pass at the
+distance of six days from Wád Nún. It is apparent also that the road to
+Aúdaghost must have crossed them at a distance not exceeding ten days’
+journey from the sea; and therefore could have scarcely inclined towards
+the east. Three days beyond the mountains was the watering place of
+Tendefas, and three days further a great well called Weínhílún.[17] Then
+another three days led to a scanty spring named Tázḳa, or the House.[18]
+Four days further were the brackish wells of Weítúnán, and after another
+four days the watering place of Aúkázenta.[19] There ended the hard
+desert, and the region of loose sand-hills commenced, the passage of
+which presented the greatest difficulty to the traveller, and was
+fraught with danger.
+
+The northern limit and general direction of the sandy region of the
+great desert are marked out with tolerable distinctness in the
+narratives of some modern travellers. It was on the twenty-fifth day of
+his journey from Wád Nún to Tomboktú that Sidi Hamed entered the region
+of drifting sand.[20] This must have been somewhere between the twenty-
+third and twenty-fourth parallels of latitude. In the same line, or
+twenty-two days from El Harib, between Tatta and Darʿah, Caillié left
+the sand-hills on his journey from Tomboktú northwards.[21] Laing, on
+his way from Twát to Tomboktú, entered the sands in lat. 23° 56′ N.; and
+Scott crossed a similar tract, eleven days’ journey in extent,
+apparently from the twenty-first to the twenty-third parallel inclusive,
+and not far from the ocean.[22] The vast expanse of light sand thrown up
+into wave-like hillocks, which change with every wind, is a remarkable
+feature of the great desert, depending not more on the mineralogical
+constitution of the country than on the excessive dryness of the
+climate. The permanence of its general position, therefore, in spite of
+local fluctuations, is as certain as its extension from west to east,
+between the zones fertilized by rains. Now the site of Támedelt was four
+or five days westward from El Harib; and since on the road to Tomboktú
+from the former of these places the loose sand is entered on the twenty-
+fifth day, from the latter on the twenty-third; while from Támedelt to
+Aúdaghost the sands were entered also on the twenty-third day, there is
+reason to infer, that so far, the direction of the road from Sús el Aḳṣa
+to Aúdaghost differed little, if at all, from the modern road to
+Tomboktú. The ancient and modern roads to Negroland ran nearly parallel
+between the hills south of Sús el Aḳṣa and the zone of drifting sands.
+
+The most difficult part of the journey, according to El Bekrí, lay over
+the ridges of loose sand, on entering which there was no water to be
+found till, after four days’ toil, the traveller reached the wells of
+Wanzamín, where all the roads to Negroland met together.[23] The roads
+thus said to meet that from Sijilmésah must have been those from
+Wergelán, Twát, and Télemsén or Tremecen. Now the roads from these
+places to Tomboktú all unite at Telig, about thirty days from El Harib,
+and our hypothesis respecting the position of Aúdaghost derives no
+slight confirmation from the circumstance that it gives to the meeting
+of the roads to that place, twenty-seven days from Támedelt, a position
+which harmonizes perfectly with their present junction on the road to
+Tomboktú. Near the meeting of the roads was a mountain, the recesses of
+which concealed bands of various tribes of the Zenágah, as the Lamṭah,
+Gezúlah, Geráwah, &c., all from the south-western extremity of Atlas,
+who lay in wait to attack caravans.
+
+From the wells of Wanzamín the road continued through sand-hills in the
+province of Wárán for five days to a large well belonging to the Benú
+Wáreth, thence in two days to Agharef, and in three more to Akríri, that
+is to say, the reservoir of water.[24] Near this place was a mountain
+named Azgúnán, where caravans were in danger of being attacked by the
+Blacks.[25] One day further, over hot sands, lay the brackish wells of
+Wárán, then, for three days, fresh water was found in wells belonging to
+the Zenágah, and another day led over the high mountain, at the foot of
+which stood Aúdaghost. This town was situate in a hilly country, within
+the limits of the rains, and does not appear to have had any water but
+that of wells. It can hardly be supposed that the limit of the rains in
+the interior of the African continent, at a distance from the sea coast,
+ascends beyond the twentieth parallel of latitude.[26] Now if a distance
+of forty days’ journey be measured from Támedelt, so as to intersect the
+twentieth parallel towards the interior, it will be found that fifteen
+days’ journey south-westward (according to the distance and bearing of
+Aúkar from Aúdaghost) measured from that intersection, will reach to the
+neighbourhood of Tomboktú.
+
+The foregoing account is evidently that of a route frequented by
+caravans, and therefore the distances mentioned in it may be received
+with confidence. Its general direction, as Abulfedá tells us, was to the
+south. El Bekrí describes also the journey from Darʿah to Ghánah, in a
+brief and uncircumstantial manner; but his description, though wanting
+in the minuteness and precision derivable from the experience of
+caravans, is yet not wholly uninstructive. From Wádi Darʿah to Wádi
+Tárḳa, on the margin of the desert, was a journey of five days. Then the
+traveller entered the wilderness in which water occurred only every two
+or three days. Of the wells first met with, one was called Tezámt.
+Eastward of it were Bír el Ḥammálín, or the porters’ well, and another
+named Nálellí or Málekí.[27] “From these wells,” says our author, “to
+the country of Islám, is a distance of four days; and at an equal
+distance are the Adarérén Wazzél, or mountains of iron.[28] There a
+desert begins in which there is no water for eight days; it is, indeed,
+that which is emphatically styled The Desert. The water in it belongs to
+the Benú Yentesír, a tribe of Zenágah. The village of Moddúken, which is
+next arrived at, belongs to the same race. Thence to Ghánah is a journey
+of four days.”[29]
+
+Wádi Darʿah was three days from Támedelt, probably east by north. Wádi
+Tárḳa may be conjectured to have been on the southern side of the
+mountains of Azawwar mentioned in the account of the route to Aúdaghost.
+But the particular here chiefly deserving of attention, is The Desert,
+in which no water was met with for eight days. The name of this desert,
+omitted by El Bekrí, is supplied by subsequent writers. We are informed
+that the merchants going to Ghánah passed through the desert of Tíser, a
+dry and desolate wilderness of sand, with only a few pools of bad water,
+the chief of which was that called the well of Tíser.[30] The extent of
+this desert is variously stated to be eight, ten, twelve, and even
+fourteen days’ journey.[31] At its eastern extremity stood Aúdaghost,
+and hence it is not surprising that the journey to that city should
+present diminished difficulty; though the loose, hot sands, and
+intervals of four or five days without water, in the latter half of the
+route thither, between the 23rd and 32nd days, clearly mark the
+continuation of the inhospitable tract.[32] On the west, the desert of
+Tíser adjoined the division of the Ṣaḥrá called Kamnúdíyah, which
+bordered on the ocean in the vicinity of Cape Bojador, as shall be shown
+hereafter. Unless we assign, therefore, to the territorial divisions of
+the Ṣaḥrá a disproportionate extension from west to east, the contiguity
+of the maritime district of Kamnúdíyah to the desert of Tíser,
+strengthens the presumption that the latter could hardly have reached
+beyond the twelfth meridian from the shores of the Atlantic; or, in
+other words, that it did not extend far east of the meridian of
+Tomboktú, and, consequently, that the road to this city from the north
+passes over the tract of desert anciently named Tíser.
+
+But it will naturally be asked, is there such a tract of peculiarly arid
+desert on the road to Tomboktú? Certainly there is; a desert of like
+extent, presenting the same physical character, and occupying a similar
+position in the route. Ibn Baṭúṭah, on his way from Sijilmésah to
+Tomboktú, arrived at Tegháza, near the edge of the desert, in twenty-
+five days. In ten days more, he came to the wells, or rather muddy pools
+of Táserahlá, where the caravan halted to prepare for the march over the
+formidable waste of sand, which it required ten days to traverse in
+order to reach Aïwalátin, a town on the southern border of the
+Ṣaḥrá.[33] Had that traveller crossed obliquely from Táserahlá to
+Tomboktú, he might perhaps have found the waterless desert to exceed a
+ten days’ journey in extent. But towards the east its width seems to
+diminish; whether it be that the northward course of the Great River, or
+the chain of mountains determining that circuit of the stream, and
+stretching across into the desert, modifies the atmosphere so as to give
+a greater range to the periodic rains in that meridian, we have no means
+of deciding. But the whole of the western Ṣaḥrá and the peculiar tract
+under consideration, are described by Leo Africanus in the following
+manner:—
+
+“To begin with the desert of Zenaga; this is a dry and barren tract
+beginning from the ocean on the west, and extending eastward to the salt
+pits of Tegaza. On the north it is bounded by Numidia; that is to say,
+by Sus, Acca, and Darah; and it extends towards the south as far as the
+land of the Blacks; that is to say, to the kingdom of Gualata and
+Tombutto. There is no water found in it, except at intervals of a
+hundred miles, and this, after all, is salt and bitter, in wells of
+great depth, particularly on the road from Segelmesse to Tombutto. There
+are many wild animals and serpents in it, as shall be related in the
+proper place. In this waste is found a desert very difficult and dismal,
+called Azaoad, where neither water nor dwelling-place is met with for
+two hundred miles, from the well of Azaoad to the well of Araoan, which
+is a hundred and fifty miles from Tombutto, and in which great numbers
+of men and animals perish of heat and thirst.”[34]
+
+The same writer elsewhere informs us, that the desert of Azawad was so
+called from its barrenness and dryness. It is not unreasonable to
+suppose that when the local designation of Tíser fell into disuse, the
+epithet expressing the general aspect of the region took its place. The
+name Azawad still remains to the tract of desert northward of
+Tomboktú.[35] And it cannot escape attention that the deserts of Tíser
+and Azawad resemble each other not only in extent and physical
+character, but that they are also equidistant from Sijilmésah; that they
+are both on the road southward from it, and both reaching to the
+southern limit of the Ṣaḥrá. There is still another point of resemblance
+between them, which, of itself, is almost sufficient to prove their
+common identity. El Bekrí remarks, that in travelling from Sijilmésah to
+Ghánah, a desert of two months’ journey was traversed, in which there
+were no fixed habitations, and the only people met with were wanderers,
+such as the Benú Masúfah, a branch of the Zenágah. The Benú Masúfah
+then, were in the middle of the eleventh century the tenants of the
+inhospitable plains over which lay the road to Ghánah; and it is
+remarkable that, three centuries later, the same miserable tribe hovered
+over the road to Tomboktú. Ibn Baṭúṭah found them to be the regular,
+and, as it were, hereditary guides across that desert, with the
+intricacies of which, tradition as well as personal experience had made
+them perfectly acquainted. In a region where the natural landmarks are
+so broad and unchangeable, and where man is comparatively so weak; where
+there is so little to tempt ambition or to nourish caprice, and where
+the whole tribe laying claim to a long extent of territory, could never
+exceed a handful of individuals,—the fact that the roads to Ghánah and
+Tomboktú, traced over peculiarly arid and forbidding tracts, both passed
+through the encampments of the same tribe, is a strong proof of the
+proximity of those roads: for the occupiers of the most inhospitable
+region in which life can with difficulty be supported, are not likely to
+be disturbed in their possessions.
+
+It has been seen that Leo Africanus represents the country of the
+Zenágah, or Ṣinhájah, to have extended from the sea shore as far
+eastward as Tegháza and Tomboktú. He obviously meant to intimate that
+the road to Tomboktú formed the eastern boundary of that nation or
+division of the Berbers. But his expressions are not such as require to
+be strictly interpreted; on the contrary, they have a claim to that
+latitude of explanation which reconciles them with the state of things
+at present, when the Zenágah occupy the country round Tomboktú and to a
+short distance eastward of it. His expressions, however, militate most
+strongly against any hypothesis which would place Aúdaghost remote from
+Tomboktú, since the road to the former of those cities lay wholly within
+the limits of the Zenágah. If these people held as large a share of the
+Ṣaḥrá in the beginning of the sixteenth century as in the middle of the
+eleventh,—and, since they figured as conquerors in the only revolution
+generally affecting them in the meantime, this can hardly be
+disputed,—it must follow that the road to Aúdaghost, being within their
+limits, could not have passed far eastward of Tomboktú.
+
+The Zenágah extended southward, according to Leo, “to the country of the
+Blacks, where are the kingdoms of Gualata and Tombutto.” To the words,
+“the country of the Blacks,” Marmol, while borrowing largely from the
+Arab writer, adds the gloss, “which is called Geneúa.”[36] And herein he
+accords with all other authorities respecting the position of Genéwah,
+which region, however vaguely defined, is yet always placed on the
+frontiers of Negroland, westward from Tomboktú. In early ages however,
+before the Berbers had derived strength from Arab instruction, the
+Blacks probably possessed a larger share of the desert, or at least the
+name Genéwah reached further northward. An Arab writer informs us, that
+Genéwah extended from the ocean in the west, to the country of Wergelán
+in the east, and from Amímah in the south to Arkí and Núl el Aḳṣa in the
+north.[37] The longitudinal dimensions of this country are here
+expressed in terms of obvious inaccuracy. Wergelán, though far to the
+north-east of the country called Genéwah, is yet made conterminous with
+it, owing to the great share which that Berber state took in the
+commerce of Negroland, at that time concentred in Ghánah. But the line
+on which the breadth of Genéwah is measured, drawn from north to south,
+from Arkí to Amímah, may be presumed to mark its central or principal
+section. Now Arkí was on the hills of the Lumtúnah, seven days distant
+from Wád Nún, and Amímah stood at a short distance westward or south-
+westward from the future site of Tomboktú.[38] The mean position of
+Genéwah being thus indicated, the author adds, “and of its cities, is
+Ghánah.”[39] Here, then, is another proof that Ghánah was contiguous to
+the western desert and to western Negroland, and that the tract of
+country in which it stood and flourished, was the same in which Tomboktú
+subsequently rose into importance.
+
+The country assigned to Genéwah, in the above-cited passage, really
+belonged for the most part to the Zenágah, who, anterior to their
+conversion to Mohammedanism, lived much intermingled with the Blacks.
+The latter may have had the upper hand; or, though in a servile state,
+they may have been the more numerous class of the inhabitants; or
+finally, the slave trade being carried on universally in the desert, the
+Arabs of Barbary may have easily confounded the country exporting slaves
+with that which produced them; and thus applied the name Genéwah to the
+deserts of which Berber tribes were, if not the sole occupants, at least
+the masters. But the movements of the Morabites revealed more completely
+the partition and social condition of the Ṣaḥrá. The northern portion of
+it, towards the ocean, was possessed by the Lumtúnah, whose dwellings
+covered a range of hills (probably those called by El Bekrí Azawwar)
+said to be six days’ journey in length, and to be shaded by 20,000 palm
+trees.[40] On these hills, and about seven days from Wád Nún, stood the
+fort or town of Arkí, the chief place of the Lumtúnah, whose flocks
+wandered from the shores of the ocean as far eastward as the road to
+Ghánah.
+
+South of the Lumtúnah, but separated from them by an uninhabited tract
+ten days’ journey in width, were the Benú Goddálah, the most powerful of
+the Berber tribes. In the uninhabited tract ten days wide, it is easy to
+recognize the sandy region south of Cape Bojador, and forming the
+continuation of the desert of Tíser or Azawad. The country of the Benú
+Goddálah is said to have extended a two months’ journey in length and
+breadth, a description which is applied also to the whole western Ṣaḥrá,
+and to the dominions of Ghánah; and considering that in each case the
+Atlantic Ocean is taken as a boundary, it is evident enough that no
+exact limits were set to territorial possessions in the desert, and that
+claims of sovereignty often extended from opposite quarters over the
+same ground.[41]
+
+In the country of the Benú Goddálah was a mine or natural deposit of
+salt near a town or place of fixed habitation on the sea shore, called
+Aúlíl. At this place was a point of land, or peninsula, insulated by the
+tide, but accessible on foot at low water. Close to it was the port.
+Ambergris was collected on it at the sea side, and turtle, which
+constituted the chief food of the inhabitants, were there so large, that
+fishermen, as our author assevers, went to sea in their shells. From
+Aúlíl salt was carried inland to Ghánah and other cities of the Blacks.
+The road from the same place to Wád Nún was a two months’ journey in
+length, going along the sea shore, where fresh water was found by
+digging in the sand when the tide was out.[42]
+
+There is little room for doubt or hesitation in determining the position
+of Aúlíl. One point only on the whole coast of the Ṣaḥrá can be selected
+for it with any show of reason: and that point is in the bay of Arguin,
+where the natural deposits of salt, the little island or peninsula, and
+the abundance of large tortoises, are all found together; and exactly at
+a distance of two months’ journey from Wád Nún, along the shore.[43] At
+Arguin also existed, in the fifteenth century, a trade derived from the
+natural productions of the place, exactly similar to that ascribed to
+Aúlíl in the eleventh century. Since the shores of the Great Desert
+offer one locality, and but one, answering to the description given by
+El Bekrí of Aúlíl, we must necessarily conclude that this town was
+situate in that locality,—namely, near Cape St. Anne in the bay of
+Arguin.[44]
+
+Thus it appears that the Benú Goddálah were the possessors of the
+maritime region of the Ṣaḥrá, from Cape Blanco southwards. They also
+extended far inland (a two months’ journey, as has been already stated),
+and were separated by a distance of only six days from the Blacks on the
+Great River, and in the vicinity of Ghánah. They were the possessors,
+therefore, of the vast country which is now divided among the Ludayas,
+Brebísh, Trarzas, Erghebat, and others. Though esteemed the most
+powerful of the Berber tribes, they were yet compelled to yield the pre-
+eminence to the Lumtúnah, in the wars which immediately preceded the
+coalition of both under the name of Morabites. It may be fairly assumed,
+therefore, that these great tribes which divided between them the entire
+breadth of the Ṣaḥrá where it was least inhospitable, constituted the
+main body of the Berber nation to which they belonged; and therefore
+that the road to Aúdaghost, which left them on the west, lay near to the
+limit of the country occupied by the Zenágah, and consequently passed
+through the same tract as the road subsequently traced to Tomboktú.
+
+Having thus examined the routes from Sijilmésah to Ghánah, and briefly
+surveyed the state of the western deserts, with a view to illustrate the
+geographical position of the latter country, we may now proceed to
+consider also its internal condition and character; to inquire who were
+its neighbours in Negroland; how these were placed in relation to each
+other; and how far the accounts given of them, taken collectively and in
+the plainest acceptation, accord with the knowledge which we at present
+possess of the interior of Africa.
+
+Aúdaghost, once the residence, as we are told, of the king styled
+Ghánah, was situate in a hilly country, on the margin of the desert, but
+within the limit of the summer rains. Its water was chiefly drawn from
+wells; its irrigated gardens had small extent, yet to eyes accustomed
+only to the monotony of the sandy waste, the groups of palm trees around
+it formed a luxuriant scene. Its population, gathered from various
+tribes in the Belédu-l-Jeríd, belonged chiefly to the Berber nation of
+the Zenátah.[45] Nor is it difficult to explain why an isolated Zenátah
+population should fix and maintain itself in immediate contact with the
+roving and predatory Zenágah; for during the period referred to in these
+accounts, Sijilmésah, with which Aúdaghost was connected by ties of
+commerce, belonged to the Zenátah. The latter town was, in reality, but
+a trading colony on the frontiers of Negroland; and its mercantile
+inhabitants, content with the town and trade, seem to have never
+affected political independence.
+
+In the year of the Hijra 350 (A.D. 961), the king of Aúdaghost was Tín
+Yerátán, son of Wasenbú, of the Zenágah nation. His empire is said to
+have had an extent of two months’ journey in length and breadth, and
+more than twenty negro kings paid tribute to him. But, at a later
+period, Aúdaghost became tributary to Ghánah. This submission of a
+Berber people to a nation of Blacks and unbelievers, served as a pretext
+to the Morabites, who, in 446, (A.D. 1054, the same year in which they
+made themselves masters of Sijilmésah,) destroyed Aúdaghost, carrying
+off the women and children into slavery.[46] Arab writers, of a later
+date than the fifth century of the Hijra, still speak of Aúdaghost and
+its Zenágah rulers. It is not unlikely that, regardless of events, they
+only re-echo the words of ancient historians; otherwise, we must suppose
+that place to have revived for a short time under the descendants of its
+Morabite conquerors. But the same revolution which yielded up the old
+and circuitous channel of commerce to the owners of the Western Desert,
+must have tended to let it fall into disuse. Under the new state of
+things, the Lumtúnah and Masúfah would naturally take the nearest road
+to Ghánah, through their own country and over the desert of Tíser; and
+thus Aúdaghost would be forgotten.[47]
+
+The trade centering in Aúdaghost embraced not only the gold and slaves
+of Negroland, but also the productions of the Western Desert, and of the
+shores of the Atlantic Ocean. The skins of the antelope called Dant, or
+Lant, were wrought into bucklers by its artisans; who also manufactured
+ambergris, their supplies of which, we are told, they owed to their
+vicinity to the sea shore.[48] From this it may be concluded, not that
+Aúdaghost was near the sea, but that, in those early times, the
+possessors of the Western Ṣaḥrá were generally in too wild a state to
+allow trade to be carried on through their country; and that
+consequently the maritime productions of Aúlíl passed eastwards through
+the hands of the Benú Goddálah (who, occupying a favoured tract, had
+acquired more settled habits) to Aúdaghost, and thus reached Sijilmésah,
+after making the circuit of the domains of the rude Zenágah. El Bekrí
+says also, that on the hills round Aúdaghost grew trees yielding the gum
+which was used in Spain to dress silks.[49] Though this statement is not
+improbable, yet it is more likely that the Benú Goddálah, while
+conveying their salt and amber to the interior, likewise carried thither
+the produce of their rich gum forests. Wealth in Aúdaghost consisted
+chiefly in slaves, of which single individuals sometimes possessed a
+thousand each. That mercantile spirit had there fixed its abode in the
+midst of natural sterility, is forcibly expressed in the acknowledgment
+that slaves were the only luxury of the place. Aúdaghost exhibited the
+extreme licentiousness of manners characteristic, as will appear from
+other examples occurring in these pages, of all the towns in the
+southern border of the great desert, where the traveller, just escaped
+from the perils of the wilderness, indulges in the pleasures offered by
+a degraded population; and where the recklessness usual in a seaport is
+increased by the opportunities of the slave-mart.
+
+After the destruction of Aúdaghost by the Morabites, Aúkár, fifteen days
+distant from it towards the south-west, became the capital of Ghánah; or
+rather that capital was composed of two towns, viz.—Aúkár, inhabited by
+Mohammedans, and containing no less than twelve mosques; and Ghábah,
+where the king resided, in the midst of a black population.[50] Dark
+woods environed the latter town, and spread a gloom well suited to the
+pagan rites for the performance of which they were reserved, and which
+often involved the sacrifice of human victims. An interval of six miles,
+covered with habitations, separated the two towns. The inhabitants drew
+their water from wells. The climate was deadly to all but the natives.
+
+El Bekrí’s description of Ghánah evidently brings us within the limits
+of Negroland. It exhibits to us, on the one hand, the Blacks summoned
+before their king by beat of drum, sprinkling dust on their heads, and
+prostrating themselves in his presence; or performing the rites of their
+cruel superstitions in the darkness of their woods: and, on the other,
+the Arabs or Berbers dwelling apart in a more elevated and open
+situation, and yet suffering from the noxious humidity of the air. But,
+it is to be remarked, that he makes no mention of running waters, the
+importance of which no Arab author ever overlooks; and indeed, it must
+be inferred from that author’s words, that there was no river—certainly
+no great river—in the immediate vicinity of the capital of Ghánah.
+
+The Benú Goddálah, who possessed the southern portion of the Ṣaḥrá from
+the shores of the ocean eastwards, carried their salt and other
+merchandise to the Ṣínghánah, the nearest black nation, from whom they
+were separated by a distance of only six days’ journey, and whose chief
+city stood on both banks of the Great River, called the Nile of the
+Blacks. When it is considered that the Lumtúnah reached within ten days
+of Ghánah; that they were separated from the Goddálah by a broad tract
+of uninhabitable sand; and that all accounts agree in representing
+Ghánah as the most western of the kingdoms of the Blacks,—or, in other
+words, that the desert alone intervened between it and the ocean; it
+will be apparent that the Ṣínghánah, who were nearest to the Goddálah,
+lay towards the south or south-west from Ghánah.[51] South-westward from
+the Ṣínghánah, at no great distance, was Tekrúr, and a little further on
+stood Silla, both likewise on the Great River or Nile of the Blacks. The
+last-named place was twenty days’ journey from Ghánah; and, from what
+has been already said, it will be manifest that its bearing from that
+capital was between south and south-west.[52]
+
+Going eastward from Ghánah, through Aúghám, a fertile and well-
+cultivated district, the traveller arrived in five days at Rás el má, or
+the Water-head, “where the Nile issued from the land of the Blacks.” On
+the northern bank of the river dwelt the Merásah, a Zenágah tribe. Pagan
+blacks inhabited the opposite side. Six days further down the river
+stood Tírḳa, a market frequented by the people of Ghánah as well as of
+Tádmekkah. From Tírḳa the Nile turned southwards, and in three days
+entered the territory of the Seghmárah, a tribe depending on Tádmekkah.
+“On the side of the river opposite to them,” observes our author, “is
+Kaúkaú, which belongs to the Blacks.”[53]
+
+Tádmekkah was a town situate, like Aúdaghost, on the southern frontier
+of the Great Desert. According to El Bekrí, it was fifty days eastward
+from Ghánah, fifty from Wérgelán, and forty from Ghodémis.[54] Another
+author, whose measures of distance are not so easily appreciated, places
+Tádmekkah forty days westwards from Tajúah (in the northern part of
+Darfur), through the country of the Molaththemún—that is, the people who
+muffle up or conceal their faces (the Tawárik), and thirty days
+eastwards from Ghánah, beyond which is the ocean.[55] These intimations
+combined will place Tádmekkah in the hilly country north of Aghades. It
+owed its name, signifying the Likeness of Mekkah, to its situation
+between two hills, in the manner of the Holy City.[56] In the
+miscellaneous composition of its mercantile population, and in dissolute
+manners, it was the counterpart of Aúdaghost. Our author adds, that it
+was nine days from Kaúkaú; but as he appears to be involved in the
+general mystification enveloping that name, it will be more convenient
+for the present to waive the consideration of so embarrassing a
+particular, and to avoid touching on the difficulties attending Kaúkaú
+till we can make them the immediate subject of discussion.
+
+The route from Ghánah to Tádmekkah leads us again expressly eastward, in
+the following manner: three days to Safnaḳú, a town on the Nile, and the
+limit of Ghánah in that direction. Thence along the river to Búgrát, a
+town of the Merásah. From Búgrát to Tírḳa, and thence over the desert to
+Tádmekkah.[57]
+
+From all this it appears that the capital of Ghánah was three days
+distant from the river (at Safnaḳú); and five days from Rás el má, or
+the Head of the Water, where the river issued from the land of the
+Blacks—that is to say, where it emerged, in its course northwards, from
+the marshes and dark forests, and laved the open plains of the desert.
+It thence flowed eastwards, for six days, to Tírḳa, where it turned
+southwards towards Kaúkaú.
+
+Thus we find the river called by El Bekrí the Nile of the Blacks,
+described by him throughout its course for above thirty days with a
+distinctness and completeness of detail quite sufficient to enable us to
+recognize it with certainty at the present day. If we assume, as we may
+reasonably do, that Safnaḳú and Ghánah were equidistant from Silla, then
+from this town to the first-named place was a distance of twenty days.
+Rás el má stood at least two days further down the stream towards the
+east or north-east; Tírḳa was therefore twenty-eight days, and the
+commencement of the country of the Seghmárah thirty-one from Silla.
+
+This winding of a great river, in such a compass, from Negroland
+northwards to the desert and down again, is a remarkable feature, which
+cannot be overlooked or mistaken; and it is one which we find in the
+river of Tomboktú at the present day, exactly as it was described in the
+river of Ghánah eight centuries ago. And that which renders it more easy
+to identify the Nile of Ghánah with the Nile of Tomboktú, is the
+circumstance, that the towns situate at the extremities of the great
+circuit of the stream comprised within the descriptions of Arab writers,
+and near the apex of which the emporium of Negroland has always stood,
+still bear the same names as in ancient times. From the modern Silla,
+which is evidently identical with the ancient town of that name, a
+journey of twenty-two days will conduct to the place where the Great
+River gets clear of the greenland or inundated country and touches the
+desert, which point is near Tomboktú; thence it flows eastward for six
+days, and then turns southward or south-eastward to Kaúkaú.[58] Ibn
+Baṭúṭah, who descended the river from Tomboktú to Kaúkaú, omits indeed
+to describe the course of his voyage; but Leo Africanus, who likewise
+visited those countries, says that Gago, as he writes the name, is four
+hundred (Italian) miles south by east from Tomboktú.[59] Nor can we
+doubt that the Gago of Leo is identical with the Kaúkaú of Ibn Baṭúṭah,
+for Ibn Khaldún expressly informs us that the Kaúkaú here spoken of was
+also called Kághó.[60]
+
+The exact parallelism of the rivers of Ghánah and Tomboktú, throughout
+such a length of course, the compared portions being in each case
+terminated by a Silla on the west, and a Kaúkaú on the east, is of
+itself quite sufficient to establish their identity with one another.
+There is, in fact, but one great river on the south side of the Ṣaḥrá to
+which such descriptions will at all apply. But their resemblance may be
+traced much further, through a long series of particulars. The Nile of
+Ghánah was navigated in large boats or barques, just as the river
+between Jenni and Tomboktú is navigated at the present day.[61] The
+Berbers inhabiting the shores of the Ṣaḥrá carried their salt and other
+merchandise in the eleventh century to the Sínghánah, who dwelt on the
+Great River between Silla and Ghánah: and now they resort in like manner
+to the banks of the Great River between Silla and Tomboktú.[62] A part
+of the river between Silla and Ghánah was remarkable as the haunt of
+hippopotami or river-horses, which animals were killed by the natives,
+with javelins attached to cords, for the sake of their skins;[63] and
+Ibn Baṭúṭah, while travelling north-eastward to Tomboktú, probably not
+far from Jenni, had his attention called to the multitude of those
+animals frequenting the river in the vicinity, and gives a similar
+account of the means used to destroy them.
+
+Tekrúr, the town or community of Negroland first converted to the
+Mohammedan faith, was in the neighbourhood of Silla, as already stated,
+and probably eighteen or twenty days south-west, or south-south-west
+from Ghánah. It would be, therefore, a decisive proof that this capital
+stood not far from the position of Tomboktú, if it could be shown that
+the original site of Tekrúr was near the modern Silla. But to touch this
+argument here, would be to enter prematurely on the discussion of a
+question of some magnitude. The application of the name Tekrúr may be
+more conveniently examined further on, when the historical connexion
+between Ghánah and Western Negroland shall have been disclosed. For the
+present it will be sufficient to observe, that the early history of
+Tekrúr seems to be in a great measure appropriated by the
+Mandingoes;[64] that the date usually assigned to the conversion of
+Ghánah, exactly coincides with the epoch of conversion adopted by the
+Mohammedan nations of western Guinea; and that the glory of the first
+acceptance of the faith is conceded by undisputed tradition to the
+country on the Joliba immediately below Silla.[65]
+
+The Nile of Ghánah turned eastward at Rás el má, the most northern part
+of the river, and not more than five days from Ghánah. Towards that
+point, therefore, may be said to have been directed the great caravan
+route from Sijilmésah to Negroland; and now the frequented route from
+the same quarter conducts to the most northern point of the Great River
+flowing by Tomboktú, and which, in like manner there turns eastward. It
+might be added that since the Kaúkaú and Gago, visited from Tomboktú by
+Ibn Baṭúṭah and Leo, are shown to have been the same place, the distance
+of 400 Italian miles between that place and Tomboktú, according to the
+latter writer, agrees perfectly with the distance of fifteen journeys
+between Ghánah and Kúghah, according to El Bekrí, assuming that Kúghah
+is here written for Kaúkaú or Kághó; but until the peculiarly equivocal
+character of these names be discussed, no reliance can be placed on any
+argument involving either of them separately. But they may be dealt with
+safely when taken together, and where it is not necessary to
+discriminate between them. Now both El Bekrí and El Edrísí mention
+Kaúkaú and Kúghah; and if it be conceded that either of these places was
+identical with the Kaúkaú or Kághó, which, from the 14th to the 18th
+century, ranked as the most important city in Negroland (a supposition
+which seems highly probable), then it follows that Ghánah was at least
+fifteen days higher up the stream, or, according to the construction of
+the Arab geographers, westward from the same place, which was 400 miles
+lower down than Tomboktú; and, consequently, was either near the site of
+the latter city, or, if remote from it, must have been still further
+westward.
+
+Again, the rivers of Ghánah and Tomboktú closely resemble each other in
+this respect, that on turning eastward, after attaining their most
+northern point, they both approach the limits of the Zenágah, whose
+eastern boundary sloped south-eastward from the road to Ghánah, till,
+near the river, it reached a distance of ten or twelve days from that
+capital; and now its relation to Tomboktú may be described in nearly the
+same terms.[66]
+
+The Nile of the Blacks has been thus traced from Silla, a distance of
+twenty days north-eastward towards Ghánah; then to a distance of eleven
+days eastward from the latter place, and then three days southward,
+where our author’s continuous account of its course unfortunately
+terminates. But we are again led to it by a route through Negroland, so
+obscure and uncertain indeed as to be in itself of little value; but the
+discussion of which, as a means of comparing authors, may be indirectly
+turned to advantage. We are informed by El Bekrí that much of the gold
+collected in Ghánah was brought from Ghaïárú, eighteen days distant from
+the former capital, and near the Great River. It is manifest that
+Ghaïárú did not lie south-westward from Ghánah, for, in that direction,
+a journey of eighteen days near the river brings us into the vicinity of
+Tekrúr and Silla, of which our author has already spoken. It must
+therefore have been situate down the river, below Kaúkaú, or south-
+eastward from Ghánah; and the described route, not following the stream,
+must also have gone directly through the interior, till it met the river
+after its circuit eastward. It seems necessary to suppose that the route
+does not begin from the capital of Ghánah, but from its frontiers and
+the opposite side of the river; and also that the day’s journey in
+Negroland was a conventional measure, founded perhaps on the speed of
+couriers or messengers on horseback, and exceeding that of the loaded
+caravan in the desert. The construction here given to this route, as
+described by El Bekrí, agrees in the main with that adopted by
+subsequent Arab writers, though their misconceptions have in some
+instances wholly perverted his meaning.[67] The route was as follows:
+
+From Ghánah four days to Sámaḳanda, the inhabitants of which place were
+the most expert archers among the Blacks. Thence two days to Ṭáḳah; one
+day more to the branch of the Nile called Zúghú, fordable by camels, but
+which men were obliged to cross in boats.[68] Thence to Gharnatil or
+Ghúntil, an extensive and powerful country wherein Mohammedans
+experienced good treatment, but had no establishment.[69] Elephants and
+giraffes were there numerous. From Ghúntil the route went directly to
+Ghaïárú, a town twelve miles from the Nile. In the latter place, as well
+as in Bersana, a town on the Nile westward of Ghaïárú, were many
+Mohammedans, chiefly engaged, it would appear, in the slave trade.[70]
+“Beyond Bersana, and at the other side of the river,” says El Bekrí, “is
+a great country, eight days in extent, the king of which is called Daúr,
+and beyond it is Melil or Malelo, the king of which is a true believer,
+while his people are still Pagans.” We may suppose the countries here
+mentioned to be the Daúri and Mallawa of modern geography, the former
+northward of Kanó, extending towards the desert, the latter a large
+region, comprising apparently in the acceptation of the indigenous
+population, the north-western portion of the country called Houssa.[71]
+But it must be acknowledged that little confidence is due to conjectures
+guided only by such obscure and equivocal indications.
+
+Among the countries depending on Ghánah, according to El Bekrí, was
+Sámah, four days distant from Ghánah. Its inhabitants, who were called
+the Bokmo, used poisoned arrows, and were reckoned the best archers
+among the blacks. In this circumstance, as well as in their distance
+from Ghánah, they resemble the people of Sámaḳanda; so that we are led
+at once to suspect that the latter place was the metropolis of
+Samah.[72] But it is a curious coincidence that a people named Bokmo
+should be at a short distance from Ghánah, towards the south, and that a
+district called Bagamo should have a similar position with respect to
+Tomboktú. For Marmol, copying the words of De Barros with a few slight
+additions, thus expresses himself respecting the various names of the
+rivers of Tomboktú, in conformity with the erroneous opinion prevalent
+in his time, that it flowed into the sea by the Senegal. “The Portuguese
+(he says) call it Zenega; the Zenagas, Zenedec; the Gelofes, Dengueh:
+the Tucorones, further in, call it Mayo; the Saragoles, higher up, name
+it Colle; and when it goes through a district called _Bagamo_, more to
+the east, they call it Zimbala; in the kingdom of Tombut it is called
+Yça.”[73] The name Zimbala or Jimbala has always hovered in the
+neighbourhood of Tomboktú and vicinity of the river. Its exact position
+has been matter of controversy. Yet there seems little reason for
+dissenting from the statement of Caillié, who says that a large tract of
+country south of Tomboktú bears that name.[74] The tract in question
+therefore must be on the eastern bank of the river between lake Debú and
+Tomboktú, and there also we must look for Bagamo.[75]
+
+The King styled Ghánah, while residing in Aúdaghost, aided, we are told,
+the King of Másín in a war of the latter with the King of Aúghám. But it
+appears that the last-named place was close to Aúkár, subsequently the
+capital of Ghánah, and was passed through in going from that city to Rás
+el má. One of the belligerent parties being thus found near Ghánah and
+the river, it is natural that we should look for the other in the same
+neighbourhood; and the conjecture seems as unobjectionable as it is
+obvious, that the Másín of El Bekrí is the Másín or Maséna of the
+present time, situate on the western side of the Great River, not far
+north from Silla.[76] The same writer tells us that to the west of
+Ghánah was the hostile country of Anbárah, nine days from Kúghah, which
+was fifteen from Ghánah. This statement presents insuperable
+difficulties; inasmuch as it contradicts the general testimony which
+places Ghánah at the extreme west of the Black nations on the frontiers
+of Negroland, and because by referring to Kúghah it introduces the
+confusion accompanying that name. If, however, we boldly solve the
+problem by supposing Kúghah to be written for Kaúkaú or Kághó, and by
+placing Anbárah accordingly south by east from Ghánah, we shall then
+recognize it in the warlike state of Oonbori, situate in the Hajri or
+mountainous country south of Tomboktú.[77]
+
+But an anonymous Arab writer expresses himself more intelligibly
+respecting the political relations of Ghánah; he says that twenty
+parasangs or leagues east of that city was Ráyún, or perhaps rather
+Ráyawen, the nearest city (on the southern border) of the desert, to
+Sijilmésah and Wergelán. Between Ráyawen and Ghánah were the encampments
+of the Morabites, with whom the people of the latter place waged war, as
+well as with the inhabitants of Amímah, a town, as has been already
+observed, not far from Tomboktú towards the west or south-west.[78]
+
+Of the laws and usages of Ghánah, such as were capable of enduring after
+subjection to a foreign power and conversion to the Mohammedan faith,
+but scanty notices have been transmitted to us. It deserves to be
+remarked, nevertheless, that the law of inheritance in Ghánah gave the
+preference to the sister’s son, and that the same law remained in force
+in the fourteenth century in Waláta, as well as in the Mandingo kingdom
+of Málí, where, however, its existence need not create surprise.[79] But
+in Waláta, on the border of the desert, with a population chiefly of
+Berber origin, the existence of a law so singular, so characteristic of
+Guinea, and so exactly coinciding with the law of Ghánah, strongly
+argues the influence of Negro rule, and favours the presumption arising
+out of what precedes, that Waláta was comprised within the limits of
+Ghánah.
+
+One of the customs of Ghánah, transiently mentioned by El Bekrí, calls
+for some remark. In the presence of the king, the people prostrated
+themselves, and sprinkled their naked bodies with dust. This agrees
+exactly with what Ibn Baṭúṭah witnessed and justly reprobated at the
+court of Málí.[80] Such slavish manners could never have originated on
+the border of the desert, nor where local circumstances give the least
+encouragement to the love of independence. They are the manners of
+Western Guinea, and cannot be supposed to have ever existed in Houssa, a
+hilly country, divided into petty states, each cherishing a rude spirit
+of liberty. Succession to power in Houssa, is said to be elective among
+the sons; the hereditary principle being thus blended with the exercise
+of a popular right.[81] In Bornú it has been always customary to consult
+the dignity of the sovereign by concealing him from the vulgar gaze, and
+not by debasing the subject. Those admitted to the presence of the king
+sit with their backs to the curtain which screens the royal person.[82]
+
+In El Bekrí’s time the dominion of Ghánah extended toward the east but
+three days’ journey from the capital. Toward the south it could not have
+reached very far. The independent kingdom of Tekrúr was, at the utmost,
+eighteen or twenty days distant in that direction. Still nearer was
+Ṣínghánah, apparently an independent state, which carried on trade with
+the Benú Goddálah. This trade was guided in its channel, as must always
+be the case in the early stages of society, by natural circumstances. A
+branch of the desert penetrates south-eastward to the very banks of the
+Great River, in a tract of which we know not the exact width, but which
+embraces the western shores of Lake Debú.[83] Such a road, laid open by
+nature, could not fail to exert a great influence on the history of
+Negroland. And indeed, the fact that Tekrúr, situate near that part of
+the river, was the first converted of the Negro states; that the trade
+of the Berbers occupying the sea shore at Aúlíl, and subsequently their
+sway also, extended to the same quarter, might alone create a suspicion,
+that the tribes of the desert found in that tract of country a nature
+congenial to their habits. This suspicion is converted into certainty by
+the narrative of Alexander Scott, who crossed the tract in question.[84]
+The Berbers were actual possessors of territory south of Ghánah, where
+the desert approached the Great River between that country and Tekrúr.
+North of Ghánah, the dry desert of Tíser or Azawad was but eight or ten
+days distant. In that direction, however, as well as towards the west,
+the wilderness opposed no precise limits to the claims of empire, but
+allowed pretensions of sovereignty to expatiate freely over territories
+of two months’ journey in extent.
+
+Thus we have seen that Ghánah was the frontier kingdom of the Blacks
+contiguous to the advanced portion of the Great River at its north-west
+angle; and extending in front of that portion of the desert, over which
+lay the commerce with Sijilmésah,—a commerce guided by a principle,
+which if not strictly unchangeable, at least fluctuates only within
+narrow limits,—namely, that of choosing the shortest and safest route
+across the desert. It comprised the country between Waláta and the Great
+River, near the future site of Tomboktú, and enjoyed the identical
+advantages of position which subsequently made the latter city so
+prosperous.
+
+But what were the revolutions, it may be asked, which caused Ghánah to
+disappear? This question shall be fully answered hereafter; our inquiry
+at present regards the place where Ghánah existed, and not the events
+which led to its extinction. Yet it will not be alien from our purpose
+to observe, that although the name, or rather title, of Ghánah became
+politically extinct, and was erased from the list of sovereignties, yet
+it still adhered obscurely, in the sixteenth century, to at least one
+spot of the territory originally designated by it. For Marmol informs
+us, that in his time Walata was also called Ganata; and that he did not
+in this instance hazard an erudite conjecture, but spoke the plain
+language of habit and experience, is evident as well from the
+unostentatiousness of the remark, as from the frequency with which he
+indifferently employs these two names one for the other.[85]
+
+Let the reader now recal the account of Negroland, and of Ghánah in
+particular, given in the preceding pages; let him fix his attention on
+those features of the description pointed out for the purpose of showing
+that Ghánah was near the site of Tomboktú; let him consider well that
+those features have a magnitude incompatible with the supposition of
+their being repeated, and a permanence derived from their dependence on
+the physical constitution of the African continent. Let him, in fact,
+figure to himself a great and navigable river, flowing from a town
+called Silla north-eastwards for three weeks, through the country of the
+Blacks who first embraced the Mohammedan faith, skirting the desert
+eastwards for six days, and then turning southwards to a place called
+Kaúkaú, or Kághó; let him place the emporium of Negroland near the
+north-western angle of that river, at a distance of two months’ ordinary
+travelling from the shores of the Atlantic, two months from Sijilmésah,
+and fifty days from Tádmekkah, not far from the modern Aghades. He may
+then trace the road from Sijilmésah to that emporium, dividing the whole
+distance into its distinct portions, viz.—eleven days south-westward to
+the border of the desert, then six days over the hills, about seventeen
+more to the zone of drifting sand, passing near the salt mines of
+Tagháza, and eight or ten over an utterly inhospitable tract near the
+southern limit of the Ṣaḥrá. Along this road he may distribute the tents
+of the wandering Masúfah; and, a little to the east of it, he may mark
+the boundary line of the great Berber nation, the Zenágah. Let him then
+write above Silla, on the left hand, this remark:—“Trade carried on with
+the Berbers on the sea shore;” and below Kaúkaú, on the right,—“Obscure
+and little known:”[86] and when, having finished this delineation, he
+finds that, though drawn in conformity with the descriptions of Ghánah,
+it is yet perfectly applicable to Tomboktú; and that it is equally true
+and faithful, whichever of these names be given to the emporium of the
+Blacks: then, even if he throw aside all other considerations, such as
+the relations of Ghánah with the Morabites and with Mímah, the town
+whence Tomboktú derived its Berber population, he certainly cannot
+refuse to admit that the Ghánah of Arab writers was contiguous to that
+part of the Great River where Tomboktú now stands.
+
+In the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, when numerous accounts of
+Barbary were published in Europe, and when the trade of Morocco and
+Táfílélt (the ancient Sijilmésah) with Negroland was highly rated, we
+find that, besides Tomboktú, whither the routes from Táfílélt and Wád
+Nún conducted, no places of any importance in Negroland were mentioned,
+except Jenni near Silla, and Gago, which is the same as Kaúkaú. The
+caravans across the desert directed their march to the nearest point of
+Negroland, and the merchants, arriving there, never looked beyond the
+marts with which they could thence maintain a direct intercourse. In the
+same manner, and exactly within the same limits, was El Bekrí’s
+information circumscribed. He says nothing of the Mandingoes,
+Serakholies, Wolofs, Fellatah, or other black nations of the west. He is
+equally silent respecting Houssa, toward the south-east. Of Kánem, which
+was reckoned to be only forty days distant from Zawílah, he speaks in
+terms indicative of the faintness of his knowledge:—“The people,” he
+says, “are blacks and idolators; and the country is hardly ever visited
+by travellers.”—Thus the analogous modes in which Ghánah and Tomboktú
+present themselves respectively to the ancient and modern historians of
+Negroland, corroborate the opinion that the site of the former of those
+places was in the vicinity of the latter.[87]
+
+In the attempt here made to demonstrate that Ghánah was near the site of
+Tomboktú, it will be perceived that no aid has been sought from
+etymologies or fancied resemblance of names; much less have such
+delusive lights been allowed to guide our investigations. The arguments
+urged in the foregoing pages rest wholly on necessary deductions from
+the obvious sense of our Arab authorities, without any attempt to wrest
+their meaning. The topics touched on in those arguments may be thus
+briefly recapitulated:
+
+The description of Ghánah in respect to its bearing and distance from
+Sijilmésah—the details of the road to it, and characteristics of the
+desert—the relations of Ghánah with the Zenágah, and particularly with
+the Morabites—its intercourse with the tribes on the sea shore—the
+position of Genéwah—the course of the River—the relations of Ghánah with
+Mimah, Másín or Masena, Anbárah, &c.—the name Ganata remaining to
+Walata—the laws and usages of Ghánah.
+
+There still remains an argument of no common weight, the substance of
+which, though belonging to another part of this inquiry, yet may,
+without impropriety, be briefly stated here. The Blacks of the country
+named Málí, who, it will be seen, were Mandingoes, issuing from the
+south-west, conquered Ghánah. Their empire (to use the words of their
+historian) extended from Ghánah in the east, to the ocean in the west.
+Nearly a century after that conquest, they advanced eastward (or rather
+south-eastward) to Kaúkaú, whence they marched into the desert and made
+themselves masters of Tekaddá. They subsequently relinquished, however,
+the possession of that place, and retired to Kaúkaú; so that the Great
+River formed the boundary of their sway towards the east, with the
+exception, perhaps, of a short space below Kaúkaú. Now there can be no
+uncertainty respecting the ground over which these conquerors marched.
+The celebrated traveller, Ibn Baṭúṭah, visited, in the fourteenth
+century, the capital of Málí, on the Joliba above Sego; he thence
+travelled to Tomboktú; thence descended the river to Kaúkaú, and from
+that place he went to Tekaddá, which was on the road from Kaúkaú to Ghát
+and Ghodémis. He thus appears to have followed exactly the course which
+had been taken by the Mandingo conquerors; the only difference in his
+described route being, that he found Tomboktú where they had found
+Ghánah.
+
+                               * * * * *
+
+
+[Footnote 5: Chénier (Recherches sur les Maures, tom. III. pp. 16 and
+79) was the first to pronounce, Walckenaer (Recherches sur l’Afrique
+Septentrionale, 1822, p. 285) the first to prove, the identity of
+Sijilmésah سجلماسه with Táfílélt تافيلالت. The arguments of the latter
+amount to demonstration, and need no reinforcement. Yet we may be
+permitted to add, that all the Arab writers, without exception, make
+Sijilmésah contiguous to Darʿah درعه; and that the uncritical Marmol,
+although he subjoins to his description of Sijilmésah (vol. III. fol. 8)
+an account also of Táfílélt, denuded of every circumstance which could
+help to determine its geographical position, yet in copying Leo’s list
+of the provinces of Numidia, omits Sijilmésah, and substitutes for it
+Táfílélt (Leo Africanus, pt. I. c. 5. in Ramusio, 1554, vol. I. fol. 1
+V, Marmol, I. fol. 12). The name Táfílélt seems to have come into use
+with the rise of the dynasty of the Fílélí sherífs. The tribe, ennobled
+by events, gave its name to the country in which it was established. M.
+Gråberg af Hemsö, therefore (Specchio di Marocco, 1834, p. 65), who
+refuses his assent to M. Walckenaer’s conclusions, and separates
+Táfílélt from Sijilmésah for reasons of comparatively little weight,
+cannot certainly vindicate his mode of using the former of these names,
+by showing that it occurs in the pages of any historian, native or
+foreign, anterior to the sixteenth century. The Fílélí tribe or family
+are however of ancient standing, for Ibn Baṭúṭah informs us that at
+Kaúkaú, in Negroland, in A.D. 1353, he became acquainted with the faḳíh
+or doctor, Mohammed the Fílélí الفيلالي.]
+
+[Footnote 6: Ghánah غَانَة and غَانَةَ (MS. B.M.). The final _hé_ ﻪ of
+the Arabs, when pointed ﺔ, is pronounced as _t_ before a vowel; غَانَة
+and غَانَةَ therefore, when not immediately followed by consonants, are
+read Ghánat̤ and Ghánat̤a. But the suppression of the _t_ in this
+instance seems to be due altogether to the analogies of the Arabic
+language, and probably was not always imitated by the Berbers, in which
+language _t_ is a frequent termination. Hence it is not surprising that
+in an extract from El Bekrí, sent from Tripoli by M. Gråberg af Hemsö,
+to M. Jaubert (Recueil, &c. par la Soc. de Géogr. tom. II. 1825), we
+should find Ghánat غَانَتْ constantly written instead of Ghánah غانه.
+The importance of this remark will appear hereafter.]
+
+[Footnote 7: The Arabic _wa_ و when it begins a word, is a consonant,
+like our _w_. Hence, when the Arabs would write a name beginning with a
+long _o_ or _u_, they are obliged to prefix an aleph ا to the wa و to
+preserve to the latter its vocal function; thus اودغست, اوليل, اوكار,
+would be written to express Odaghost or Udagost, Olíl or Ulíl, Okár or
+Ukár. The áú او may be also intended for a diphthong. But it must be
+observed that the prefixed aleph in the Berber language is a sign of
+case, and may have other offices; there is some temerity therefore in
+excluding the form Awadagost, and in reading Berber names according to
+the analogies of a foreign language.]
+
+[Footnote 8: Not. et Extr. p. 642. The reasons for concluding that Aúkár
+lay to the south-west of Aúdaghost, will be shown hereafter. El Bekrí
+states more than once that Ghánah was the king’s title. Not. et Extr.
+pp. 630 and 642.]
+
+[Footnote 9: Támedelt تَامدَلتْ (MS. B.M.) is read by M. Quatremère,
+Tamdoult. Sús el Aḳṣa, i.e. the remote Sús, is the most southern
+province of Morocco, on the confines of the desert.]
+
+[Footnote 10: The routes to Ghánah and Aúdaghost went southward,
+according to Abulfedá, but this expression need not be strictly
+understood. (Abulfedá’s Geography, translated by Reiske in Büsching’s
+Magazin, vol. IV. 212, V. 354). Tomboktú is here spelt as dictated by
+Ibn Baṭúṭah. The river of Negroland, which, in the successive parts of
+its course is named Joliba, Issa, Quorra, &c., and which theory and
+false learning have styled the Niger, will be generally denominated,
+throughout the following pages, _the Great River_.]
+
+[Footnote 11: Caillié reckoned fifty-seven days of actual travelling
+between Tomboktú and Táfílélt.]
+
+[Footnote 12: Mabrúk is said by some (Itinerary of Ḥáj Ḳásim, in
+Walckenaer, Rech. p. 426) to be eleven days, by others (Mohammed of
+Tripoli, in the Quarterly Review, No. 45, p. 231) fifteen from
+Tomboktú.]
+
+[Footnote 13: Since the intercourse between Fez and Támedelt need not be
+considered as merely commercial, it would be injudicious to measure the
+routes between them by the journeys of a loaded caravan. El Bekrí (Not.
+et Extr. p. 598) reckons eight days’ journey between Fez and Sijilmésah,
+but one of them was a long journey (across the desert of Angad) of sixty
+miles. Abulfedá makes the distance between these cities to be ten days’
+journey. We reckon nine days, so as make the whole distance of Fez from
+Támedelt twenty days’ journey, and allow twenty-two geographical miles
+to each. The bearing of Támedelt from Iklí is said to have been in the
+direction of the Ḳibla بقبلي (MS. B.M. fol. 105), or temple of Mekkah,
+towards which the followers of Mohammed turn their faces when they pray.
+The direction of the Ḳibla is understood in Morocco, according to Windus
+(Journey to Morocco, p. 49) to mean east by south.]
+
+[Footnote 14: The caravans from Sijilmésah to Ghánah, like those to
+Tomboktú, assembled on the confines of Sús, Darʿah, and the desert.
+Tatta, the gathering place of the merchants going to Tomboktú, as placed
+by Major Rennell, on information derived from the British consul at
+Mogadore (Proceedings of the African Assoc. 1810, vol. I. p. 254), is
+not more than two days distant from the site of Támedelt; and El Harib,
+the point at which Caillié, travelling northward, quitted the desert,
+was but four or five days distant from these places.]
+
+[Footnote 15: Bír el Jemmálín بير الجمالين (MS. B.M. fol. 101), the
+Camel-keepers’ well. M. Quatremère (Not. et Extr. p. 612) reads Bír el
+Ḥammálín, that is, the Porters’ well. But as this name occurs in the
+route from Wádi Darʿah, it is fortunate that a pointed MS. enables us to
+distinguish clearly between those two places, the proximity of which
+would conduce to the embarrassment likely to result from their being
+confounded together.]
+
+[Footnote 16: Azawwar أزَوَّرْ MS. B.M. fol. 102; Azour in Not. et Extr.
+p. 613. This name may, with much probability, be read Azawwad ازود, that
+is, the dry or sterile country.]
+
+[Footnote 17: Tendefas تندفس MS. B.M. fol. 102; Tendefak, Not. et Extr.
+p. 613. Weínhílún وَيْنهيْلُون MS. B.M.; Wirhaloun, Not. et Extr.]
+
+[Footnote 18: Tázḳa تازقَي MS. B.M.; Tarka, Not. et Extr. This word,
+written _Taskha_ by Capt. Lyon (Travels in North Africa, p. 315), is
+still retained in the dialect of the Tawárik.]
+
+[Footnote 19: Weíṭúnán ويْطُونان MS. B.M.—Aúkázenta اوكازنْتَ MS. B.M.;
+Oukarit, Not. et Extr.]
+
+[Footnote 20: Sidi Hamed, leaving Wád Nún, went six days round the
+mountains towards the south, that is, he cleared the hills on the sixth
+day. He then travelled fifteen days over hard ground, on which the
+camels left no trace; then three days on hard sand, and then entered the
+hills of drifting sand. Riley’s Narrative of the Shipwreck of the brig
+Commerce, p. 322.]
+
+[Footnote 21: The Harib of Caillié, who was not fortunate in seizing the
+sounds of the Arabic and Berber languages, ought probably to be Gharíb
+غريب M. D’Avezac (Bulletin de la Soc. de Géog. 1834, tom. II. p. 169)
+proposes reading ʿArib; but since the tribe of the Gharíb is mentioned
+in M. Gråberg af Hemsö’s list of Berber names (Journal Roy. Geog. Soc.
+vol. VII. p. 255) and Marmol (tom. III. fol. 9,) places a tribe named
+Garib in the neighbourhood of Tatta, we cannot avoid concluding that the
+French traveller means to speak of the same tribe as the last-named
+author, and that its true name is El Gharíb. But in the map drawn by M.
+Jomard to illustrate Caillié’s journey, the position of El Harib is even
+more faulty than its orthography. It detracts little from Caillié’s
+merit to say, that under all the circumstances of his journey his
+observations of the compass were worth but little, and his estimates of
+distance are not to be implicitly relied on. Nineteen miles a day for
+the average of forty-three days between Tomboktú and El Harib, and
+twenty-nine miles daily during the worst part of the journey, over deep
+and burning sands, are rates of travelling much too high for a loaded
+caravan. By the undue lengthening of the early part of the route, El
+Harib has been carried about fifty miles too far north, so that Tatta,
+instead of being north-west of it, according to the traveller’s text, is
+made to lie to the south-west. All the other bearings described are in
+like manner displaced. M. D’Avezac has corrected this error of latitude,
+but has, at the same time, unfortunately introduced a new error of
+longitude, and carried all his positions too far eastward.]
+
+[Footnote 22: Quart. Rev. No. 75, 1828, p. 102; Edinburgh Phil. Journal,
+vol. IV. p. 42.]
+
+[Footnote 23: Wanzamín ونزمين MS. B.M.; Wabermin, Not. et Extr. p. 614.]
+
+[Footnote 24: Wárán وارَان. The name of the inhabitants of this part of
+the desert has been read by M. Quatremère, Benú Hareth, instead of Benú
+Wareth وارث; but the restoration of this name is important; since we
+learn from another passage in El Bekrí that the Benú Wareth were to the
+east of the Lumtúnah; and are thus enabled to perceive that the road to
+Aúdaghost lay eastwards from the road to Ghánah.—Agharef أَغَرَفْ MS.
+B.M. 102 v.—Akríri اقرٮري Not. et Extr. p. 615. اقرٮٮدى MS. B.M.]
+
+[Footnote 25: Azjúnán (pronounced Azgúnán) ازجونان MS. B.M.; Arkounat,
+Not. et Extr.]
+
+[Footnote 26: In Nubia showers of rain are of rare occurrence north of
+the 18th parallel (Rüppell, Reisen in Nubien, &c. p. 75). Denham
+(Travels, &c. I. p. 164) fixed the first appearance of fresh vegetation
+and the limit of the tropical rains on his route to Bornú, near the 16th
+parallel, which is probably too low for the limit of rain. Tomboktú, we
+are told, has annually six weeks or more of rain (Proc. Afr. Assoc. I.
+p. 285; Narrative of R. Adams, p. 42)—and this blessing seems to extend
+some distance north-eastward of it (Riley’s Narrative, p. 346). Towards
+the coast the gum forests which extend as far north as the 18th degree
+of latitude probably do not fall far short of the limit of regular
+rains.]
+
+[Footnote 27: Tarḳá ترقا Not. et Extr. p. 623; Tárga تارجي MS. B.M. 105
+r.—Tezámt تزامت MS. B.M. 105 v; Baramet, Not. et Extr. p. 624.—Bir el
+Ḥammálín بير الحمالين—Máleki مالكي Not. et Extr. p. 264; Nálelli ناللِّي
+MS. B.M. 105 v.]
+
+[Footnote 28: In the Parisian MS. the expression is “the mountains, the
+name of which, in Berber, signifies _the mountains of iron_.” Not. et
+Extr. 624. But the MS. B.M. gives the Berber name Adarérén wazzél
+ءَاَدَرَارَانْ وَزّالْ in which Adarérén is the plural of Adrar, a
+mountain, and wazzél, iron, corresponds with the _ouzail_ of Shaw’s
+vocabulary (Travels in Barbary, II. p. 382).]
+
+[Footnote 29: Yentesír ينْتسِير, MS. B.M.; Belis, Not. et Extr.—Moddúken
+مُدُّوكَن MS. B.M.; Merouken, Not. et Extr. From the village of
+Moddúken, which belonged to the Zenágah, to the city of Ghánah مَدَينة
+غَانة was a journey of only four days. But for Ghánah in this place M.
+Quatremère proposes reading Akka, عاقه, being perplexed by the
+faultiness of his MS. which seems to conduct beyond Ghánah to the
+country of the Lumtúnah. The MS. B.M. p. 105 v, clears up the difficulty
+by these words; “and from the wells before mentioned, (viz. the wells of
+El Ḥammálín and Nálelli,) the water is carried a four days’ journey to
+Mount Aízal or Izal ايزَلْ in the desert,” &c. Thus the road to the
+desert (the Lumtúnah not being named in this passage) does not begin
+from Ghánah, but from “the before-mentioned wells.” Jebel Aízal may be
+suspected of being another form of Adarérén Wazzél.]
+
+[Footnote 30: The name Tíser تيسر (Jaubert’s Idrísí. Recueil de Mém. &c.
+tom. V. p. 106) is extremely doubtful. Some of the MS. copies of Idrísí
+have Níser نيسر, others Nesír نسير. The epitome offers Bansar بنسر;
+Abulfedá writes Yasr يسر.]
+
+[Footnote 31: El Bekrí (Not. et Extr. 624) gives to the absolutely
+waterless desert between Sijilmésah and Ghánah, an extent of eight days’
+journey. Sheríshí, in his commentary on Harírí (Maḳámah 9) gives it a
+width of ten days. Ibn el Wardi increases it to twelve days, and El
+Idrísí (Jaubert’s Transl. p. 106) to fourteen. It was natural enough
+that the first of these writers, who may be supposed to have derived
+much of his information from the early Morabites themselves, should
+receive a less exaggerated account of the inhospitable nature of the
+western desert than those who followed him.]
+
+[Footnote 32: The road to Aúdaghost passed through the territory of the
+Benú Wáreth. But this tribe were to the east of the Lumtúnah, through
+whose country was traced the road to Ghánah (see note 24). And Ghánah
+was at least four days south of the desert of Tíser, while Aúdaghost was
+east of that desert, according to Abulfedá (Büsching’s Magazin, vol. IV.
+p. 212). El Idrísí also places Aúdaghost in the northern part of the
+kingdom of Ghánah; and by stating its distance from Wergelán and Jermah,
+he plainly intimates that it was likewise in the eastern part. All these
+particulars combine to prove that Aúdaghost was to the north-east of
+Ghánah.]
+
+[Footnote 33: Ibn Baṭúṭah travelled at the slow rate of a heavily laden
+caravan. Halts included, he was two months in reaching Aïwalátin, or
+Walata, on the southern border of the desert. His accounts of the pools
+of Táserahlá which shall be given hereafter, exactly correspond with El
+Idrísí’s description of the wells of Tíser. In Jaubert’s ‘Idrísí’ (p.
+11), is the following passage: “Il y existe cependant des mares d’eau de
+pluie qu’on rencontre après deux, quatre, cinq ou douze journées de
+marche, semblables à celle du désert situé sur la route de Sedjelmasa à
+Ghana, et où l’on ne trouve de l’eau qu’au bout de quatorze jours de
+marche.” Instead of the word _desert_ in this place, the Epitome of El
+Idrísí has the name Bansar بنسر, evidently for Tíser تيسر.]
+
+[Footnote 34: Leo Afr. pt. VI. c. 54. Marmol writes Azaoat. Beyond, or
+eastward of the desert of the Zenágah, Leo places that of the Zuenziga,
+“which extends from Segelmesse, Tebelbelt, and Benigorai, to the desert
+of Ghir, in the south, which faces the kingdom of Gubar. On the west it
+has Tegaza, and on the east the desert of Air, inhabited by the Targa
+tribe (the Tawárik).” It is manifest that the several divisions of the
+desert described by Leo (pt. VI. c. 54-8), all extend from north-west to
+south-east, conformably to the boundary line which we have ascribed to
+the country of the Zenágah on the east. It is plain also, that these
+people were not in the vicinity of the Houssa country. The desert of
+Ghir brings to mind the Káhir كاهر of Ibn Baṭúṭah; but we can have no
+doubt that the Air of Leo is the country of Ahír (Ḥáj Ḳásim in
+Walckenaer, Rech. p. 448) or Aáheer (ʿAhír?), which we learn from Sultan
+Bello (Denham’s Travels, II. 447, where Aáheer is erroneously said to be
+south of Bornú) to be the portion of the desert lying north of Houssa
+and Bornú. But it appears that the name in question has extended further
+southwards since Leo’s time, a proof that the Tawárik have been gaining
+ground.]
+
+[Footnote 35: The account of Major Laing’s journey to Tomboktú
+(Quarterly Review, July 1828, p. 103-5), after stating that he was
+attacked by the Tawárik, makes frequent mention of _Azoad_, whence, on
+recovering from his wounds, he wrote his last letter. Caillié mentions
+“the tribe of Zaouât, who wander in the desert of _the same name_”
+(Voyage à Temboctou, tom. II. p. 349). It was the Sheikh of this tribe,
+Hamet aúlád Habíb, who put Major Laing to death, meeting him five days
+north of Tomboktú, on the road to Arawan. The name of this murderer
+brings to mind the fact that the chief wells on the roads to Aúdaghost
+and Ghánah were dug by a Sheikh of the Aúlád Habíb. It is plain that the
+tribe called Zaouât by Caillié, were so named from their country; and it
+is probable that he, or the editor of his volumes, deprived the name
+Azawad of its initial letter, in the belief that it was thereby freed
+from the Arabic article. The desert of Azawad is described by Lyon
+(Trav. in N. Afr. p. 148) under the name of ʿAsheríyah, or _the ten
+days’_ desert.]
+
+[Footnote 36: Marmol, Descripcion de Africa, vol. I. fol. 34 r. In
+another place, however, (vol. III. fol. 16,) he uses the name Genéwah in
+a restricted sense, and says that the Zenágah have on the south, “the
+Benais, Gelofes, the kingdoms of Gualata, Geneúa, Meli, and
+Tumbuto”—Genéwah being here evidently identified, by hypothesis, with
+Jenni.]
+
+[Footnote 37: Kitábu-l-Jʿaráfíyah (Book of Geography), &c. MS. in the
+collection of D. P. de Gayangos. This anonymous work, though ill
+written, contains much which is not to be found in El Idrísí and his
+numerous copiers.]
+
+[Footnote 38: Arkí أَركِي MS. B.M. fol. 107; Azdji أَرجي Not. et Extr.
+p. 629.—The copies of El Idrísí present this name in a variety of forms.
+In M. Jaubert’s translation of this author (p. 206), there is the
+following passage: “La ville s’appelle Azoucaï ازقي en langue Berbère,
+et Cocadam قوقدم en génois.” By _génois_ we are here to understand the
+language of the Genéwah. But the name here read Cocadam, or, as we
+should write it, Ḳúḳdem, deserves a moment’s notice. Leo Africanus
+informs us (pt. VI. c. 55) that the caravans from Telemsén to Tomboktú,
+pass over a difficult tract of desert, where no water is found for nine
+days, and which is named Gogdem. It is probable that this desert, as
+well as the town further west, owed its name to wanderers from Goghidem,
+a mountain of central Atlas, in the province of Hascora, of whose
+emigration Leo himself furnishes the explanation (pt. II. c. 71). Arkí,
+the chief town of the Lumtúnah, is placed by El Idrísí, seven days from
+Wád Nún. As little reliance, however, can be placed on that author’s
+measures, we may allow Arkí to be even fourteen days from Wád Nún, and
+yet its site will not be eastward of the road to Tomboktú. But,
+according to El Idrísí (_ut supra_), those who went to Silla, Tekrúr,
+and Ghánah, passed near it of necessity. Our knowledge of the position
+of Mímah, or Amímah, we owe to Ibn Baṭúṭah, whose narrative shall be
+examined further on.]
+
+[Footnote 39: Ghánah, in the country of Genéwah, من بلاد جناوه is an
+expression frequently used by the same author. Where others would have
+written Beléd es-Súdán, or land of the Blacks, he always writes Genéwah.
+This name, indeed, became in Morocco the general designation of blacks
+and slaves. Thus we are told that Muley Hamed grew rich “by husbanding
+his Maseraws (oil-mills) and Ingenewas (slave farms) where his sugar
+canes did grow. (A True Historical Discovery of Muley Hamet’s Rising,
+&c. 1609, c. 3.) The initial letter of the name Genéwah جناوه being
+pronounced hard by the Moors, the southern Europeans, in imitation of
+them, wrote Chinoia, Gheneoa, and Ghinéa; from which we, by throwing
+back the accent, made Guinea. “The kingdom, says Leo (pt. VI. c. 3),
+called by our merchants (the Moors) Gheneoa, is by the natives called
+Genni, and by the Europeans who have any knowledge of it, Ghinea.” It is
+certain that Ghinéa and Guinea are derived from Genéwah; but we see no
+sufficient reason to admit that the name of the city of Genni or Jenni
+has the same origin. But since general names, not merely appellations,
+are rare among a rude people, it is natural for us to inquire what was
+meant by Genéwah, or, to conform to the sound, Ghinéwah. Did it mean
+_the Blacks_? On the coast, the negroes contiguous to the Whites are,
+for contra-distinction, named in their own language Wolof, that is,
+_Blacks_. The name Jelofe (Wolof) is used in this general sense by
+Marmol (III. fol. 27 v). And why should not the people of the interior
+designate themselves according to the same universal and simple
+principle? Now, in the language of Tomboktú, _gnewa_, or, as Major
+Rennell, who had the original information, writes it, _genewa_,
+signifies Black (Proc. Afr. Ass. I. p. 124 and 428), so that we are
+justified in suspecting at least that we have here found the origin of
+the name Genéwah.]
+
+[Footnote 40: Not. et Extr. p. 629.]
+
+[Footnote 41: The extent of desert here assigned to the Benú Goddálah,
+may enable us, if carefully considered, to ascertain their interior
+limits towards Ghánah. Numerous authorities, which need not be here
+cited, agree in estimating the distance of Tomboktú from Táfílélt or
+Morocco to be, in general terms, a two months’ journey. The more
+circumstantial accounts reckon, between Tomboktú and Akka, Tatta, or El
+Harib, near the frontiers of Sús and the desert, thirty-six (Jackson’s
+Morocco, p. 241)—forty-three (Shabeeny’s Narrative, by Jackson, p. 7)—or
+thirty-nine days (Caillié, Journal, &c.), exclusive of halts. We find
+the distance of Tatta from Tomboktú estimated also at fifty days
+(Proceedings of the African Association, vol. I. p. 225). Davidson
+(Notes on a Journey in Africa, 1839, p. 101) learned that the courier’s
+track from Wád Nún to Tomboktú is travelled in forty days, and that from
+the same place to Jenni is usually reckoned a distance of sixty days,
+though frequently traversed in less time (Notes, &c. p. 113). But it
+must be observed, that, with respect to caravans, the time allowed for
+halting at the chief wells often exceeds that spent in travelling. Now
+to estimate the longitudinal dimensions of the western desert, we have
+the distance of forty days’ journey from Arguin to the French factory at
+Fort St. Joseph, on the Senegal, and from the latter point forty-eight
+days to Tomboktú, the latter distance being established by a concurrence
+of testimony which places it beyond dispute (D’Anville, Mem. de l’Acad.
+tom. XXVI. p. 73; Rennell in Proc. of Afr. Assoc. vol. II. pp. 225,
+464). Circuits being allowed for, these distances combined will place
+Tomboktú about two months and a half from Arguin. In confirmation of
+this conclusion, we find that Sidi Hamet (Riley’s Narrative, p. 319),
+taking the road by the sea shore, travelled from Wád Nún southwards for
+four months to the borders of Negroland, and then went eastward two
+months to Tomboktú. On his return he travelled westward one month, and
+encamped at a little Negro town called Jathrow—probably the Dgazzara of
+M. Roger’s informant (Rec. de Voy. II. p. 62), whose estimate of
+distances, however, uniformly fall far short of the reality. Sidi Hamet
+then turned northward, and reached Wád Nún in three months and a half.
+Though the people dwelling on the margin of the desert are apt to talk
+of speedy journeys, as was experienced by Park and Davidson, yet the
+inhabitants of the wilderness itself, having little provision and weak
+cattle, which they pasture as they go, rarely travel at a rate exceeding
+twelve or thirteen miles a day. Alexander Scott (Edinburgh Phil. Jour.
+vol. IV.), a shipwrecked sailor, and captive in the desert, travelled
+from the vicinity of Cape Bojador two months and a half, to the line of
+gum forests, which lie chiefly between the 17th and 18th parallels, and
+then continued his march for another month before he reached Lake
+Dibbie, which is formed by the waters of the Great River. It is needless
+to collect more authorities to show that a desert of two months in
+extent and bounded by the Atlantic, must be supposed to lie wholly
+westward of Tomboktú.]
+
+[Footnote 42: Aúlíl اوليل. It is also written Aúlílí اوليلي by Ibn el
+Wardi and others. It is probably a variation of the name Walílí وليلي,
+formerly belonging to a village near Fez, and also to Tangier.]
+
+[Footnote 43: If the well-ascertained route of forty-eight days from
+Fort St. Joseph to Tomboktú, measured on Mr. J. Arrowsmith’s map, be
+taken as the scale, and sixty days be then measured along the shore from
+Wád Nún, it will exactly reach Arguin. But the Benú Goddálah, possessing
+a desert of two months in extent, were separated by a six days’ journey
+from the Ṣínghánah, who dwelt on the river between Silla and Ghánah. Now
+from Arguin to the nearest point of the Great River, towards the east,
+is a distance of about sixty-eight days’ journey, measured as above. It
+is necessary, therefore, if we would treat El Bekrí as a sensible and
+sober writer, to infer that Aúlíl was at Arguin, and that the Ṣínghánah
+dwelt near Lake Debú, between Silla and Tomboktú.]
+
+[Footnote 44: At Cape St. Anne, in the bay of Arguin, where the beds of
+salt are found, is a small island which appears to answer El Bekrí’s
+description. Labat (L’Afrique Occidentale, tom. I. p. 58) says of it,
+“On trouve à la pointe de la Saline une petite isle qui ne se distingue
+presque pas du continent.” De Barros (Decad. I. liv. I. c. 10) explains
+why Arguin is the only inhabited spot on the shores of the Desert.]
+
+[Footnote 45: El Bekrí in Not. et Extr. p. 630. It is Abulfedá, who,
+quoting Ibnu Sʿaïd, informs us (Büsching’s Mag. IV. 205,) that Aúdaghost
+was within the limit of the rains.]
+
+[Footnote 46: Not. et Extr. p. 631. The fact that the campaign of the
+Morabites in one year embraced both Aúdaghost and Sijilmésah, is enough
+to show that the former place was contiguous to the Western Ṣaḥrá.]
+
+[Footnote 47: The language of El Idrísí (Rec. de Voy. V. p. 109), paints
+the decay of Aúdaghost: he describes it to be “a little town, deficient
+in water; with a scanty population and miserable trade, which consists
+in camels.” This is the town which modern geographers, induced by a
+supposed resemblance of names—though Rennell (Geogr. Illust. of Park’s
+Journey, in Proc. of Afr. Assoc. I. p. 501,) took the precaution to
+convert Aúdaghost into Agadost—have chosen to identify with Aghades, or
+Aghdes, which Leo Africanus (pt. VII. c. 9), writing in 1541, calls “a
+city built by the moderns;” while Marmol (III. fol. 24), more precise,
+says that it was founded 160 years before the time of his writing, or in
+1438.]
+
+[Footnote 48: Not. et Extr. p. 630. Bucklers made of the skins of the
+Dant or Lant (probably el-ant), which is supposed to be the _Antilope
+Leucorix_, were chiefly manufactured in Wád Nún. By the amber carried to
+Aúdaghost from the sea shore, we must understand ambergris, to which El
+Idrísí alludes when describing the western shores of Africa (Rec. de
+Voy. pp. 64 and 135).]
+
+[Footnote 49: Not. et Extr. p. 615.]
+
+[Footnote 50: Ghábah غابه MS. B.M. fol. 112 r; Alghábat الغابت Rec. de
+Voy. II. p. 2; Ghaïah غايه Not. et Extr. 643. The predominant idea in
+the meaning of the name Ghábah or Ghábat̤, which is undoubtedly the true
+reading, is _obscurity_: lowness of situation and overhanging gloom are
+both implied by it.]
+
+[Footnote 51: Ṣínghánah صينغانه. Caillié (tom. II. p. 237) mentions a
+place called Sangouno, on the left bank of the Great River, three or
+four days from Jenni.—Tekrúr تكرور.]
+
+[Footnote 52: Silla سلي, سيلي, and سلا. El Bekrí mentions cotton as one
+of the chief productions of this country; no house, he says, was without
+its cotton tree. Leo, in like manner, says (pt. VII. c. 3), that cotton
+was the staple merchandise of Jenni, which is but two days from Silla;
+and Caillié observed the general cultivation of that article in the
+country south-westward of Jenni (tom. II. pp. 156-167.) The people of
+Silla, being slave-dealers, made constant war on their pagan neighbours,
+of whom the nearest were the Kalembú قلنبو, a day’s journey distant. Now
+the district of Negroland at present characterized by the termination
+_bú_, is that contiguous to the modern Silla towards the west, and on
+the northern side of the river. There we find Modiboo, Doolinkeaboo,
+Fanimboo, &c., within a small compass. “From Tarankat̤i ترنْقَةِ (MS.
+B.M. fol. 111 r), near Silla, the inhabited country (says our author)
+extends to Záfḳú زافقو” which name M. Quatremère reads Afnou (Not. et
+Extr. p. 641). But if we suppose that a Nún ﻨ is here mistaken for the
+Maghrebí Kaf ڧ, the two readings will be reconciled in Zafnú, the Jafnoo
+of our maps, which is a very likely limit to our author’s exact
+information. To point out unequivocally the direction in which his
+narrative led him, he adds, that “the country continues populous to the
+ocean.”]
+
+[Footnote 53: Aúghám اوغام MS. B.M. 1140; Audagam اودعام Not. et Extr.
+p. 651—Merásah مراسه—Tírḳa تيرْقَي MS. B.M.—Tádmekkah تادمكه—Seghmárah
+سغمارة—Kaúkaú كوكو.]
+
+[Footnote 54: Not. et Extr. pp. 652, 653. The ten journeys allowed
+between Wérgelán وارجلان MS. B.M., وارقلان Not. et Extr., and Ghodémis
+غُدامِس, show the scale by which we are to measure this route, and allow
+us to stretch the forty journeys between the latter place and Tádmekkah
+farther than could be done without such an intimation.]
+
+[Footnote 55: Macrízí, in Hamaker’s Specimen Catalogi Cod. Or. MSS.
+Academiæ Lugd. Bat. pp. 207, 9. In the passage in question M. Hamaker
+reads Taoumcah تاومكه, instead of which it is an obvious correction to
+restore Tádmekkah تادمكه. If we increase forty in the ratio of thirty to
+fifty, the numbers by which our authors respectively measure the
+distance between Ghánah and Tádmekkah, we shall have sixty-six days for
+the distance of the latter place from the Tajúah, according to El
+Bekrí’s scale. The Tajúah or Tajuwín of the Arabs, are the people whom
+Browne calls Dageou (Travels in Africa, p. 325), and who once ruled
+Darfur.]
+
+[Footnote 56: The name Tádmekkah signified The Likeness of Mekkah, (Not.
+et Extr. p. 653.) But Ned Roma, as Leo informs us (pt. IV. c. 6),
+signified The Likeness of Rome. A single point in Arabic writing
+discriminates between these two prefixes. But since El Bekrí, who writes
+Tádmekkah, also writes Nádrúmah, we must be satisfied to ascribe the
+apparent discrepancy, in this case, to difference of dialect. But it may
+be here remarked, that the pages of Leo Africanus are not quite free
+from the inaccuracies which originate in an unpointed Arabic text. They
+offer, for instance, Perzegreg for Ber Zegzeg, Nefreoa for Nefzeoa,
+Amarig for Amazig, and frequently Ibn Racu for Ibn Rachic. In the early
+French translation of Leo (by Jean Temporal, 1556), we find also
+Cairaran frequently written for Cairaoan, Azarad for Azaoad, and Araran
+for Araoan. Whether these errors have been all copied from the version
+of Leo in the first edition of Ramusio’s first volume, we have not had
+the means of determining; but the second edition of Ramusio (1554) is
+free from the more glaring of them.]
+
+[Footnote 57: Safnaḳú سفنقوا—Búghrát بوغرات MS. B.M. 115 v; Not. et
+Extr. 652.]
+
+[Footnote 58: Silla is fourteen days from Tomboktú by land, and a month
+by water. From these extremes it is easy to derive the distance assigned
+above. Sidi Hamed (in Riley’s Narrative, p. 334) going from Tomboktú to
+Houssa, first travelled six days along the river, a little south of east
+till he came to hills, where the stream turned southwards.]
+
+[Footnote 59: “Verso mezzogiorno, e quasi inchina alla parte di
+scilocco.” Pt. VII. c. 3.]
+
+[Footnote 60: The statements of this valuable writer, as well as the
+journey of Ibn Baṭúṭah, will be given at length further on.]
+
+[Footnote 61: Jaubert’s Idrísí, in the Rec. de Voy. V. p. 17; Ibn el
+Wardí.]
+
+[Footnote 62: Alexander Scott, in his pilgrimage beyond the Great River,
+found that the desert continues to the very shores of Lake Debú, where
+there was a town or encampment of the Orghebets (Raghabát?)—Edinb. Phil.
+Journ. vol. IV. p. 43.]
+
+[Footnote 63: Not. et Extr. p. 640.]
+
+[Footnote 64: The people of Melli (Málí), according to Leo (pt. VII. c.
+4), were the first to embrace the Mohammedan faith.]
+
+[Footnote 65: This point will be more fully considered when we come to
+speak of Tekrúr.]
+
+[Footnote 66: The Brebísh often encamp eastward of Tomboktú, in which
+quarter nevertheless the Tawárik seem to have gained ground on the
+Zenágah.]
+
+[Footnote 67: It is a strong argument in favour of the construction here
+given to the route to Ghaïárú غيارُوا (MS. B.M. 1120), that it
+establishes a uniform and consistent method in El Bekrí’s narrative.
+That author begins his account of Negroland with the Ṣínghánah, who
+traded with the Benú Goddálah in the west. He then goes to the south-
+west to Silla and Tekrúr; then having mentioned Ghánah, he passes to the
+route to Ghaïárú, and finally turns due east, and describes the route to
+Tádmekkah. It is requisite for clearness and exact order, that the route
+to Ghaïárú should lie between the south-west and the east.]
+
+[Footnote 68: Sámaḳanda سامَقَنْدَي MS. B.M. 113 r; Sámaghondi
+سَامَغُنْدِي Rec. de Voy. II. p. 4. The corruptions of this name, which
+is probably significant, are enumerated in the notes to Hartmann’s
+Idrísí, p. 42.—Ṭáḳah طاقة MS. B.M.; Ṭáḳat طاقت Rec. de Voy. p. 5; Tanah,
+Not. et Extr. p. 646.—Zúgú زوغُوا MS. B.M.; Zoghárá زُغَارَا Rec. de
+Voy.; Rougou, Not. et Extr.]
+
+[Footnote 69: Gharnatil غرنتل MS. B.M.; Garbil, Not. et Extr. عُونْتِل
+Oʿuntil, Rec. de Voy. This latter reading brings to mind the place
+called by Mohammed Maséní (Clapperton’s Second Journey, p. 330), Oodel
+or Goodel (with the same doubtful initial letter), where the Great River
+is crossed between Sokkatú and Maséna. In the absence of better
+guidance, Ghúntil غونتل shall be here assumed to be the true reading,
+and the name of the identical place called Goodel by Bello’s servant.]
+
+[Footnote 70: The MS. B.M. fol. 113, has Yersana يرسني, which seems too
+violently opposed to the other MSS. In the Rec. de Voy. and Not. et
+Extr. it is Bersa برسي.—This is the Berísa بريسي of Idrísí, the Berísá
+بريسا of Abulfedá. Bersana was the resort of certain negroes who brought
+gold from the interior, and were called Benú Nʿamrát بَنو نَعمْرَات
+(Rec. de Voy. p. 7), or Wangamranah ونعمراٮه (Not. et Extr. p. 647), or
+Benú Zammakhrátah بنو زمخْراتة (MS. B.M. 113 v). It is plain that the
+text translated in the Not. et Extr. has been curtailed of the first two
+letters of the name, but if these be supplied, together with the
+diacritic points, it agrees with the text of the Rec. de Voy. The name,
+therefore, will be Benú Nʿamrátah, or Namrát. But who can be the negroes
+bearing such a name? Sultan Bello informs us, (Appendix to Denham and
+Clapperton’s Travels, vol. II. p. 454) that the people of Yarba or
+Yariba “originated from the remnants of the children of Canaan, who were
+of the tribe of Nimrod.” The people of Yariba therefore seem to be the
+Benú Nʿamrát. But to this it may be objected that Nʿamrát is not the
+correct Arabic mode of writing Nimrod. Truly not; neither can the blacks
+of Yariba, we verily believe, prove their descent from the great hunter.
+But the name and the historical tradition in this case are both equally
+spurious; they were both probably suggested by a sound—we think indeed,
+by the same sound, or, in other words, we believe that the name which
+was shaped into Benú Nʿamrát, and afterwards into Benú Nemrúd or
+descendants of Nimrod, belonged to the people of Yariba.]
+
+[Footnote 71: Daur دور Not. et Extr. p. 647; Daú دوْ MS. B.M. fol. 113
+v.; Dawa دَوَ Rec. de Voy. II. p. 7.—Malelo مَللُ MS. B.M.; Malik مَلكْ
+Rec. de Voy. For the various readings of the names Ghaïárú (Ganarah of
+D’Herbelot) and Ghuntil, see Hartmann’s Edrísí.]
+
+[Footnote 72: In the Kissour language, spoken, according to Caillié, in
+Tomboctú, Jenni, and in the intervening country, the word Ganda (Caillié
+III. p. 313), or Gunda (Clapperton’s First Journey, p. 182), signifies
+Land or Country, so that Samaḳanda or Samaghondi, explained by it, would
+mean Samah-land. Nor is this explanation less probable from the
+circumstance that the name Sami, and the termination Kanda or Konda,
+signifying town, is common among the Mandingoes, who overwhelmed Ghánah
+from the south, as shall be shown hereafter, and who now people the
+country south of Tomboktú (Caillié, tom. II. 252).]
+
+[Footnote 73: Marmol (vol. III. fol. 17). Yça, that is, Issa, (Hissa in
+Caillié’s vocabulary) signifies _river_ in the language of Tomboktú. The
+Serakholies inhabit Galam. The Tucorones therefore interposed between
+them and the Wolofs, must be the Fúlah or Fellatah, who occupy both
+banks of the Senegal, in the neighbourhood of the Isle de Morfil. We
+find in a MS. vocabulary of their language, brought home by Clapperton,
+the word _mio_ signifying a lake, probably any large sheet of water.
+With respect to the name here applied to them, a respectable authority
+(Dard, Grammaire Wolofe, p. 148) informs us, that a division of the
+Fúlah nation bears the appellation of Teukirères. The name Tucorones
+seems related to the plural Tekayrne, used by Burckhardt (Trav. in
+Nubia, p. 365); while Teukirères rather resembles the Tekrírí of Ibn
+Baṭúṭah. It is manifest that the route pointed out by this series of
+names is that of the slave-dealers between Galam and Tomboktú. They
+cross the desert at a distance from the Great River where it is called
+Joliba, and first reach the stream where it turns eastward, north of
+Lake Debú. There, according to Bowdich’s informant (Mission to Ashantee,
+p. 193), Jinbala is on the left bank of the river. It is placed on the
+right by all other authorities except Marmol and his copiers, who give
+the name to the river.]
+
+[Footnote 74: Caillié’s account of Jimbala, or, as he writes it,
+Ginbala, was confirmed by Abú Bekr, the intelligent native of Tomboktú
+who accompanied Mr. Davidson in his ill fated attempt to cross the
+desert from Wád Nún; and of whom an interesting account may be read in
+the Journal of the Royal Geographical Society, vol. VI. p. 100. The
+initial sound in Jimbala is one hard to be seized by a foreign ear. It
+is the same which Caillié (II. pp. 82, 160) sought to express by a
+triple form in Jaulas, Diaulas, and Iolas. Park wrote the same name
+Jules (First Journey), while Mr. Watt preferred Nyalas (Proc. Afr. Ass.
+I. 436). The natives themselves often express the sound in question by
+yʿe يع.]
+
+[Footnote 75: Marmol elsewhere (III. fol. 27 r) distinctly places the
+_Baganos_ on the river at the point where the road from Galam to
+Tomboktú first reaches its banks. Livio Sanuto also (Geografia, 1588,
+fol. 83) says, “that Zimbala or _Bagano_ adjoins Tomboktú on the south,
+beyond the Sanaga,” that is, the Great River. Mohammed Maséní
+(Clapperton, p. 331) mentions a lake Búkma as being in the same tract as
+Lake Jeboo, that is, Dhiebú or Debú.]
+
+[Footnote 76: Not. et Extr. p. 617. Másín ماسين MS. B.M. fol. 103. For
+Aúghám, see page 29. The Massina of our maps, and Maséna of the
+Translations appended to Clapperton’s Second Journey, is generally
+written Másín or Máshín by the natives (see the documents appended to
+Bowdich’s Mission, and to Dupuis’ Residence in Ashantee).]
+
+[Footnote 77: Anbarah اَنْبارَة Rec. de Voy. p. 8. The king of this
+country was styled Tárim تَارِمْ. If for this we could read Farim فارم,
+we should have a true Mandingo title. The difference between Anbárah
+اَنْبارَهْ and Oonbori, probably اُنْبُرِي supposing the vowels not to
+have been supplied conjecturally, (for otherwise the latter might be
+read Anbara,) is no greater than may be expected where orthography is
+unsettled. The title of the king of Oonbori is Farma (Clapperton’s
+Second Journey, p. 331), which, as well as Farim, imports a governor or
+local chief. That by Kúghah كُوغَه (Rec. de Voy.) El Bekrí meant the
+Cochia of Cadamosto (Ramusio, I. fol. 108 v) and Gago of Leo, can hardly
+be doubted; but this point shall be examined hereafter. His statement,
+that Anbárah, nine days from Kúghah, west of Ghánah, does not admit of
+any plausible defence; but if Sámah سامه be read in this place for
+Ghánah غانه then not only does all difficulty vanish, but the author’s
+discourse acquires coherence and natural order.]
+
+[Footnote 78: Kitábu-l-Jʿaráfíah (Book of Geography), &c. MS. in the
+collection of D. Pascual de Gayangos. Ráyawen رايون has a suspicious
+resemblance to Arawan. It is quite gratuitous to suppose that the
+Morabites, who were all of the Zenágah nation, and who rushed at once,
+as soon as they felt their strength, from their own deserts to the
+conquest of Barbary and Spain, ever went eastward as far as Houssa, or
+even to Kághó.]
+
+[Footnote 79: “No one (in Aïwalátin, that is, Walata) is named after his
+father, but after his maternal uncle; and the sister’s son always
+succeeds to property in preference to the son: a custom I witnessed
+nowhere else except among the infidel Hindoos of Malabar.” (Lee’s Ibn
+Baṭúṭah, p. 234.)]
+
+[Footnote 80: “Of all people the Blacks debase themselves most in
+presence of their king.... When the Sultan addresses one of them, he
+(who is addressed) will take the garment off his back and throw dust
+upon his head” (Lee’s Ibn Baṭúṭah, p. 240). The ceremonial of Tomboktú
+(Leo, pt. VII. c. 5), and that of Ghánah (Not. et Extr. p. 644), are
+described in nearly the same terms.]
+
+[Footnote 81: Proc. of Afr. Assoc. I. p. 149. Though Clapperton says
+little of the laws or government of Houssa, yet his narrative discloses
+the subdivision of power in that country. The people there have never
+been trained up under a paramount tyranny.]
+
+[Footnote 82: Makrízí (Quatremère, Mémoires sur la Nubie, tom. I. p. 28;
+Burckhardt’s Travels in Nubia, p. 456) relates of the court of Kánem,
+and Ibn Baṭúṭah of that of Bornú, the ceremony of audience, as it was
+witnessed in the latter place by Denham (I. p. 231).]
+
+[Footnote 83: Caillié saw (Voy. II. p. 253) a line of hills of red
+sandstone without any vegetation, on the left bank of the river, about
+forty miles south of the lake; and, at an equal distance north of it,
+sand hillocks bordered the stream (p. 266). It is explicitly stated by
+Marmol (III. fol. 15 v), that Jenni had all the trade of the Zenágah,
+the Brebísh, the Ludayas, and the Arabs of Arguin. But he erred in
+supposing that the conflux of Arabs and Berbers from the shores of the
+Ṣaḥrá to that city was owing to its western position. It was rather due
+to the character of the intervening country, which may be called a fine
+desert.]
+
+[Footnote 84: It is plain, from Scott’s narrative (Edinb. Phil. Jour.
+vol. IV. p. 45), that the level desert continues, without any change,
+save in the frequency of brackish rills, to the very shore of the lake;
+southwards from which the country seemed uninhabited; but a little to
+the north was the town of the Orghebets, in which the dwellings were
+constructed of canes and bamboos.]
+
+[Footnote 85: “_Gualata_, que otros llaman _Ganata_.” Marmol, III. fol.
+21 v. It is hardly necessary to observe, that, in the orthography of
+Southern Europe, Gualata represents our Walata: “_Gualata_ o _Ganata_,”
+(I. fol. 17.) “Vled Vodey andan en los desiertos que estan entre Iguaden
+y _Ganata_; son señores de Iguaden, y el Rey Negro de _Ganata_ les paga
+cierto tributo,” &c. (I. fol. 39.) “Alarabes llamados Udaya, y por otro
+nombre Vled Vodey, que moran el desierto de Lybia que está entre esta
+poblacion (Guaden) y _Gualata_ reyno de negros.” (III. fol. 3.) “En
+Gelofe, Geneúa, Tombuto, Meli, Gago y _Ganata_, hablan una lengua
+llamada Zungay.” (I. fol. 44.) This last sentence is taken from Leo (pt.
+I. c. 11), who, however, writes Gualata. Marmol, in his first volume,
+seems to prefer Ganata, but, in the third, he generally follows Leo with
+little deviation. When Ali Bey (Badia) speaks of caravans going “from
+Sús and Táfílélt to Ghánah and Tomboktú,” (Travels in Barbary, &c. I.
+45,) does he inadvertently mix ancient with modern times—his reading
+with his recent intelligence?—or does he mean by Ghánah, Ghanata, that
+is, Walata? What was surmised in Note 6 respecting the predominance
+gained by the analogies of the Berber language over those of the Arabic,
+and the change of the contingent t̤ into the absolute t, seems confirmed
+by the MS. extract of El Bekrí published in the Rec. de Voy. II. That
+MS., however inferior in other respects, is yet good authority on the
+subject of the relation subsisting between ancient Arabic and Moorish
+orthography; and we find that it writes Ghánat, Sámat, and Ṭáḳat, for
+Ghánat̤ or Ghánah, Sámat̤, Ṭákat̤, &c.]
+
+[Footnote 86: “It appears singular that the country immediately to the
+eastward of Timbuctoo as far as Kashna should be more imperfectly known
+to the Moorish traders than the rest of central Africa” (Quart. Rev. No.
+45, May 1820, p. 234.) The reviewer, however, errs in ascribing the
+obscurity which involves that tract to the wars of the Fellatah. But the
+fact is, that between Tomboktú and Houssa passes the line of demarcation
+separating what may be called the two commercial provinces of Negroland,
+which depend on the two great roads (from Fezzán and Táfílélt), and have
+little communication with each other on their northern frontiers.
+Besides, the interposed desert supports a formidable population of
+Tawárik.]
+
+[Footnote 87: The Arab geographers, unable to form an exact conception
+of the country westward of Ghánah, diminished the distance between that
+place and the ocean. El Idrísí makes the distance between Silla and
+Aúlíl to be sixteen days’ journey (Rec. de Voy. V. p. 11); but Abulfedá
+sets Ghánah only four degrees eastward of the ocean (Reiske’s Trans. in
+Büsching’s Mag. V. p. 354). In like manner Leo (pt. VII. c. 3) says that
+the kingdom of Jenni, extending 250 miles along the river, reaches the
+ocean; and he supposes Walata to be only a hundred miles from the sea
+shore. As he was copied in all his errors, our maps of the sixteenth and
+seventeenth centuries uniformly placed Tomboktú too far westward.]
+
+
+
+
+                   EL IDRISI COMPARED WITH EL BEKRI.
+
+                               MAGHRAWAH.
+
+
+The account of Negroland contained in the foregoing pages is drawn
+altogether from El Bekrí. So much does his description of Ghánah and the
+adjoining countries excel in copiousness of detail as well as in
+clearness, that in all the Arab writers succeeding him, there is hardly
+a single new particular worth adding to it. Some of these writers,
+nevertheless, are much better known than El Bekrí; and one of them, El
+Idrísí, whose work, entitled ‘The Amusement of one desirous of knowing
+all the Countries of the World,’ was composed about the year 1153, has
+been long regarded as the first authority on questions relating to the
+geography of Central Africa. It will be worth while, therefore, to set
+these two authors side by side, and to compare them carefully, so that
+we may be able to choose between them when they disagree, and to
+determine whether the later of the two improved on his precursor.
+
+The first peculiarity of El Idrísí that strikes the attentive reader, is
+his general reduction of distances in the desert. He begins to contract
+even in the vicinity of Atlas, and makes Sijilmésah to be only thirteen
+days distant from Wád Nún; whereas these places must be at least twenty
+good journeys asunder.[88] But to confine ourselves to the consideration
+of the principal dimensions of the Ṣaḥrá, we may recal the statement of
+El Bekrí that Aúlíl was a two months’ journey distant from Wád Nún,
+going along the shore. Now from Sijilmésah to Aúlíl, which was a greater
+distance, is reckoned by El Idrísí to be a journey of only forty days.
+This supposes (since Arguín is exactly 900 miles from Sijilmésah) a rate
+of 22½ geographical miles a day in a straight line—a rate far exceeding
+what is practicable on a journey of such a nature and extent.[89] Nor
+can El Idrísí have here the benefit of any objection to the hypothesis
+which places Aúlíl at Arguín, since he informs us that Aúlíl was one
+day’s sail from the mouth of the river called the Nile of the Blacks, by
+which he must be understood to mean the Senegal. But the mouth of this
+river is at least two days’ sail from Arguín; so that to make that
+author consistent with himself, it must be allowed not only that Aúlíl
+was in the Bay of Arguin, but also that his numerical expressions of
+distance are, in this instance, too low.[90] In like manner he reduces
+the distance between Sijilmésah and Silla to forty days; and that from
+Wád Nún to the latter place to thirty-two days,—viz. seven from Nún to
+Arkí, and thence twenty-five to Silla; his estimate in each case being
+less than two-thirds of the reality.[91]
+
+But the same author’s reduction of the longitudinal dimensions of the
+Great Desert is still more remarkable. Instead of a journey of two
+months between Aúlíl and Silla, as may be inferred from El Bekrí, whose
+measures of distance accord strictly with the results of modern inquiry,
+El Idrísí separates those places by a distance of only sixteen days.
+Again, he makes Aúdaghost to be but a month from Aúlíl, and twenty-five
+days from Jermah in Fezzán; so that from the latter place to the shores
+of the Atlantic, the desert should be crossed in fifty-five days, or
+less than half of the time actually required for that journey.[92]
+Again, he states Kúghah to be a month from Dongolah, and six weeks from
+Ghánah (though the genuineness of the text is here liable to suspicion);
+and consequently he reduces the whole distance between Dongolah, or the
+Nile in the east, and the Atlantic Ocean in the west, to a journey of
+three months and a half, which is not more than a moiety of the true
+distance.[93]
+
+The incorrectness of El Idrísí exemplified above, cannot be explained
+away by supposing that he made use of a large scale of measures, or a
+conventional day’s journey of great length. His contraction of space is
+not sufficiently uniform to sustain that plea: it operates chiefly on
+the uninhabited country. Like modern geographers, he seems to have had
+an invincible dislike to large blanks in a map; and among the expedients
+to which he had recourse for the purpose of filling them up, was the
+common one of dilating as much as possible the contiguous inhabited
+countries. A perfect illustration of this remark is afforded by his
+description of the course of the Great River in the vicinity of Ghánah.
+
+It has been seen that El Bekrí places the capital of Ghánah not
+immediately on the Great River, but at a distance of perhaps three days’
+journey from it. But Ṣínghánah, with which place he begins his
+description of Negroland, is described by him as standing on both banks
+of the river, and having Tekrúr on the south-west. Now in El Idrísí’s
+geography there is no mention made of Ṣínghánah, but its description is
+transferred to Ghánah, which is made to stand on both banks of the
+river, and to have Tekrúr on the south-west. The distance of twenty
+days, according to El Bekrí, between Silla and Ghánah, is increased by
+El Idrísí to twenty-four days. The former of these writers thus
+describes the route eastward and along the river from Ghánah. First,
+five days to Rás el má, then six days through the country of the Merásah
+to Tírḳa, where the river turned southwards, and three days further
+along its banks, to the country of the Seghmárah, which commenced,
+therefore, at the distance of fourteen days from Ghánah. The same course
+is thus described by El Idrísí:—From Ghánah, six or eight days to Tírḳa;
+six more to Merásah; and another six to Seghmárah: so that the fourteen
+days of his author are here increased to eighteen.[94]
+
+In accordance with the construction given above to El Bekrí’s route from
+Ghánah to Ghaïárú, El Idrísí makes the portion of the river therein
+mentioned to form a part of its course below Seghmárah. But the manner
+in which the latter writer puts together his materials in this place
+demands attentive consideration. The following are his details of
+distance and bearing:—
+
+ From Samghadah (Sámaḳanda) to Seghmárah,                        8 days.
+
+ From  ditto                to Kúghah,             _eastwards_,  10
+
+ From  ditto                to Gharbíl (Ghúntil),                9
+
+ From Seghmárah             to Gharbíl,            _southwards_, 6
+
+ From Gharbíl (Ghúntil)     to Ghanárah (Ghaïárú), _westwards_,  11
+
+ From Ghánah                to Ghanárah,                         11
+
+Thus it appears that El Idrísí makes the river flow first north-eastward
+from Silla to Ghánah; then eastwards to Seghmárah; then southwards to
+Ghúntil, and finally westwards again to Ghaïárú.
+
+The Sámaḳanda of El Bekrí, which was four days from Ghánah, and his
+Kúghah, fifteen days from the same capital, and nine from Anbárah,
+(which appears to have been near Sámaḳanda,) are evidently the Samghadah
+and Kúghah of El Idrísí. This writer agrees with his predecessor in
+making the river flow, first north-eastwards from Silla to Ghánah, then
+eastwards, and then southwards. So far he seized with some felicity the
+idea of the general winding of the river. But his turning it westward
+from Ghúntil can be explained only by supposing that he misunderstood
+his authority. El Bekrí says, that opposite to the Seghmárah, whose
+territory extended from the Great River to Tádmekkah, was Kaúkaú. And
+again, he remarks, that the road to the country of the Remrem went
+westwards along the river from Kaúkaú. Now this last passage furnishes
+the explanation of the westward course which El Idrísí has given to the
+river, if we suppose that he confounded for a moment Kúghah with Kaúkaú.
+
+[Illustration: _The River according to El Bekrí._]
+
+El Bekrí mentions Bersana after Ghaïárú; and accordingly El Idrísí sets
+this place, under the altered name of Berísa, due west of Ghaïárú, and
+on the Great River, half way between Silla and Ghánah. The series of
+names which the latter found in his author he thus arranged in a circle,
+under the influence of misconception, so as to make it terminate in
+itself. But the artificial division of climates, by severing Berísa from
+the group of names to which it originally belonged, fortunately obviated
+the ready exposure of so absurd a concatenation.[95] The Malilo and Daúr
+or Daú of El Bekrí are evidently the Malel and Daú of El Idrísí; and in
+consequence of the same mistake which placed Berísa on the river between
+Ghánah and Silla, they are brought into the neighbourhood of the latter
+place. Their character, too, is as much misrepresented as their
+position. Instead of being countries of some extent and importance, they
+become, in the pages of El Idrísí, only towns of Lemlem, the wretched
+inhabitants of which, possessing but few camels, wander over deserts
+destitute of water;—a picture of Negro poverty, more likely it must be
+confessed, to originate in the imagination of an Arab, than in the
+physical character of the country south of the Great River.
+
+[Illustration: _The River according to El Idrísí._]
+
+From El Idrísí’s delineation of the Great River we may return with
+advantage to consider the position assigned by him to Aúdaghost. That
+town was, according to him, thirty days from Aúlíl, thirty-one from
+Wergelán, and twenty-five from Jermah. The short distance of fifty-five
+days herein allowed between Aúlíl and Jermah, will not admit of being
+applied to a circuitous route. The distance from Wergelán, therefore,
+which is relatively long, and by reaching far southwards has the effect
+of elongating the preceding line, must be supposed to be circuitous. And
+this is a well-founded supposition, inasmuch as the road from Wergelán
+to Aúdaghost must have passed through Twát, and probably also by
+Wanzamín. Now the point which satisfies the conditions of distance
+specified above, and at the same time best eludes surrounding
+difficulties, will be found to be not far from the 20th parallel of
+north latitude, and the 1st meridian of east longitude, or about 120
+miles east of the position assigned to Aúdaghost in our map. Thus it
+appears that El Idrísí’s statements respecting the position of
+Aúdaghost, do not, when taken together, lend the slightest countenance
+to the hypothesis which makes that place identical with Aghades. For
+that position, deduced in the strictest possible manner from the
+assigned conditions, still leads to the conclusion that Ghánah was
+situate on the northern bend of the river of Tomboktú. But since we
+likewise learn from the same writer, that it was situate on the western,
+and not the eastern portion of that northern bend, we have no
+alternative but to correct his distances with respect to the angle of
+the river, and to remove Aúdaghost further west, so as to place it
+exactly half way between Aúlíl and Jermah; the correction, in this case,
+amounting to only a twenty-second part of the whole distance between
+those places.
+
+It would be running into needless digression to point out all the
+contradictions in which El Idrísí involves himself by reducing distances
+so as to fit them to the frame in which he combines his information, or
+by expanding details so as to distribute them more equally. It will be
+here sufficient to have shown that he learned the course of the Great
+River from El Bekrí, yet that he did not copy his author faithfully, but
+took liberties with him, which are rendered more conspicuous by the
+incongruities into which they lead him. He contracts the Desert, spreads
+out the River; makes Silla on one side only sixteen days distant from
+the Ocean, and Kúghah, near Seghmárah, on the other, only a month from
+Dongolah. He wholly misunderstands the account of the lower portion of
+the river, and by turning the stream westward, he falls into glaring
+inconsistencies. In conclusion, whatever is reasonable in El Idrísí’s
+account of Ghánah and its vicinity, is taken from El Bekrí, and nearly
+all of it which is not taken from El Bekrí is absurd. Nevertheless, his
+statements, when carefully analysed and freed from misconceptions,
+plainly indicate that Ghánah was situate near that part of the Great
+River where Tomboktú now stands.[96]
+
+The only novelty worth notice in El Idrísí’s account of Western
+Negroland, is his statement respecting the river of Ghánah, which he
+informs us was navigable in large boats, and flowed into the ocean. Its
+mouth was one day’s sail from Aúlíl. The river flowing into the ocean
+near the Bay of Arguin, where it has been shown that the isle and salt
+mine of Aúlíl were situate, is obviously the Senegal. The short distance
+of one day’s sail, allowed by the Arab geographer in this case, is in
+just proportion with all his other measures affecting the area of his
+map.[97] He supposed the Nile of Ghánah, or Great River of the Interior,
+to unite with the Senegal, and to run westwards into the ocean. Nor is
+there any rashness in ascribing to him so great a misconception. Leo
+Africanus makes a precisely similar statement respecting the river of
+Tomboktú. Having navigated that river from Tomboktú to Jenni, the latter
+author affirms most positively that it flows westward to the ocean. The
+only excuse that can be offered for Leo’s mistake is, that the part of
+the river with which he was practically acquainted, has little current,
+and shows no diminution of magnitude as it is ascended; to a careless
+observer, therefore, it presents nothing capable of controlling
+speculation, or guiding to a correct inference respecting the course of
+the stream. Higher up, the hypothesis was less tenable, and so Melli was
+placed on a branch of the river. Being biassed by the early Arab
+writers, particularly El Idrísí, Leo zealously adopted their erroneous
+opinion, which being repeated by De Barros and other writers on African
+geography, continued in vogue till the middle of the last century, or
+nearly six centuries after it was first promulgated.[98] El Idrísí
+states that salt was carried from Aúlíl to the mouth of the Nile, one
+day distant, and then up that stream to Silla, Ghánah and Kúghah. Modern
+authorities, on the other hand, have reported the Senegal to be
+navigable up to Jenni (two days from Silla), Tomboktú and Gago, at which
+point their information always terminated. And herein is another point
+of resemblance between Ghánah and Tomboktú; inasmuch as they hold
+similar positions in the hypothetical system, connecting the Senegal
+with the Great River of the Interior.[99]
+
+The Western Desert is represented by El Idrísí with the changed aspect
+consequent on the movement of the Morabites. The Lumtúnah had gone
+northwards to Morocco, and the Benú Goddálah, to whatever quarter they
+had migrated, were no longer predominant in the south-western portion of
+the Ṣaḥrá. The inhospitable tract extending between the desert of Tíser
+and the Ocean, is named by El Idrísí Kamnúdíyah, the chief town of which
+was half way between Silla and Arkí. South of Kamnúdíyah, he places a
+country, the name of which, vitiated by copyists, occurs under a great
+variety of forms, as, for example, Maghráwah, Meghrárah, Meghzárah, &c.
+Of these readings, the first alone admits of a satisfactory explanation,
+and shall therefore be here adopted.[100] Maghráwah lay to the west of
+Ghánah, and as it extended from Aúlíl, on the sea shore, to Silla and
+Tekrúr inclusively, it also embraced a territory lying to the south of
+that State.[101] The country named by El Idrísí Maghráwah is therefore
+obviously the same which a century earlier had been occupied by the Benú
+Goddálah, and the change of its name may be naturally ascribed to the
+revolution which carried away the latter people with the hordes of the
+Morabites. The Arab historians are silent with respect to those who took
+the place of the Benú Goddálah; but the want of information may be in
+this instance supplied by a very probable conjecture.
+
+When the Morabites, having subjugated Sús, Darʿah, Sijilmésah, and the
+province wherein they afterwards founded Morocco, still continued to
+press northwards, they met with a vigorous resistance from the
+Maghráwah, who had long ruled over Fez and its dependencies, and who now
+united with the Miknésah and other Zenátah tribes to oppose the
+invaders.[102] The victory fell to the Morabites, who entered Fez in
+triumph in A.D. 1067. But, grown negligent through continual success,
+they were soon after taken by surprise, overpowered, and expelled. Their
+enthusiasm, however, was not to be subdued by slight reverses; they
+returned to the struggle, and again entered Fez in 1069, slaughtering,
+it is said, 20,000 of the Maghráwah, whose sway in the west thus
+terminated, after a continuance of just a century.[103]
+
+Of the fortunes of the defeated tribes, there is nothing recorded; but
+the general tenor of the history of Barbary justifies the supposition
+that they betook themselves to the desert.[104] In 1084, Yúsef ben
+Táshifín, the Amír or chief of the Morabites, sent messengers into the
+Ṣaḥrá, to the Lumtúnah, Goddálah, and Masúfah, announcing to them that
+he possessed extensive territories, well watered, which he was ready to
+bestow on the first comers; “and in a few days,” says the historian,
+“the whole land of Maghreb [Western Barbary and Morocco] was filled with
+colonists from the Lumtúnah and the other tribes of the desert.”[105] It
+is manifest that the Maghráwah, and their adherents, must have deserted
+the fine country around Fez, before the half-wild tribes of the Ṣaḥrá
+were called in to occupy it; and it is probable that, in the course of
+revolution, they stepped into the place of the Benú Goddálah soon after
+the latter had accepted the invitation sent to them to fill the vacancy
+left by the expelled tribes. Thus we are led to conclude, that the
+territory of the Benú Goddálah passed into the possession of the
+Maghráwah at a period subsequent to, and probably not far removed from,
+the year 1084.
+
+The natural and probable supposition, that the tribes expelled from
+Mauritania by the Morabites changed places with the latter, and fixed
+themselves in the desert at the same time that their conquerors rushed
+into the occupation of the cultivated country, explains at once the
+great difference between the accounts given of the Western Desert by two
+authors, one of whom wrote seventeen years before the migration referred
+to, and the other sixty-nine years after that event. Nevertheless, the
+desire inherent in the human mind to give importance to whatever is
+obscure, favoured by the corruption of the name Maghráwah, and the
+garbled accounts of the country so designated, may revolt against a
+conjecture which confines that name to the Desert, instead of extending
+it over a large tract of Negroland. Yet El Idrísí plainly states that
+Maghráwah was a desert; that it was bounded on the north by the middle
+tract of the Ṣaḥrá, named Kamnúdíyah; and that it extended from Aúlíl,
+which was its capital, to Silla and Tekrúr; so that it must have been on
+the northern side of the Great River, of which the Senegal, according to
+his system, was a part.[106] The same writer indeed includes Silla and
+Tekrúr in Maghráwah, whence it may be inferred that the exiles from Fez
+soon obtained the ascendancy due to superior civilization, and became
+the rulers of their black neighbours. But since the Arabs nowhere
+mention the Mandingoes, Serakholies, Fúlahs, Wolofs, or other black
+nations between Silla and the ocean, it must be presumed that they had
+no direct intercourse with that part of Negroland, and knew nothing of
+it; and, besides, it is unreasonable to suppose that they described the
+country south of the Senegal under the general name of Maghráwah, of
+which general name, in any shape, not the least trace now remains in the
+region to which it is supposed to have been applied. North of the river,
+on the other hand, the disappearance of a particular tribe, or of its
+name; or a loss on the part of any tribe of that predominance which
+determines the name of a territory, is much more explicable. And if it
+be admitted that the name Aúlíl or Aúlílí was derived from that of
+Walílí, the chief place of the Maghráwah and the capital of Western
+Barbary under their dominion, then the presumption will arise, that some
+of that nation were always mingled with the Goddálah, and carried the
+local name to which they were attached, from the shores of the
+Mediterranean to those of the Ṣaḥrá.[107]
+
+
+[Footnote 88: El Idrísí places Nún, or as he writes it, Núl, at a
+distance of three days from the sea, and thirteen (erroneously reduced
+to three by Hartmann) from Sijilmésah (Rec. de Voy. V. p. 205). But the
+town of Wád Nún is one or two days (22 miles) from the sea (Davidson’s
+Notes), twelve from Tatta, and sixteen from the chief town of Darʿah
+(Proc. of Afr. Assoc. I. p. 224), which is six days from Sijilmésah
+(Jackson’s Shabeeny, p. 3). The last-named place must, therefore, be
+twenty-two days from Wád Nún, and twenty-three, at least, from the sea.
+In like manner El Idrísí reduces to three and eight days respectively
+the distances of Sijilmésah from Darʿah and Aghmát, which El Bekri,
+confirmed by modern itineraries, estimates at six and fourteen days.]
+
+[Footnote 89: Major Rennell, in his ‘Memoir on the rate of Travelling as
+performed by Caravans’ (Phil. Trans. Vol. LXXXI. p. 144), concludes that
+in Africa fourteen geographical miles and five-sixths of horizontal
+distance, is the mean daily rate of loaded caravans. M. Walckenaer
+(Recherches, &c. p. 266,) adopts fifteen geographical miles as the
+ordinary rate.]
+
+[Footnote 90: From Cape St. Anne in the Bay of Arguin, to the mouth of
+the Senegal, is a distance of 260 nautical miles, or about forty hours
+of moderate sailing.]
+
+[Footnote 91: Rec. de Voy. pp. 12, 206. Arkí (see Note 38) appears under
+various forms in the copies of El Idrísí; as Arḳi ارقى Rec. de Voy. pp.
+12, 107; Azḳi ازقى; Azki ازكى Ibid. p. 206, and in the Abridgment. Ibn
+el Wardi also writes Azki, which, he says, is the place where travellers
+(ascending the Desert from Wád Nún) begin to climb the rocks (Not. et
+Extr. II. p. 23). Ibn Baṭúṭah travelled forty-five days from Sijilmésah
+to Aïwalátin, or Walata, whence Silla cannot be less than twenty days’
+distant. From the latter place to Wád Nún is now reckoned a journey of
+fifty-five days (Davidson’s Notes, &c.).]
+
+[Footnote 92: From the capital of Fezzán to Tomboktú is reckoned a
+journey of three months (Lyon, Travels in N. Afr. p. 144); or to
+calculate more accurately, from Morzúk to Twát is a distance of thirty-
+nine or forty days, and thence to Tomboktú, is a journey of forty-five
+or forty-seven days (Walckenaer, Rech. p. 423; Quart. Rev. No. 45, p.
+230). If to the sum of eighty-four days thus found, be added the journey
+of two months, or rather two months and a half, between Tomboktú and the
+sea (see Note 41), we shall have for the distance between Fezzán and the
+ocean nearly three times the space assigned by El Idrísí; and, reducing
+the route to a straight line, with all possible allowance, more than
+double.]
+
+[Footnote 93: The text stating the distance of Kúghah from Ghánah to be
+a month and a half, occurs in the Abridgment of El Idrísí (Hartmann’s
+Idrísí, p. 42), but is wanting in the larger work. There is good reason
+for believing it to be an interpolation. From Ghánah to Seghmárah,
+according to El Idrísí, was eighteen days; thence to Sámaḳanda eight
+days; and thence to Kúghah ten days. So that if these places be all
+arranged in a straight line from west to east, Kúghah will be still only
+thirty-six days from Ghánah, instead of forty-five. But while El Idrísí
+expressly traces eastwards the route from Ghánah to Seghmárah, and sets
+Kúghah eastward of Sámaḳanda, he says nothing of the bearing of
+Sámaḳanda from Seghmárah; so that we are at liberty to set the former
+place west by south from the latter, under the guidance of El Bekrí,
+whose Sámaḳanda was only four days from Ghánah. The two authors will
+then be found to coincide in general design, and El Idrísí’s Kúghah will
+be not above twenty days from Ghánah. It would be easy, were it worth
+while, to explain why the epitomator, trying to supply an apparent
+deficiency in his author’s ill-connected details, should have separated
+Kúghah from Ghánah by a month and a half’s journey.]
+
+[Footnote 94: From Silla to Berísa, according to El Idrísí, was twelve
+days; thence to Ghánah twelve days; or to Aúdaghost twelve days; and
+between the two last-named places twelve days. This is a handsome
+arrangement. Again, from Ghánah to Tírḳa six days; thence to Merásah six
+days; thence to Seghmárah six days; thence to Ghúntil six days. Then
+come distances of eight, nine, ten, and eleven days. These numbers alone
+are enough to excite suspicion.]
+
+[Footnote 95: The Berísa of El Idrísí is the same place of which the
+name is written in the copies of El Bekrí, Bersa برسى Not. et Extr. p.
+647; Yerma يرمى (rather Yersa يرسى), Rec. de Voy. II. p. 6; and Yersana
+يرسنى MS. B.M. El Bekrí represents Ghúntil as a great country; he does
+not state the distance of Ghaïárú from it, but places the latter twelve
+miles from the river, and Bersana, or Yersana, west of it on the river.
+But, in El Idrísí, the corresponding names all designate towns which
+stand eleven or twelve days’ journey asunder.]
+
+[Footnote 96: The map of El Idrísí does not represent the conceptions
+explained above. It makes the Great River divide at Tírḳa into two
+branches, so as to form a great island, which he names Wangárah. On the
+southern branch he places Ghúntil and Ghaïárú, the latter place being 75
+days, or 2½ months from Aúlíl, measuring along the river, while only 3½
+months at the utmost are allowed for the whole breadth of the continent.
+El Idrísí writes sometimes in conformity with one of these systems,
+sometimes with the other. He appears, on examination, to be an unsound
+author, who, with good materials before him, often wrote without
+understanding them.]
+
+[Footnote 97: The distance of Aúlíl (in the Bay of Arguin) from
+Sijilmésah, as stated by El Idrísí, supposes, as we have seen, a mean
+daily journey of 22½ geographical miles, instead of 15, which is the
+ordinary rate. Now, if the forty hours’ sail from Arguin to the mouth of
+the Senegal, be reduced in the ratio of 22½ to 15, or 3 to 2, we shall
+have 26⅔ for the number of hours, according to El Idrísí’s scale. But
+there is no need of such exactness. It is highly improbable that the
+navigation spoken of by the Arab author, and which formed an ornament of
+his theory, had any existence even so far as it was within the limits of
+possibility.]
+
+[Footnote 98: Labat (Ethiop. Occid. 1728, tom. II. p. 125) describes the
+course of the Niger or Senegal from the lake of Bornú to the sea. Moore
+(Travels in the Inland Parts of Africa, 1738) also maintained that the
+Senegal (of which the Gambia was supposed to be a branch) is the Niger,
+although he at the same time published the Journal of Capt. Stibbs, who
+was adverse to that opinion. An earlier writer tells us that “the
+English were frustrated in their attempts to ascend the Niger to the
+gold countries of Gago, by the osiers among other things.” (Charant,
+Réponses à diverses questions, &c. appended to Frejus, Voyage dans la
+Mauritanie, 1666.)]
+
+[Footnote 99: El Idrísí says (Rec. de Voy. p. 11) that the salt of Aúlíl
+was carried up the river to Silla, Tekrúr, Berísa, Ghánah, Kúghah, and
+the other countries of the blacks. Let it be observed, that while
+propounding the hypothesis of a navigable river extending across Africa
+from the Western Ocean to Bornú, the Arab author knew nothing of its
+navigated course except between Silla and Kúghah or Kághó; that is to
+say, the generally navigated part of the river of Ghánah, which was
+evidently identical with that of the river of Tomboktú. The information
+of our early travellers respecting the Great River of the interior
+always terminated at Gago. This form of the name was taken from Leo; but
+Cadamosto had written Cochia (Kúghah), which was probably borrowed from
+the Mandingoes.]
+
+[Footnote 100: To the usual various readings, Meghzárah, Meghrárah,
+Meghwárah, Meḳzárah, &c., M. De Humboldt (Histoire de Géographie, I. p.
+291) has added Mufráda. D’Herbelot (under the title Maczarat) seems to
+consider this to be the name of a fortress, and not of an extensive
+region. In the Rec. de Voy. V. this name, where it first occurs (p. 10),
+is written Maghráwah مغراوة (afterwards changed into Maghzárah مغزارة);
+and the copy of Ibn el Wardi, in the possession of D. P. de Gayangos,
+has Maghráwah throughout.]
+
+[Footnote 101: Rec. de Voy. V. pp. 10, 13, 18. In the first of the
+passages here cited, Maghráwah is represented as extending from Aúlíl to
+the Great River, and including also those countries which the author, by
+misconstruction of El Bekrí’s statements, brought into the vicinity of
+that part of the river. It is to be lamented that the Translation of El
+Idrísí’s Geography, published in the Rec. de Voy. swarms with false
+readings, against which little care has been taken to guard the reader.]
+
+[Footnote 102: The Maghráwah مغراوة rose into importance about A.D. 945
+(Marmol, I. fol. 127). Their name is written, by Leo Africanus, Magraoa;
+by Marmol, Magaraoa, or Magaraúa; by Moura (Historia dos Soberanos
+Mohametanos, &c. Lisbon, 1828) Magraua; and by Conde (Historia de la
+Dominacion de los Arabes, &c. Madrid, 1820) Magaraba and Magarava. Their
+original seat, according to Ibn Khaldún, was on the western side of the
+province of Afrikíah. They are evidently the Machurebii (Μαχυρήβιοι) of
+Ptolemy, who places them on the right bank of the Chinalaph or Shelíf,
+near Julia Cæsarea or Shershel, where Dr. Shaw (Travels, I. p. 56) still
+found an encampment of them; and also on the northern side of the
+Daradus, the modern Wádi Darʿah. El Idrísí, in giving their name to a
+country, only took the same liberty with it as with those of the
+Merásah, Seghmárah, &c. which he has converted into the names of towns.
+The appellation Maghráwat̤ es-Súdán, or of the Blacks, clearly intimates
+that there was another Maghráwah not on the borders of Negroland. To the
+scanty account of Maghráwat̤ es-Súdán given by El Idrísí, nothing has
+been added by later Arab writers save their mistakes.]
+
+[Footnote 103: Moura, Hist. dos Soberanos Moham. p. 121.]
+
+[Footnote 104: The Miknésah, with whom the Maghráwah were associated in
+their misfortunes, had formerly inhabited the Ṣaḥrá, whither they
+returned in their adversity (Marmol, I. 95; Conde, Dom. de los Arab. I.
+411).]
+
+[Footnote 105: Conde, II. pp. 99, 100.]
+
+[Footnote 106: After naming the towns of Maghráwah, he adds (Rec. de
+Voy. p. 11) that the rest of the country bordering on the river is a
+sandy desert; and again, he says (p. 107) that the country between
+Kamnúdíyah and the river, that is, Maghráwah, is all desert. Hence Ibn
+el Wardi (Not. et Extr. II. 35) describes Maghráwah as an unfrequented
+and uninhabitable region. The same writer also observes, in a passage
+not translated by M. De Guisnes, that Maghráwah is the same country as
+Maghrebu-l-aḳṣa, or the Extreme West, a name certainly not applied to
+Negroland.]
+
+[Footnote 107: Tanjah or Tangiers was anciently called Walílí. Another
+place of the same name, and of much celebrity, was situate near Fez. Let
+it be observed, that the name read in the text Aúlílí, may be also read
+Awalílí; and that there is some reason to suspect that nouns of race or
+nation are formed by prefixing aleph.]
+
+
+
+
+                    MALI.—The Extinction of Ghánah.
+
+
+The catastrophe which caused the disappearance of Ghánah from the
+political horizon of Negroland, is not distinctly described by any of
+the Arab historians. Nevertheless, so much light is thrown on the
+circumstances attending the extinction of that kingdom, in Ibn Khaldún’s
+sketch of the history of Málí, as may enable us to trace the course of
+those early events with tolerable precision. The statements of that
+valuable author shall be here given in his own words[108]:—
+
+“When the conquest of the West (by the Arabs) was completed, and
+merchants began to penetrate into the interior, they saw no nation of
+the Blacks so mighty as Ghánah, the dominions of which extended westward
+as far as the Ocean. The King’s court was kept in the city of Ghánah,
+which, according to the author of the Book of Roger (El Idrísí), and the
+author of the Book of Roads and Realms (El Bekrí), is divided into two
+parts, standing on both banks of the Nile, and ranks among the largest
+and most populous cities of the world.[109]
+
+“The people of Ghánah had for neighbours, on the east, a nation, which,
+according to historians, was called Ṣúṣú; after which came another named
+Málí; and after that another known by the name of Kaúkaú; although some
+people prefer a different orthography, and write this name Kághó. The
+last-named nation was followed by a people called Tekrúr.[110] The
+people of Ghánah declined in course of time, being overwhelmed or
+absorbed by the Molaththemún (or muffled people—that is, the Morabites),
+who, adjoining them on the north towards the Berber country, attacked
+them, and, taking possession of their territory, compelled them to
+embrace the Mohammedan religion.[111] The people of Ghánah, being
+invaded at a later period by the Ṣúṣú, a nation of Blacks in their
+neighbourhood, were exterminated, or mixed with other Black nations.
+
+“As to the people of Málí, they surpassed the other Blacks in those
+countries in wealth and numbers. They extended their dominions, and
+conquered the Ṣúṣú, as well as the kingdom of Ghánah in the vicinity of
+the Ocean towards the west. The Mohammedans say, that the first King of
+Málí was Baramindánah. He performed the pilgrimage to Mekkah, and
+enjoined his successors to do the same.[112]
+
+“But the great King of Málí who conquered the Ṣúṣú, and took their
+country, was named Mári Jáṭah, which means, in the language of that
+country, Amír Lion, for _Mári_ signifies an Amír, or prince of the blood
+royal, and _jáṭah_ means a lion. These people also style the relatives
+and connexions of the royal family _Tikin_.[113] We were not able to
+learn anything further respecting this king, and cannot therefore give
+his genealogy. Nevertheless I was informed that he reigned five and
+twenty years.
+
+“He was succeeded by his son Mansá Walí—that is, Sultan ʿAlí—who was one
+of the greatest kings that ever reigned over the people of Málí. He
+performed the pilgrimage to Mekkah in the reign of the Sultan Ez̤-Z̤áhir
+Bíbárs.[114] To him succeeded his brother Walí; after whom came another
+brother, named Khalífah, who was insane, and amused himself with
+shooting arrows at his subjects. They rushed on him one day and killed
+him.
+
+“After him came Abú Bekr, who was descended from Mári Jáṭah in the
+female line. The people of Málí, following in this respect the custom of
+the ʿAjem (strangers), among whom the sisters and sisters’ sons succeed
+to the inheritance, chose him for their king. We have not been able to
+learn his lineage, nor the origin of his father.
+
+“Abú Bekr was followed by a freedman named Sákúrah, who usurped the
+throne.[115] This king made the pilgrimage to Mekkah, during the reign
+of Almalik Annáṣir; but on his return was killed at Tájúrá. The empire
+was increased, under him, by the subjugation of other Black nations. It
+was in his time that the people of Málí made the conquest of Kaúkaú, and
+added it to their dominions, which already extended from the Ocean and
+Ghánah in the west, to the country of Tekrúr in the east. Some, however,
+maintain that the conquest of Kaúkaú was made later. Hájí Túnis,
+interpreter of Tekrúr, says that the conquest of Kaúkaú was achieved by
+a general of Mansá Músa, whose name was Saghminḥuh.
+
+“After Sákúrah the kingdom reverted to the posterity of Mári Jáṭah, and
+Mansá Músa, son of Abú Bekr, ascended the throne. He was an excellent
+prince, and performed the pilgrimage in 724. The number of people
+employed to carry his baggage and provisions amounted to 12,000, all
+dressed in tunics of figured cotton, or the silk called El-Yemení. The
+Hájí Túnis, interpreter of this nation in Káhirah (Cairo), said that
+Mansá Músa brought with him to Egypt no less than 80 loads of Tibar
+(gold dust), each weighing 300 pounds. He brought the whole on camels,
+though in his own kingdom camels are not used, baggage being there
+carried on the backs of slaves.[116] Mansá Músa, on his return,
+conceived the idea of building himself a fine palace. Abú Iṣḥaḳ showed
+him a model, and erected the edifice, with plaster and all kinds of
+ornaments, for which he received 12,000 mithḳáls of gold. Mansá Músa
+maintained an intimate and friendly correspondence with Sultan Abú-l-
+Ḥasan, of Al-Maghreb, and reigned twenty-five years.
+
+“On his death the empire devolved on Mansá Maghá—that is, Sultan
+Mohammed, for in their language Maghá signifies Mohammed. He died after
+a reign of four years, and was succeeded by Mansá Suleïmán, son of Abú
+Bekr, and brother of Musá, who reigned twenty-four years. After him came
+his son, Mansá Ibn Suleïmán, who died nine months after ascending the
+throne. Then followed Mári Jáṭah, and Mansá Maghá, son of Mansá Músa,
+and reigned fourteen years. He (Mári Jáṭah) was a wicked and dissolute
+prince. He sent an embassy to Abú Selím, son of Abú-l-Ḥasan, Sultan of
+Al-Maghreb (the West), which embassy arrived in Fez in the year 762; and
+among other presents which came with it, were some very tall animals
+called Zeráfah (camelopards), as high as obelisks, and strange in the
+land of Al-Maghreb.
+
+“Abú Abdullah Mohammed Ibn Wásúl, a native of Sijilmésah, and who
+inhabited for a long time the city of Kaúkaú, in their country (_i.e._
+in the empire of Málí), where he performed the duties of Cadhi, told me,
+when I met him in 776, much more respecting the kings of that country
+than I can relate. He said that this Sultan Jáṭah was the worst king
+that ever existed; that he wasted the treasures, was on the point of
+destroying the palace erected by his ancestors; and that he even sold to
+certain Egyptian merchants, for a trifling sum of money, a huge mass of
+native gold, weighing 20 cwt., and preserved among other curiosities in
+the royal treasure. Providence, however, punished him; for he was
+afflicted with a disease very common in those countries, and the ravages
+of which are particularly frequent among the higher classes. It begins
+with a kind of lethargy or stupor, which renders the sufferer insensible
+during the greater part of the day. After lingering two years under this
+incurable malady, Jáṭah died in 775.[117]
+
+“The people of Málí chose his son Músa to succeed him. He was a just
+prince, but was overpowered by his wazír Mári Jáṭah, who threw him into
+confinement, and usurped all the powers of sovereignty. This Wazír has
+made some conquests towards the east. Passing the limits of Kaúkaú, he
+arrived at the stations or fixed habitations in the land of Tekaddá,
+which is behind the country of the Morabites; but he has since restored
+that territory to its own Sultan. Tekaddá is seventy days from Wergelán
+towards the south-west; the road of the pilgrims (from Kaúkaú to Egypt)
+passes through it. Sultan Músa is on friendly terms with the rulers of
+Záb and Wergelán.”[118]
+
+Ibn Khaldún further relates, that, after having written the preceding
+historical sketch, he learned that Mansá Músa died in 789, and was
+succeeded by his brother Mansá Maghá. He being killed a year after, the
+vacant throne was seized by Ṣanadaki, who had married Músa’s mother, and
+whose name means Wazír.[119] But this usurper was deposed in a few
+months by a descendant of Mári Jáṭah. A prince named Maḥmúd, who came
+from the country of the Infidels in the interior, and who was descended
+from Mansá Kú, son of Mansá Walí, son of Mári Jáṭah the First, was king
+of Málí in A.H. 792.
+
+It is stated in the foregoing extract that Ghánah merged in the empire
+of the Morabites, an event which may be assigned, with much probability,
+to the year of the Hijra 469, when the Mohammedan faith was forcibly
+imposed on the pagan nations of Negroland contiguous to the Western
+Desert.[120] But the Morabites, bred up in a wild life, and under a
+loose patriarchal authority, cannot be supposed to have thought much of
+social or political organization. It is likely that they extended their
+dominions without propagating a form of government, and that the kingdom
+of Ghánah remained little changed by the loss of its independence. In
+the time of El Idrísí, or a little before the year of the Hijra 548, it
+was ruled by a descendant of Abú Táleb—that is, by a Zenágah—and this
+state of things continued probably half a century longer.[121]
+
+But towards the interior, or south from Ghánah, were the following
+nations, viz.:—the Ṣúṣú, Málí, Kaúkaú or Kághó, and Tekrúr. In arranging
+these nations all eastward from Ghánah, Ibn Khaldún showed a very
+imperfect conception of the geography of Negroland, and particularly of
+its comparative geography. Though the name Tekrúr may have belonged in
+his time to a country beyond Kághó, or south-eastwards from Ghánah, yet
+it certainly designated a kingdom south-westwards from that capital in
+the period anterior to the rise of Málí. The Ṣúṣú at present occupy a
+maritime district comprising the basin of the river Scarcies, wherein
+they have been established at least three centuries. Their language
+would favour the supposition that they are remotely connected with the
+Mandingoes. The people of Málí were certainly of the latter race; and it
+is probable that they and the Ṣúṣú were kindred tribes, who, like the
+Manes and Mosí of later times, issued from the interior; or—if for the
+sake of preciseness we may in this instance hazard a conjecture—from the
+country lying between Kong, Bergú, Ghúrma, and Dahómy.[122] The precise
+dates of the invasion of Ghánah by the Ṣúṣú and the people of Málí are
+not given by Ibn Khaldún. We are informed, however, that Mansá Suleïmán,
+a prince bearing a Mandingo title, founded Tomboktú in A.H. 610; and
+since he is not included in the list of the kings of Málí, we are
+warranted in considering him a king of the Ṣúṣú, whose conquest of
+Ghánah must therefore have taken place between the years 548 and 610 of
+the Hijra, probably not long anterior to the latter date.
+
+From the dynasty of the Ṣúṣú, then, dates the importance of
+Tomboktú:[123] but their empire did not continue long. The reign of Mári
+Jáṭah, the conqueror of the Ṣúṣu, probably commenced about the year 630;
+and with the kings of Málí begins a connected historical record.
+
+It is worthy of observation, that the conquests here related proceeded
+in the direction of wealth and commerce, and stopped where these
+allurements terminated. Ghánah and Tomboktú appear to have remained for
+a long time the furthest bounds of the empire of Málí. Eighty years
+elapsed before Kághó was annexed to that empire; and as many more before
+the passion for conquest led Ṣanadaki to invade Tekaddá, a worthless
+possession, which was soon abandoned. Thus the Great River formed for
+many hundred miles the boundary of the empire of Málí, that is, of the
+Mandingoes, who are still extensively spread over the same ample region,
+and who chiefly uphold its trade, industry, and civilization. It is
+evident that Ghánah, conquered by the Ṣúṣú, the founders of Tomboktú,
+and annexed to Málí eighty years before this empire extended to Kághó,
+was the frontier of Negroland facing Sijilmésah, and consequently the
+tract wherein Tomboktú now stands. Nor is it difficult to explain why
+the kingdom of Ghánah disappeared from the political horizon in the
+course of these events; for the conquerors had, with a new language, a
+form of government capable of absorbing all foreign and inferior titles,
+and of establishing its own in their stead. The title GHANAH, therefore,
+was superseded by that of MANSA.—The principal events recorded in the
+history of Ghánah, and the succession of the Kings of Málí, shall be
+here repeated in a tabular form, and arranged chronologically; the date
+subjoined to each reign being, as far as can be ascertained, that of its
+commencement.
+
+                                                           A.H.   A.D.
+
+  GHANAH    deprived of Aúdaghost in                       446    1054
+  (properly
+    the
+   King’s
+   title)
+
+            Still independent in                           460    1067
+
+            Compelled by the Morabites to relinquish
+            Idolatry and embrace the Mohammedan faith      469    1076
+
+            Ruled by a descendant of Abú Táleb (i.e. one
+            of the Zenágah nation)                         548    1153
+
+  ṢUṢU.     Ghánah conquered by the Ṣúṣú.
+
+            Tomboktú founded by Mansá Suleïmán             610    1213
+
+              N.B.—The title Ghánah superseded by that of Mansá.
+
+  MALI.     Mári Jáṭah conquered the Ṣúṣú, and reigned
+            25 years.
+
+            Mansá Walí (son of the preceding) performed
+            the pilgrimage to Mekkah in the reign of
+            Bibárs                                        658-75 1259-76
+
+            Mansá Walí (brother of the preceding).
+
+            Mansá Khalífah (another brother).
+
+            Mansá Abú Bekr (descended from Mári Jáṭah in
+            the female line).
+
+                Sákúrah, a usurper, went to Mekkah in
+                the time of Almalik An-Nasír, and
+                therefore subsequent to                    710    1310
+
+                (The conquest of Kaúkaú is ascribed by
+                some to the reign of Sákúrah, by others
+                to that which follows.)
+
+            Mansá Músa (son of Abú Bekr) performed the
+            pilgrimage in                                  724    1324
+
+            Mansá Maghá (son of the preceding) reigned 4
+            years                                          732   1331-2
+
+            Mansá Suleïmán (son of Abú Bekr) reigned 24
+            years                                          736   1335-6
+
+                He was visited by Ibn Baṭúṭah in           753    1352
+
+            Mansá Ibn Suleïmán (son of the preceding)
+            reigned 9 months                               760    1359
+
+            Mansá Jáṭah (son of Mansá Maghá) ascended
+            the throne in                                  761    1360
+
+                and reigned 14 years.
+
+            Mansá Músa (son of the preceding) reigned 14
+            years                                          775    1373
+
+                His Wazír, Mári Jáṭah, usurped the
+                sovereign power, and conquered Tekaddá,
+                which was soon after relinquished.
+
+            Mansá Maghá (brother of the preceding)         789    1387
+
+            Ṣanadaki, (i.e. the Wazír) and another
+            usurper.
+
+            Maḥmúd, a descendant of Mári Jáṭah the
+            first, was king of Málí in                     792    1390
+
+The position of all the places mentioned in the preceding historical
+sketch, may be satisfactorily ascertained from the narrative of Ibn
+Baṭúṭah, who visited Negroland about half a century earlier than the
+date of Ibn Khaldún’s history, and whose remarks throw a valuable light
+on the geography and social condition of the countries then known under
+that denomination. A succinct account, therefore, of his journey into
+Negroland shall be here given, for the sake of the elucidations
+derivable from it.
+
+                               * * * * *
+
+
+[Footnote 108: This extract is taken from Ibn Khaldún’s Prolegomena,
+contained in the first volume of his ‘General History of the Arabs and
+Berbers,’ of which volume the library of the British Museum possesses a
+copy. (MS. B.M. No. 9,574, fol. 90 v.) A few passages here omitted, will
+be discussed elsewhere.]
+
+[Footnote 109: This is manifestly a mistake. El Bekrí did not, though El
+Idrísí did, give such a description of Ghánah. But the positive
+statement preponderated. The Arabs were not critical enough to weigh
+negative against affirmative evidence.]
+
+[Footnote 110: Ṣúṣú صُوصُو, or Súsú سُوسُو—Málí مالي—Kaúkaú كَوْكَوْ;
+Kághó كاغو. The expression _east_ must be here understood to mean
+towards the interior, or _south_. The Arab geographers in general had no
+idea of Negroland west of Ghánah, and very inadequate conceptions of its
+extent southwards.]
+
+[Footnote 111: The tribes of the Desert in general, Tawárik, Zenágah,
+&c. cover the lower part of the face with a muffle or wrapper called
+_lithám_. They consider it an impropriety to let the mouth be seen. From
+wearing the lithám they are named Molaththemún, or Muffled. The invasion
+of Ghánah by the Berbers, alluded to in the text, took place in the year
+of the Hijra 469.]
+
+[Footnote 112: Baramindánah بَرَمِندَانة. “Thus the name was spelt (says
+Ibn Khaldún) by the Sheikh ʿOthmán, a doctor and theologian of the
+people of Ghánah (Ahli Ghánah), and one of the chief men of that
+country, whom I met in Egypt in 796,” &c.]
+
+[Footnote 113: Mári Jáṭah ماري جاطه—Tikin تكن. These words belong to the
+Mandingo language. _Mari_, master, is found in the Rev. R. M. M‘Brair’s
+Grammar of the Mandingo, p. 40; _jatto_, a lion, p. 42. In Moore’s
+vocabulary, (in Astley’s Collection, II. p. 294,) this word is written
+_jatta_. The obscure and frequently nasal sound of the final vowels,
+seems common to both the Súsú and Mandingo languages. The title
+_Tiguing_ occurs in Isaaco’s Journal (Park’s Second Journey); and in
+Tomboktú according to Caillié’s vocabulary (III. p. 313), the word
+_Tigini_ signifies _King_.]
+
+[Footnote 114: Mansá Wali منسا ولي. Mansá, king, is found in all the
+Mandingo vocabularies. Changed into Manso, and taking a nasal
+termination, it becomes Mansong. The name here read Wali is evidently
+the Woolli so frequently occurring in the modern accounts of Tomboktú
+and the country of the Mandingoes.]
+
+[Footnote 115: Sákúrah سَاكُورة.]
+
+[Footnote 116: Mansá Músa منسا موسي is styled the King of Tekrúr by
+Makrízí, who relates his visit to Egypt on his way to Mekkah, and
+describes the wealth and pompous retinue of the Negro king, in language
+to which even that author’s great reputation will hardly secure implicit
+credit. See Not. et Extr. tom. XII. p. 637.]
+
+[Footnote 117: It is surprising that a historian of so much sense as Ibn
+Khaldún should join in censuring King Jáṭah for the imaginary offence of
+selling a mass of gold of a ton weight. The fable of a large mass of
+gold in the royal treasure first referred to Ghánah (Not. et Extr. p.
+645), then to Málí, and lastly to Tomboktú; where, however, the precious
+lump was reduced to the weight of 1,300 lb. (Leo, pt. VII. c. 5.)
+Winterbottom (Account of the Native Africans at Sierra Leone, II. p.
+29), a competent medical authority, describes the disease above alluded
+to, which, he says, proves fatal in every instance. “The disposition to
+sleep is so strong as scarcely to leave a sufficient respite for the
+taking of food. Even the repeated application of the whip, a remedy
+which has been frequently used, is hardly sufficient to keep the poor
+wretch awake.”]
+
+[Footnote 118: Tekaddá تكدا—Az-záb الزاب. This is the country of the
+Mezzábí, north-west of Wergelán.]
+
+[Footnote 119: Sanadaki probably means High or Supreme Counsellor, from
+_san_ or _sanon_, high, and _adégué_, a counsellor. (Dard’s Dict.)
+Jarric (Hist. des Choses Mémorables, III. p. 372) pleasantly describes
+the mode of dubbing a _Solatequi_ among the Zapes (now called _Bullom_,
+or lowlanders), near Sierra Leone. In Isaaco’s Journal (Park’s Second
+Journey, 8vo. p. 238), mention is made of a king styled _Sallatigua_-
+Koura. From this word is evidently derived the title _Seratik_, borne by
+the King in Bambúk and some of the Fellátah states.]
+
+[Footnote 120: Not. et Extr. p. 642, note. Marmol, III. fol. 21. Abú
+Bekr ben Omar was the Morabite conqueror of Negroland, whither he
+retired after the rise of Yúsef ben Táshifín. Moura, Hist. dos
+Soberanos, &c., p. 146.]
+
+[Footnote 121: “The Zenágah,” says Ibn Khaldún (fol. 68 v), “claim to
+stand in the same relationship to Abú Táleb, as do the Maghráwah to
+ʿOthmán ben ʿAfan.”]
+
+[Footnote 122: The Mandingo and Ṣúṣú languages at present differ widely
+from each other, but many circumstances, nevertheless, combine to prove
+the ancient affinity of the two nations. They are so frequently
+confounded together, that it is not easy to discover the limits of the
+Ṣúṣú country. Rennell, writing from Major Houghton’s information
+(Elucidations, &c. in Proc. Afr. Assoc. I. 275), calls “Mandinga, the
+country of the Susos.” Adanson (Voy. au Senegal, 1757, p. 89), after
+stating that the people dwelling on the banks of the Gambia are
+Mandingoes, adds, “ou Sosés, pour m’exprimer comme eux.” The Ṣúṣú
+language, which is widely understood, is most correctly spoken by the
+Mandingoes (Gram. and Vocab. of the Susoo Language, 1802, p. 48). The
+Jesuit missionaries unite the two nations; “Zozoes, casta de Mandingos,”
+says Sandoval (Hist. de Ethiop. p. 43; see also Jarric, Hist. des Choses
+Mémor. III. p. 411). Winterbottom (Account of Nations at Sierra Leone,
+I. p. 5,) extends the Ṣúṣú country from the River Kissee to the Rio
+Nuñez.]
+
+[Footnote 123: Leo says (pt. VII. c. 5) that Tomboktú was built by Mansá
+Suleïmán, but yet there is reason to suspect that he only improved and
+raised into importance a place previously existing. Conde (Hist. de la
+Dominacion, &c., I. p. 402,) speaks of a chieftain named Mansur el
+Tombuzi; but this title is probably a misreading for Tombúṭí; Tomboktú
+being commonly called in Barbary Tombúṭ, or Tombúṭo. The passage here
+referred to occurs in the annals of the year 297 H. (A.D. 909.)]
+
+
+
+
+                         IBN BAṬÚṬAH’S JOURNEY.
+
+                           POSITION OF MALI.
+
+
+Ibn Baṭúṭah returned to his native city in 1350, after an absence of
+five and twenty years, during which time he had visited nearly all the
+countries of the east, from Constantinople to China, from Bulghar and
+Kipchak Tatary to Zingebar and the Indian islands. He employed the next
+year in visiting Spain and Barbary; and then, to complete his
+acquaintance with the habitable earth, he undertook the perilous journey
+over the desert to the country of the Blacks.[124] In Sijilmésah he was
+hospitably entertained by the brother of a merchant whom he had met at
+Kan-chan-fu in China, and, purchasing camels and provisions for four
+months, he joined a Káfilah which set forward on its march to Negroland
+on the 1st of February 1352, under the guidance of Abú Moḥammed
+Bandakán, of the tribe of Masúfah.
+
+In twenty-five days the Káfilah arrived at Tegháza, a town in the
+desert, where the houses were built of rock salt, and roofed with camel
+skins. The inhabitants of the place were slaves of the Masúfah, employed
+in excavating and cutting the salt required for the trade with
+Negroland. After a delay of ten days on the hill near Tegháza, and
+renewing its stock of water at the salt and muddy wells in the hollow
+(the supply for the next ten days in the desert being precarious), the
+Káfilah resumed its march.[125] It fortunately escaped the much dreaded
+difficulties: fresh rain-water lay in all the hollows and crevices of
+the rocks; and at one place was found so copious a spring of delicious
+water, that the travellers, after satisfying their thirst, washed
+themselves and their clothes in the limpid stream. The fine truffles
+growing in this tract, compensated in some degree for the troublesome
+insects infesting it. One of the merchants belonging to the Káfilah
+strayed too far from it, and was lost. This misfortune served as a
+warning to Ibn Baṭúṭah, who had previously made it a practice to march
+in advance and wander over the plains. The dead body of the strayed
+merchant was afterwards found by another Káfilah about a mile from
+water.
+
+Táserahlá, the station at which the Káfilah next arrived, was a stagnant
+pool, where it was customary to halt three days, for the purpose of
+repairing and replenishing the waterskins. It was also usual to send
+forward from this place the couriers (el takshíf), a name commonly given
+to all of the tribe of Masúfah.[126] For merchants arriving at Táserahlá
+always despatched letters to Aïwalátin, apprising their friends of their
+approach, and engaging them to meet the Káfilah with water four days
+from the latter place. If the courier died on the way, as often
+happened, then no assistance came from Aïwalátin, and the Káfilah
+perished in consequence. “For,” says the Arab author, “that desert is
+filled with demons; and if the courier goes alone, they forthwith
+appear, bewilder and startle him, till he strays from the way, when his
+destruction is inevitable; for there is no path or track to guide him,
+nor anything but an immense wilderness of sand driven about by the
+winds, so that where there is now a level plain, there arises in a few
+minutes a hillock, which again quickly disappears. The guides in this
+desert, therefore, have nothing to rely on but constant practice, and
+require no ordinary share of intrepidity and self-possession. The
+appearance of our guide, who was one of those best acquainted with the
+country, caused me much surprise, inasmuch as he had but one eye, and
+that one diseased.”[127]
+
+The merchants of the Káfilah engaged a Masúfí courier for 100 mithḳáls
+of gold, and on the sixth day after leaving Táserahlá, they descried
+with delight the signal fires of those who had advanced to meet them
+from Aïwalátin. The tract passed over abounded in herds of the baḳr el
+wuḥash (the Antelope Bubalis), which were chased by the Masúfah, and
+killed with arrows. Their flesh, causing thirst, was little eaten: but
+their stomachs contained water; and Ibn Baṭúṭah saw with astonishment
+their contents drained by the people of the desert. Serpents were also
+numerous in the same region. A merchant of Telemsán, who accompanied the
+Káfilah, amused himself with catching these reptiles; but he was on one
+occasion bitten in the hand, and the inflammation that ensued continuing
+to increase, he killed a camel, thrust his wounded hand into the stomach
+of the slaughtered animal, and kept it there for some hours, till the
+pain was assuaged. The desert travelled over in the last four days to
+Aïwalátin differed much from the preceding tract. It was dry and hot in
+the highest degree. The Káfilah occasionally met with parties of the
+Masúfah and Berdámah, who carried water about for sale. In the foregoing
+account of the desert between Táserahlá and Aïwalátin, it is easy to
+recognize “The Desert,” properly so called, of El Bekrí, the Desert of
+Tíser of El Idrísí, and the Azawad of Leo. The breadth of the dreaded
+tract, peopled by the fears of travellers with demons; its distance from
+Sijilmésah, and from the southern limit of the Ṣaḥrá; its possessors the
+Masúfah; and the numerous serpents infesting it, are all so many marks
+whereby it may be discovered under its various denominations.[128]
+
+Two lunar months were spent in the journey from Sijilmésah to
+Aïwalátin.[129] This was the frontier territory of Málí, and had for
+ruler a black officer named Ḥuseïn Farbá, the word _farbá_ signifying
+_governor_ in the language of Málí. Ibn Baṭúṭah was but little pleased
+with the manners of the Blacks, among whom he had expected to see more
+homage paid to men of his complexion. He even thought of returning
+immediately to Sijilmésah, but his original plans preponderated, and he
+resolved, at any rate, to explore Negroland. His attention was engaged
+by the singular character and customs of the Masúfah, who formed the
+higher class of the inhabitants of Aïwalátin. Though Mohammedans, they
+had a law of succession resembling that of the pagans of Malabar. Their
+women, handsome and finely-formed, went unveiled, and conversed with the
+men on terms of freedom and equality which fully spoke the dissolute
+manners of the place.[130]
+
+After staying fifty days in Aïwalátin, Ibn Baṭúṭah engaged a Masúfí
+guide, and, in company with three merchants, set forward for Málí, which
+was a good twenty-four days’ journey distant. In ten days he came to
+Zágharí, a large town inhabited by black traders, and some whites of the
+Ibádhíyah sect, called Ṣaghanghú. Leaving Zágharí, he arrived at
+Kársekhó, “a city on the bank of the Great River which is the Nile.”
+After describing the downward course of the river in terms which shall
+be examined further on, the traveller’s narrative thus proceeds:—“We
+marched from Kársekhó and came to the river Ṣanṣarah, which is ten miles
+from Málí, and it being the custom of the country that no one enters
+there without asking leave, I wrote to the company of Whites, and to its
+chief, Moḥammed ben Alfaḳíh Algezúlí, and also to Shemso-d-dín, to
+engage me a lodging; and so, when I came to the river (Ṣanṣarah), I
+embarked in a canoe, and without further trouble, arrived at the city of
+Málí, the residence of the Sultan of Negroland; and, landing near the
+burial ground, I walked directly to the quarter of the Whites, and found
+Moḥammed ben Alfaḳíh, who had procured me a lodging opposite to his own
+house.”[131]
+
+Ibn Baṭúṭah fell sick soon after his arrival in the capital of Málí, and
+two months elapsed before he was able to visit Mansá Suleïmán. Returning
+on that occasion from the palace, he was followed by those who brought
+the King’s present. They called to him to rise and receive it, while
+they bore it towards him with an air of much importance. But what was
+the surprise of the Arab traveller, who expected to receive a handsome
+garment, or a sum of money, to find the royal gift to consist of only
+three scraps of bread, some hashed mutton, and a calabash of milk. He
+subsequently took occasion to reprove Mansá Suleïmán for his want of
+munificence, and thereupon received from him, as a conciliatory gift, a
+robe, lodging, an allowance while he remained, with a sum of money at
+his departure.
+
+But the arrangements of Mansá Suleïmán’s court did not betray the sordid
+disposition imputed to him. They appear to have been conceived in a
+style of rude pomp and majesty no longer witnessed in the same country.
+Within the royal palace was an alcove or vaulted chamber communicating
+with the interior, and having towards the hall of audience three windows
+covered with silver gratings, and as many more with gratings of gold or
+silver gilt. Over these gratings hung silk curtains, the drawing of
+which served to show that the king was seated within. The officers and
+people then assembled. The Farárí or chief captains, with their archers,
+spearmen, and musicians, ranged themselves on both sides of the alcove,
+and on the signal being given, by thrusting a handkerchief of Egyptian
+muslin through the grating of one of the windows, the musicians fell to
+work with drums, ivory flutes, pipes of cane and calabashes, and made an
+extraordinary din. Outside the alcove stood Dúghá, the interpreter, and
+near him a man who carried his words to the king, and brought back the
+royal answer.[132]
+
+At times the king gave audience in the open air, seated on a platform
+covered with silk, and called Bámbi. A large silk umbrella, like a
+canopy, was held over his head, having on the top a golden bird as large
+as a falcon. He walked slowly on these occasions, surrounded by 300
+armed slaves. Two horses and two rams were led forth, among other
+emblems of royal state. The King’s words gave rise to laudatory
+harangues in the assembly, in the course of which the soldiers signified
+their approbation by twanging their bows. Whoever spoke to the King, or
+was addressed by him, stripped himself to the waist, and, throwing
+himself prostrate, sprinkled dust or clay over his head, and beat the
+ground with his elbows. The frequent exhibition of this abject humility
+offended Ibn Baṭúṭah, who also reprobates the custom of allowing the
+female slaves and young girls, not excepting the King’s daughters, to go
+completely naked, and to appear in that state before the King himself.
+He censures also the grotesque exhibitions of the poets or mimes, who
+were called _jolá_ (the plural of _jál_).[133] He witnessed the
+performance of one who wore a masquerade dress of feathers, with a
+wooden head, like that of some bird, and, thus disguised, delivered an
+extemporaneous harangue before the King. He says nothing of the industry
+or trade of Málí; yet the length at which he describes the dresses of
+the courtiers, and his frequent mention of silks and of gold and silver
+ornaments, show that the Negro city did not impress his mind with the
+idea of poverty. The King wore a gown of European manufacture.
+
+Among the Mandingoes or other nations in Western Africa, no trace at
+present exists of the manners of Málí, or of the pompous forms of a
+great monarchy. But in Yariba and Bergú, on the banks of the Quorra, we
+find absolute sovereigns, who are approached with the same humiliating
+ceremonies above described. While the King sits richly clothed, and the
+musicians strain their efforts, the courtiers strip themselves to the
+waist, and bow their heads to the dust. In Bergú the King is followed by
+a troop of naked girls.[134] The idea of royalty as regards both its
+internal principle and external form, is now in Yariba precisely what it
+was five centuries ago in Málí; and this remarkable fact may perhaps
+justify the suspicion that the people of Málí originally issued from the
+country adjoining Bergú, Yariba, and Dahómy, and wherein there now
+exists a Mohammedan, and probably a Mandingo state called Magho.[135]
+
+Ibn Baṭúṭah relates his departure from Málí in these words: “I arrived
+in Málí on the 14th of the month Jumáda-l-awwal, of the year 753 (29th
+June, 1352), and I left it on the 22nd of Moharrem in the following year
+(27th February, 1353). I departed in company with a merchant named Abú
+Bekr Ibn Yakúb, and we took the road to Mímah. I rode on a camel,
+because horses are so dear in that country that one often costs 100
+mithḳáls.” From these expressions, combined with those in which he
+describes his arrival in Málí, it appears evident that he never crossed
+the Great River, and therefore that the city of Málí must have stood on
+the northern side of that stream. He came to Kársekhó, situate on the
+northern bank of the Great River, “which is the Nile.” He did not cross
+this stream, but proceeding to the river Ṣanṣarah, and embarking on it,
+he reached Málí. When quitting this place, he mounted his camel at once,
+and took the road to Mímah. It is therefore certain that Málí was on the
+same bank of the Great River as Kársekhó and Mímah.
+
+To this conclusion it may be objected, that Leo Africanus places Melli
+(Málí) on a southern branch of the Great River, or Niger, as he styles
+it. But that writer’s statements, if viewed comprehensively, and
+thoroughly understood, will be found to afford, in this instance, no
+firm ground whereon to build an argument. He says that the country
+called by the Moors Gheneoa (Genéwah), and by the natives Genni (Jenni),
+extends 250 miles along the Niger, to the place where that river enters
+the ocean. And again, he says that Melli lies to the south of Gheneoa,
+and extends 300 miles along a branch of the Niger. Now it is obvious
+that the river on which Melli stood, is converted into a branch of the
+Niger by the same hypothesis which led the river of Genni directly
+westward to the ocean; and we are not bound, while rejecting the
+erroneous theory, to respect the modifications forced by it on
+collateral information; nor to admit Leo’s descriptions, clothed in the
+language of system, in opposition to Ibn Baṭúṭah’s clear statement of
+facts.[136]
+
+But if we cannot admit that the capital of Málí was situate on any
+stream entering the Joliba from the south, so neither can it be supposed
+to have stood on any tributary stream joining that river on its left or
+northern bank. For why should a traveller make such a circuit as to
+continue his route southwards to Kársekhó, and then ascend a stream in
+order to reach a point to which he might have gone directly by land? And
+besides, the left bank of the Joliba, within the limits wherein we may
+reasonably look for the site of Málí, has been travelled over by Mungo
+Park, who found there no tributary stream. The mention of the river
+Ṣanṣarah, therefore, presents difficulties which admit of only one
+explanation. A great river like the Joliba, periodically overflowing the
+adjacent country, will probably form many channels, and insulate,
+perhaps by permanent canals, long tracts of low land, as is exemplified
+on a small scale in the course of the Medway below Chatham. Now, if we
+suppose that Málí stood in a low tract, intersected by a canal of the
+Joliba, called Ṣanṣarah, then Ibn Baṭúṭah’s movements may be easily
+explained. That the banks of the Joliba are almost impassable in the
+rainy season we know from the narrative of Park, who, being a stranger
+in the country, struggled through difficulties which a native perhaps
+would never have thought of encountering. But Ibn Baṭúṭah had an
+experienced guide; going to Málí, therefore, at the commencement of the
+rains (the end of June), he directed his course to an easily accessible
+point of the Joliba, and thence proceeded to the capital by the canal:
+leaving Málí in the middle of the dry season (the last day of February)
+he mounted his camel and crossed the country. Moreover, we are
+fortunately able to show that our hypothesis respecting the Ṣanṣarah, is
+not only not unnatural nor improbable, but that it truly represents the
+physical character of that part of the Joliba now under consideration,
+and that there is, in fact, a canal or arm of the river in the very
+place where we should expect to find the Ṣanṣarah. Mungo Park,
+describing his voyage down the Joliba from Samee to Sego, says, “We
+passed down a small stream to the north of Sego-korro, and halted
+opposite to Sego-sikorro, near the sandhills, where I formerly waited
+for a passage.” In explanation of these words, it must be observed that
+Sego-korro is on the northern bank of the river; Sego-sikorro, where the
+King of Bambara resided, on the southern bank. The small stream north of
+Sego-korro, therefore, down which the traveller passed, (in the middle
+of August, when the floods were at their height,) must have been a canal
+or arm of the river insulating the ground on which Sego-korro
+stood.[137] Park does not state the length of the _small stream_, nor
+say whether he entered it near Samee; but these particulars are here of
+little consequence, since our object is not to identify the small stream
+of Park with the Ṣanṣarah of Ibn Baṭúṭah, but only to show how perfectly
+our hypothesis respecting the latter harmonizes with nature and with
+fact. Yet it must not be concealed that there is reason for believing
+that the site of the capital of Málí was near Samee. Ibn Khaldún writes
+the proper name of that capital in characters wanting, unfortunately,
+the diacritic points; but these being supplied by probable conjecture,
+the passage in question will run thus: “And the residence of the king of
+the people of Málí is the city of _Benní_,” (or Benna).[138] A place
+called Binni, of little importance, stands on the north bank of the
+Joliba, about seven miles above Samee.
+
+The sequel of Ibn Baṭúṭah’s journey shall be related in his own words,
+though with some curtailment. He thus proceeds:—“We came to a wide creek
+or arm of the Nile, which can be crossed only in boats, on the third
+night after we left Málí. On arriving at its banks, I beheld, with
+astonishment, about sixteen immense animals, which I took to be
+elephants. However, when I saw them plunge into the water, I called out
+to Abú Bekr Ibn Yakúb, and asked him what are these? And he replied,
+‘They are river horses (Hippopotami), which come ashore to feed.’ They
+are much larger than common horses, yet resemble them in their heads and
+the fulness of their manes, but their feet are like those of elephants.
+On another occasion, when navigating the river from Tomboktú to Kaúkaú,
+I had a view of these animals. They were swimming about with their heads
+above the water, and snorting. The natives attack them with javelins, to
+which are attached a number of cords. If the animal be struck in the
+neck or the leg, he is soon overcome, dragged to the bank, and killed.
+The natives eat the flesh, and the banks of the river are strewed over
+with the bones of these animals.[139]
+
+“At this arm of the Nile we rested in a village governed by a negro
+named Farbá Maghá, one of those who had accompanied Mansá Músa on his
+pilgrimage. He related to us, that when Mansá Músa came to this place,
+he gave to Abú-l-Abbas Aldukálí, a white man and Kadhi who attended him,
+4,000 mithḳáls for the expenses of his journey. Abú-l-Abbas, however, on
+arriving at Mímah, complained that his money was stolen. The King
+thereupon sent for the governor, and threatened him with death, if the
+money and the thief were not immediately discovered. The search seemed
+at first fruitless; but on the slaves of Abú-l-Abbas being menaced and
+strictly questioned, one of them, a young girl, pointed out the spot
+where her master had buried the money. Mansá Músa, on hearing this,
+banished the Kadhi to the country of the Unbelievers, who eat men. There
+he stayed four years, before he was permitted to return; and the Blacks
+did not eat him, because they say that white man’s flesh is bad meat,
+being flabby and immature. And here I must relate a curious anecdote.
+Some of these cannibals, led by a chief, came on a certain occasion to
+the court of Mansá Suleïmán; they were clothed in silk wrappers, and had
+enormous pendants in their ears, the holes in which were an inch in
+diameter. The King received them with much distinction, regaled them
+sumptuously, and, as a token of regard, gave them a slave girl. They
+immediately killed the girl, and ate her; then, besmearing their hands
+and faces with her blood, they visited the Sultan, and thanked him for
+his present. In the country of these cannibals there are mines of
+gold.[140]
+
+“Leaving the village on the water side, we came to Korí Mansá, where the
+camel that I was riding died. When my servant told me of this accident,
+I went out to witness it with my own eyes, and there I beheld the Blacks
+already devouring the carcass, their custom being to eat every kind of
+dead animal. I then sent two of my followers to a town called Zagharí,
+about two days’ journey from Korí Mansá, to buy me another camel. In six
+days they returned, and we then took the road to Mímah. We did not enter
+that town, however, but encamped outside near the wells. Thence we
+arrived at Tomboktú, a city four miles distant from the Nile. Most of
+its inhabitants are people of Mímah, or of the tribes called
+Almolaththemún. One day I went to visit the governor, Farbá Músa, and
+met at his house a Masúfí, who had just arrived in Tomboktú, to take the
+command of the people of his tribe established there. The governor gave
+him a robe, a turban, and pair of trowsers, all of figured cotton; and
+made him sit on a shield, while the chief people of his tribe lifted him
+above their heads.[141]
+
+“At Tomboktú I embarked in a small canoe made of a single trunk of a
+tree, and went down the river. We landed every night, and went to some
+inhabited place to procure what we wanted,—such as oil, and other
+necessaries—giving in exchange for them salt, drugs, and trinkets. We
+came to a place, the name of which I have forgotten, but where Farbá
+Suleïmán, a Hájí of sterling worth, was governor. He was a man of great
+size and strength, and had a bow which none of the Blacks but himself
+could bend. I went into his house to ask for a little durrah, and my
+request being interpreted for him by a faḳíh who was present, he took me
+by the hand, and led me into his principal chamber, which was filled
+with arms of various kinds, shields, bows, and javelins. There was then
+brought to me a drink called Aldaḳnó, prepared from bruised durrah, with
+milk and honey. We then ate of a water melon; and in conclusion, a young
+slave coming into the room, Farbá Suleïmán presented him to me, and I
+have him at the present day.[142]
+
+“From this place we went on to Kaúkaú, one of the largest, handsomest,
+and strongest cities in all Negroland. It stands on the banks of the
+Nile, and abounds in rice, milk, poultry, fish, and fruit of matchless
+excellence. The people there, as well as in Málí, use shells for money.
+I stayed in Kaúkaú about two months, and then went by land in the
+direction of Tekaddá, with a large Káfilah of people of Ghodémis.[143]
+We came into the country of the Berdámah, a Berber tribe, whose
+protection and friendship are indispensable for the safety of travellers
+in this region. The Berdámah are wanderers, and never remain long in one
+place. Their tents are of a peculiar construction; they fix poles in the
+ground, and place on them a matting of reeds; over this they form a
+trellis-work of boughs of trees, and cover the frame thus constructed
+with skins and cotton cloths. Their women are the prettiest and best
+shaped that I have ever seen; they are as white as snow, and the fattest
+in the world. Whoever wishes to have a woman of this tribe, needs only
+to go to the wells near their encampments in the evening, and she will
+be sure to follow him; but he must not take her further than Kaúkaú or
+Aïwalátin.[144]
+
+“We continued our march to Tekaddá, where the houses are built of red
+stone; the water is coloured by running over copper ores, which impart
+to it a disagreeable flavour. The people of Tekaddá sow no grain; they
+are wholly devoted to trade, and live in affluence; their luxury
+consisting, as in Málí and Aïwalátin, in slaves of both sexes, of whom
+some classes fetch exorbitant prices. The king of Tekaddá is a Berber.
+The copper taken from the mines near the town is made into small bars
+about an inch and a half thick, which are exchanged for grain, meat,
+fuel, and other necessaries. These bars are carried to Kúber, in the
+country of the Infidels, to Rághá, and to Bornú, which is forty days’
+journey from Tekaddá. The king of that country (who is named Idris)
+never speaks to his subjects, unless from behind a screen or
+curtain.[145]
+
+“From Tekaddá we set forward on our march to Twát, which is seventy days
+distant, and came to Káhir, which belongs to the Sultan of Karkar, and
+yields sufficient pasturage. Then going three days over a waterless
+desert, and fifteen through a tract uninhabited but not waterless, we
+came to the place where the road to Egypt separates from that to Twat.
+The water of the wells in that place being impregnated with iron, stains
+linen. In ten days more we came to Dekhár, and in another month reached
+Búdá, one of the largest towns of Twát.”
+
+To the foregoing narrative a few remarks may be here advantageously
+subjoined. If it be granted that Ibn Baṭúṭah, in sending to Zagharí for
+a camel to replace that which died at Korí Mansá, had recourse to the
+nearest town, then it follows that Mímah, one stage at least from
+Tomboktú, must have been more than two stages from Korí Mansá. But this
+place, in a mean position, will be nearly as far as Zagharí, or fourteen
+days, from the capital of Málí. This capital must therefore have been,
+at the lowest calculation, eighteen days from Tomboktú.[146]
+
+It is worthy of attention, that, in the fourteenth century, Tomboktú was
+peopled chiefly by natives of Mímah, and by the Molaththemún, the very
+parties with whom Ghánah, three centuries before, had to maintain a
+constant warfare. The Masúfah, the early occupants of the desert between
+Sijilmésah and Ghánah, extended from Tegháza to Tomboktú, and mercenary
+bands of them were at the court of Málí. But the caravan road seems to
+have been their only territory; eastward they were bounded by the
+Berdámah, who carried water for sale into the desert of Azawad, and
+whose encampments were probably not ten days distant from Tomboktú.
+
+There does not appear to have been any place of note between Tomboktú
+and Kaúkaú; nor does Ibn Baṭúṭah say a word favourable to the
+supposition that the former of these cities was in his time
+intrinsically important. Kaúkaú, on the other hand, then enjoyed that
+eminence among the cities of Negroland which it continued to retain for
+at least four centuries.[147] The morals of the Berdámah, of Aïwalátin,
+and Tekaddá, as described by Ibn Baṭúṭah, bear a close resemblance to
+those characterizing Aúdaghost and Tádmekkah in earlier times, and
+indicate the same fundamental conditions of society. The women of the
+Berdámah, he says, were willing to follow strangers, on the implied
+condition that they were not to be taken beyond Kaúkaú or Aïwalátin.
+This is as much as to say, that they willingly accompanied merchants
+arriving with the Káfilahs from the north-east, to a certain distance on
+either of the two frequented roads; but it is remarkable that no mention
+is here made of a road to any part of Houssa.
+
+Tekaddá was seventy days from Twát, and as fifty-eight of these are
+accounted for, we may conclude that Tekaddá was twelve days from Káhir,
+and thirty from the place where the roads to Twát and Egypt divided
+(probably near Ghát); it was also forty days from Bornú, so that its
+position may be ascertained with sufficient accuracy. Leo Africanus
+states, that beyond or eastward of the Desert of the Zenágah lay that of
+the Zuenziga, “which extends from the neighbourhood of Tegaza eastwards,
+to the borders of the Desert of Air, inhabited by the Targa (Tawárik);
+and from the confines of Segelmessa, Tebelbelt, and Benigomi southwards
+(south-eastwards), to the Desert of Ghir, which is opposite to the
+kingdom of Guber.” It has been already shown that by Air Leo meant the
+Desert of ʿAhír east of Aghades; and it seems equally certain that his
+Ghir is the Káhir of Ibn Baṭúṭah.[148] The copper of Tekaddá was taken
+to Bornú, Kúber (Guber), and Rághá (Raka in Yariba?); and here it is
+worthy of remark, that Guber, the frontier province of Houssa towards
+the desert, and the province to which native historians concede the
+superiority derivable from an early intercourse with white men, was
+still pagan in the fourteenth century. This fact alone would be
+sufficient to prove that Houssa formed no part of the Negroland which
+fell within the range of the Morabites, even if the general tenor of
+their history did not contradict such an extension of their conquests;
+or if the question were not decided by the authority of Ibn Khaldún, who
+says expressly that “Tekaddá was behind the country of the
+Morabites.”[149]
+
+Ibn Baṭúṭah makes no allusion to the extent of the empire of Málí
+towards the west or south; but he clearly indicates its limits towards
+the north and east. When first mentioning the river, he describes its
+course in the following terms:—“We came to the Great River, which is the
+Nile, and on the banks of which stands the city of Kársekhó. Thence the
+Nile descends to Kábrah and to Zághah, and the Sultans of these two
+cities are tributary to the Sultan of Málí. The inhabitants of Zághah
+were the first [in these countries] who embraced Mohammedism. They are
+religious, and fond of learning. From Zághah the river descends to
+Tomboktú; thence to Kaúkaú; thence to the district of Múlí, in the
+country of the Límiyín, which terminates [in that direction] the
+dominion of Málí. It goes thence to Yúfí (Núfí), one of the greatest
+states in Negroland, and the Sultan of which is among the most powerful
+princes of that quarter of the earth. No white man can reach that
+country, for sure death awaits him from the natives before he penetrates
+so far. From Yúfí the Nile descends to Nubia, the inhabitants of which
+are Christians, and to Dongolah,” &c.[150]
+
+Notwithstanding the confusion into which the writer of Ibn Baṭúṭah’s
+narrative here falls, placing Zághah below Kábrah, evidently in
+ignorance of the proximity of the latter place to Tomboktú, yet as we
+know that Zághah was not on the part of the river which Ibn Baṭúṭah
+actually navigated, viz. between Tomboktú and Kaúkaú, we may rest
+satisfied that it was above Kábrah. The empire of Málí extended along
+both banks of the Great River as far as Tomboktú. On the left it
+stretched northward to the border of the desert and the route of the
+caravans, thus comprising the territory of the ancient Ghánah. Eastward
+of Tomboktú it appears to have been bounded by the river; the Berdámah
+and other tribes of the desert on the left bank retaining their
+independence. Kaúkaú had been annexed to the empire, but no advance made
+eastwards from that place, nor had Tekaddá been as yet invaded. Below
+Kaúkaú the river flowed by the district of Múlí in the country of the
+Límiyín (who were on its left bank, as shall be shown hereafter), and at
+that point terminated, towards the east, the empire of Málí.
+
+The Múlí of Ibn Baṭúṭah is apparently the district called by Mohammed
+Masíní Mouri (Múrí), four long days’ journey west of Sokkatú. It is said
+to be mountainous and well watered; it immediately adjoins the Desert of
+the Tawárik, and its inhabitants are still pagans. It is therefore the
+northern limit of the negro population on the left bank of the Kowára,
+or on the side of Houssa.[151]
+
+By the possession of Múlí the people of Málí had ready ingress into the
+countries whence slaves were taken, but there is no authority whatever
+for the supposition that they ever extended their dominion farther
+eastward; and care must be taken, therefore, not to confound the
+Mandingo empire of Málí with the country called Marra or Malla, situate
+on the confines of the former in the north-western part of Houssa. It
+seems clearly ascertained that the north-west part of Houssa, or the
+territory between Zanfara and the Kowára, is called by the natives
+Marra, or by those who affect the Arab sounds, Malla. The ancient
+greatness assigned to Marra in the historical traditions of the natives,
+favours the opinion that it was the Melil or Malilo of the early Arab
+writers. At present the name Marra is used only by the indigenous
+population, and it is curious to observe that its former importance
+never brought it to the ears of Clapperton or Lander. But its partial
+obscurity only renders it more likely to lead to confusion; and
+therefore, in order to distinguish clearly between Málí and Malla, let
+it be observed, that the former of these lay on the west of the Kowára,
+the latter on the east. Málí was the empire of the Mandingoes; Malla a
+kingdom of Houssa. These two states approached, and may have met each
+other near Múlí; but there is no positive ground for believing that they
+were in any degree connected, or that the conquests of Málí ever
+extended into Malla.[152]
+
+Opposite to Múlí, or on the right bank of the Kowára, the dominion of
+Málí probably extended a little southward to the borders of Bergú. Ibn
+Baṭúṭah relates that Bálbá Ḳásá, the queen of Mansá Suleïmán, sent, in a
+fit of displeasure, a confidential messenger to Mári Jáṭah, the King’s
+nephew, instigating him to revolt, and promising to gain over the army
+to his interest. Mári Jáṭah was at that time governor of Kombori.[153]
+Now this name occurs in the fragments of native geographers collected by
+Capt. Clapperton. It is therein stated that Kanbari (Kombori) lies north
+of the River Kadúna; and again, we are told, that the river of that
+country is called Kantagoora (Kotú-n-kúra). Yet the Kombori, of which
+Jáṭah was governor, could not have been the country on the river of
+Kotú-n-kúra, for this is beyond Múlí, where the dominion of Málí
+terminated. This objection may be removed, however, by a little
+attention to the comprehensiveness of the name under consideration.
+Clapperton informs us that the aboriginal inhabitants of the country of
+Boussa (Busá) are the negroes called Cambrie or Cumbrie (Kombori), who
+still preserve their own language, and dwell in the woods on both sides
+of the river, their villages extending also a long way up the Kotú-n-
+kúra. From them, therefore, it is evident that the country on this river
+takes the name of Kombori. But they also occupy all the islands in the
+river above Busá, and are the indigenous inhabitants of the territory of
+Busá, which extends eleven days’ journey northwards up the right bank of
+the Kowára. They occupy, therefore, the country opposite to Múlí, where
+we may accordingly place with much probability the province of Kombori
+belonging to Málí.[154]
+
+“From Múlí (says Ibn Baṭúṭah) the river descends to Yúfí (Núfí), one of
+the greatest kingdoms of Negroland, but to which white men cannot
+penetrate; and thence it flows to Nubia.” It would appear, from this,
+that the superiority now enjoyed by the people of Núfí in arts and
+industry, was already acknowledged in the fourteenth century. It is
+manifest also that the system of the native geographers which converts
+the Chadda into a continuation of the Kowára, by which the waters of
+this great river are carried across Bornú to the Nile of Egypt, is of
+some antiquity. Ibn Baṭúṭah believed that the great river below Múlí
+flowed some distance to the south or south-east before it turned
+eastwards to Nubia. In speaking of Kulwá (Kilwá, or Quiloa), on the
+eastern coast of Africa, he uses these words:—“A merchant there told me,
+that the town of Sofálah is half a month’s journey from Kulwá, and one
+month from Yúfí in the country of the Límiyín, and that gold is brought
+from Yúfí to Sofálah.”[155] The boldness here evinced in bringing
+together and joining in commerce countries far asunder, is constantly
+exhibited in the geographical speculations of an early or ill-informed
+age. Distances are then enlarged as expediency requires; hypothesis
+leaps over the vacant spaces, and forcibly stretches the known portions
+in the opposite sides of a continent till they meet in the centre.
+Illustrations of this truth may be found in all ages. During the
+sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, Abyssinia, Congo, and Monomotapa
+were all supposed to meet together. One of the Jesuits resident in
+Abyssinia asserts, that salt was carried from that country to
+Tomboktú.[156] The reasoning which led to this statement was, in its
+nature, exactly the same as that from which the Arabs inferred an
+intercourse between Sofálah and Yúfí. It is not surprising, therefore,
+that Ibn Baṭúṭah, who had far less accurate means of ascertaining the
+true positions of the places visited by him than the Catholic
+missionaries, should believe that the remote interior, whence gold was
+brought to Sofálah, was occupied by the same nation who filled the
+interior viewed in the opposite direction from Málí. Erroneous as this
+kind of inference may be, it yet rests on ideas of direction so manifest
+and unambiguous as to be of material service in explaining an author’s
+meaning. It is plain, then, that Ibn Baṭúṭah thought Yúfí to lie between
+Málí and Sofálah, and that the Great River from Múlí to Yúfí flowed
+towards Sofálah, but beyond Yúfí turned eastwards to Nubia.
+
+It is impossible to quit the narrative of Ibn Baṭúṭah’s travels without
+making an important reflection on the extent and direction of his
+journey to Negroland. We see in him an enterprising, experienced, well-
+informed traveller, whose ambition it was, apparently, to explore all
+the known parts of the earth; he goes from Sijilmésah across the desert
+to Málí, thence to Tomboktú, and then descends the river as far as
+Kaúkaú, and from Kaúkaú he turns off north-eastwards to the Desert on
+his way back. Now can it be reasonably doubted that, in this tour, he
+visited _the Negroland_ with which Sijilmésah had maintained an
+intercourse from the earliest times, and which had been so minutely
+described by El Bekrí and others? Can it be doubted that he accomplished
+his proposed task in the sense in which it was understood by his
+countrymen, and that the Negroland of western writers consequently lay
+between the capital of Málí and Kaúkaú or Kághó? When he alludes to
+Gúber as a pagan country, but says nothing of Kanó, can it be seriously
+maintained that he slightingly passes over in silence the only part of
+Negroland described with copious and connected details by the best Arab
+writers?
+
+The hypothesis identifying Kanó with Ghánah appears to have originated
+with Leo Africanus, and rests on no better foundation than the supposed
+resemblance of those names, which to an impartial critic must appear
+widely dissimilar.[157] Neither can it be admitted that Aghades was ever
+called Aúdaghost, or that it is only twenty-five days from Jermah in
+Fezzán. Kanó is two months from Jermah, four or five months from the
+Western Ocean, and an equal distance from Sijilmésah, with which country
+it certainly never maintained any intercourse. It is not close to the
+desert, nor is there any desert of extreme aridity within much less than
+a month’s journey from it.[158] It has no navigable river near it, nor
+even any stream which is not quite dry in summer; much less can the
+series of names placed on the river of Ghánah be found in its vicinity.
+Neither do the descriptions of Ghánah, with all their details, contain
+the names of any of the countries near Kanó. The tribes of the desert on
+the frontiers of Houssa have all come from the neighbourhood of Fezzán,
+and not from Sijilmésah.[159] Kanó is removed far from the deserts of
+the Zenágah and of the Morabites, who always hung over Ghánah, and at
+length became its masters: nor was Kanó included in the empire of Málí
+when this power had attained its greatest extension, and had advanced
+far beyond Ghánah. To one who examines with patience and attention the
+accounts of Ghánah, it cannot but appear surprising that its identity
+with Kanó should be maintained and acquiesced in even at the present
+day.
+
+
+[Footnote 124: For an account of Ibn Baṭúṭah, whose Travels at least
+equal in interest those of Marco Polo, see the ‘History of the
+Mohammedan Dynasties in Spain,’ by D. Pascual de Gayangos, p. 348. This
+gentleman possesses a copy of the complete narrative of Ibn Baṭúṭah, and
+from his translation of it (which we hope will be presented to the
+public ere long) have been collected the passages given above, which are
+not in general to be found in Professor Lee’s translation of the
+abridgment of the same work.]
+
+[Footnote 125: Tegháza تَغَازَي is described, though not named, by El
+Bekrí (Not. et Extr. p. 436). The salt mines, he says, are two days from
+the Great Desert, over which passes the road to Ghánah, and twenty from
+Sijilmésah. Ibn Baṭúṭah, travelling slowly, found the latter distance to
+be a journey of twenty-five days. The Morabite general, Abú Bekr ben
+Omar, purchased Negro slaves at a place in the desert called Gasza, whom
+he sent to Spain, and exchanged for European slaves, to recruit his army
+(Conde, Hist. de la Dom. II. p. 86). The Gasza here mentioned is
+probably Tegháza mutilated in the original text, and further disfigured
+by the Spanish writer. El Idrísí (Rec. de Voy. p. 107) mentions a place
+in the desert called Taghíza. According to Cadamosto (c. XII. fol. 137
+v), Tegháza signifies _Cargadore_, or a loader (an old word, ill changed
+into _Caricatojo_ in the recent edition of Ramusio); importing that the
+place so called was the residence of those who loaded the camels, or
+furnished the freight for the trade with Negroland. Peritsol (Itinera
+Mundi, ed. by Hyde, p. 124), explains it otherwise, and translates
+Tegháza, _earth_ loaded _with gold_. Ibn Baṭúṭah says, that at Aïwalátin
+the salt fetched from ten to eighteen mithḳáls the load, and at Málí
+twenty or thirty, or sometimes forty mithḳáls; and Leo states that when
+he was at Tomboktú, the price of a load of salt rose there to eighty
+ducats. Cadamosto quotes much higher prices. The ducat or mithḳál is
+valued by Jackson at 3_s._ 8_d._ Another writer informs us, that the
+load of salt (600 lb.), worth 4_s._ at Tegháza, paid 5_l._ duty at Gago
+(True Historical Discourse of Muley Hamet’s Rising, c. II.). It has been
+asserted by Jackson (Account of Morocco, p. 241), and too readily
+believed, that there is a second Tegháza near the coast. But that
+author’s meaning is explained by his map, in which we find written _East
+Tarassa_ (Tegháza) and _West Tarassa Arabs_ (the Trarzas, or, as Labat
+writes their name, Eteraza). According to Jackson’s orthographical
+system, the same Arabic name may be written Tegháza, Tegrassa, or
+Terassa. Caillié (Voy. &c. tom. II. p. 417,) came to some wells called
+Trarzas, or Trasas, within the region of loose sand, and which have been
+nevertheless mistaken for the site of Tegháza, whereas they obviously
+owed their name to the tribe that dug them.]
+
+[Footnote 126: Táserahlá تَاسَرَهْلا. Respecting the Masúfah, who were
+generally called el Takshíf, that is, the scouts or couriers, and who
+appear to have occupied the whole road from Tegháza to Tomboktú, there
+is a passage in Ibn Khaldún (fol. 89) which, with a little abridgment,
+is worth transcribing.—“After the fall of the Morabite dynasty, the
+tribes of the Molaththemún returned to the desert, and now occupy the
+countries which they originally possessed in the vicinity of Negroland.
+But as we have already observed, the emigration of the Zenágah tribes
+was but partial: a few only of the Masúfah and Lumtúnah obeyed the
+impulse, while the majority of the tribes remained behind, and _keep in
+our days their old settlements in the Sahrá_, paying tribute to the
+Kings of Negroland, on whom they depend, and in whose armies they serve.
+The Goddálah are directly opposite to the Dhawi-Hassán, a branch of the
+Moʿakel Arabs, settled in Sús el Aḳṣa; the Lumtúnah are opposite to the
+Dhawi-Mansúr and Dhawi ʿObeidu-llah, branches of the same great tribe
+living in Maghrebu-l-Aḳṣa. The Masúfah face the Zaghabah, an Arab tribe
+in Maghrebu-l-Aúsat; and the Lamṭah adjoin the Benú Riyyah, who occupy
+Ez-Záb.”—Thus it appears that the Masúfah inhabiting the tract of desert
+between Sijilmésah and Tomboktú were in _their old settlements_, and,
+therefore, in the tract between Sijilmésah and Ghánah. (See page 17.)
+Leo (pt. I. c. 17-19) points out the situation of the various families
+of the Machil (Moʿakel) tribe of Arabs.]
+
+[Footnote 127: The solitude and dangers of the desert naturally incline
+the mind to the terrors of superstition. Marco Polo (Marsden’s edit. p.
+159) relates that the Desert of Lop, in Tatary, is haunted by spirits
+who call travellers by their names in the voice of friends, and lead
+them astray.]
+
+[Footnote 128: A hundred mithḳáls was a large hire, if we estimate it by
+the price of salt at Tegháza, which was probably but one mithḳál the
+load. In the descriptions of the Desert of Tíser, the serpents infesting
+it are always mentioned. They were dressed with salt and wormwood,
+according to El Idrísí (Rec. de Voy. p. 108), and eaten by the Blacks.
+If the loose hot sands abruptly approach the limits of vegetation on the
+southern border of the Ṣaḥrá, between the 4th and 9th westerly
+meridians, this phenomenon must be ascribed to the prevalence of
+northerly winds, which drive the sand within the limit of the rains. On
+the coast the drift of the sand seems to lean towards the north.]
+
+[Footnote 129: Aïwalátin ايْولَاتِنْ is a regular plural, formed from
+the singular Walet or Waláta. Thus _afíus_, a hand, makes in the plural
+_aïfásen_ (Höst’s Marokos, p. 137); _tar_, a foot, makes _itaren_. The
+Berber names of towns are often in the plural number, comprehending the
+several villages within the limits of a _Tenzert_, or district. Waláta
+(Gualata) is described by Leo (pt. VI. c. 60), not as a town, but a
+territory containing three hamlets (casali) and some scattered
+habitations. Hence he might with propriety have written _Igualaten_, as
+he wrote _Iguaden_ for Wádán, the Hoden of Cadamosto. The commercial
+importance once enjoyed by Aïwalátin is agreeably illustrated by an
+anecdote related in the History of the Mohammedan Dynasties in Spain, p.
+302. While Ibn Baṭúṭah was at the court of Málí, he witnessed one day a
+Masúfí rushing into the presence of the King, and prostrating himself in
+the manner of a suppliant. When asked who had wronged him, he replied,
+Manshajú biwalátin منشاجوا بولاتن, which means the Governor or Viceroy
+of Aïwalátin. Manshajú or Manshagú is obviously derived from Mansá, with
+the Berber pronunciation; the _b_ prefixed to the following word is the
+sign of the possessive case (Venture on the Berber Language, in the
+Appendix to Langlés’ Translation of Hornemann’s Travels, p. 420).]
+
+[Footnote 130: The title Farbá فربا, borne by the chief officers in the
+empire of Málí, is originally the same as that of Farma or Farim, usual
+among the Ṣúṣú and Mandingoes near the coast. Jobson (The Golden Trade,
+p. 58) distinguishes between the Ferrans (Farims) and Ferambra (the
+Farinba of Park). Golberry (Fragm. d’un Voy. I. p. 425) observes, that
+in Bambúk, the power has passed from the Seratik, or nominal king, to
+the Farims. The same is true of the neighbouring states, which at
+present hardly acknowledge a paramount authority. For the Masúfí law of
+succession, see p. 40.]
+
+[Footnote 131: Zághari زَاغَرِي. Its inhabitants were called Zangarátah
+زَنْجَراتة. While the followers of the Ibadhia doctrine were named
+Ṣaghanghú صَغَنْغُوا, orthodox sunnites were called Túri تُورِي. Ibn
+Baṭúṭah mentions no river on his route from Aïwalátin to Karsekhó
+كَارْسَخَوُ, nor does he state the distance, which probably was not
+great, from this place to the Ṣanṣarah صَنْصَرَة.]
+
+[Footnote 132: The terms Faráriah فَرارية and Farári فراري, applied by
+Ibn Baṭúṭah to the chief officers of Málí, and which he translated
+Amírs, are respectively the collective and plural of Arabic form, from
+the word _Fary_, which in the Bambara language (a dialect of the
+Mandingo) signifies _valour_ or _courage_. From this word comes
+_Fariba_, a valiant man (Dard, Dict. Wolofe et Bambara). The Mandingoes
+form personal nouns with the suffix _ma_: thus from _fanko_, power,
+comes _fankama_, a powerful man (M‘Brair’s Gram. of Mandingo, p. 6).
+Thus it is probable that from the word _Fary_ is derived the titles
+Farba, Farma, or Farim, which the conquests of the Mandingo race have
+spread so widely through Guinea. But the Farims, or Lieutenants, are now
+superior to the Seratiks, or Kings, and the title of the latter was at
+one time secondary (see Note 119); so that sovereign titles in Guinea
+standing on the ruins of preceding titles, are so many monuments of
+revolution.]
+
+[Footnote 133: It is obvious that the poets here described are the
+_Jelli-kés_, or _singing men_, of the Mandingoes (see Laing’s Travels,
+p. 232). But it must not be supposed that by Jál حال, in the
+(Arabicized) plural Jolá حُلا, Ibn Baṭúṭah meant to represent the word
+Jelli-ké. He must be understood to say that the Jelli-kés, in Málí, were
+of the nation called _Jolá_. Park says (Second Journey, 8vo. p. 57) that
+“those who trade on credit are called _Juli_.” But this appears to be a
+rash and incorrect explanation of the name. The word _julo_ signifies
+_debt_ or bondage, but not a _debtor_. The same author, in describing
+further on (p. 228) the route southward to Bé-dú, mentions several Juli
+towns, and observes, that “the Julis are people who understand the
+language of Bœdoo and Miniana, and are employed as brokers,” &c. But our
+difficulties respecting the application of this name are removed by
+Caillié, who informs us (Voy. à Temboctou, II. pp. 82, 160), that in
+Bambara the Mandingoes are called _Jaulas_, _Diaulas_, or _Jolas_. It is
+probable, however, that the name properly belongs to the inhabitants of
+the country south of Bambara, where Park pointed out the Juli towns. But
+in the Bambara language _Dhioli_ (according to Dard’s orthography) means
+_red_; may not the Jolá, Julis, or Jaulas, therefore, be the people
+referred to in the document procured from the Governor of Senegal, and
+published in the Appendix to Adams’s Narrative (p. 197), wherein Bé-dú
+is described to be “un pays habité par un peuple _rougeatre_”?]
+
+[Footnote 134: Clapperton’s Second Journey, pp. 47, 52, 72. The persons
+prostrating themselves before the King of Yariba were contemptuously
+called “Sandeaters,” by Clapperton’s Houssa servant; so little are the
+usages of Ghánah now known in the neighbourhood of Kanó! Lander
+(Expedition to the Niger, I. p. 172), describing these ceremonies, names
+the king Mansolah, of which the Mandingo title Mansá may possibly be a
+part.]
+
+[Footnote 135: It is manifest that the kingdom called Maha by Clapperton
+(Second Journey, p. 56) is the Magho of Dupuis (Residence in Ashantee,
+p. xcviii), and is also identical with the Mohammedan kingdom of Zogho,
+said by the latter writer (p. civ.) to adjoin the Yagah tribes (Bergú)
+and the Ayah (Yariba). The road from Ashantee to Niki, the capital of
+Bergú, after passing through the town of Zogho, conducts to Salamo,
+Jambodú, and Súsú, or Súso. The last two names are apparently Mandingo.
+The name of the Sultan of Magho, residing in the city of Ghoroma
+(Ghúrma) is said (Dupuis, p. cxxix.) to be Mariba Sheky, an obvious
+misreading for Farba Shego. It seems very likely that the title of Maha
+or Magho, vaguely given by the people on the coast to a Mohammedan
+prince in the interior, is the Mandingo name Maghá, that is, Mohammed.]
+
+[Footnote 136: Leo Africanus, pt. VII. c. 3 & 4.]
+
+[Footnote 137: Park’s First Journey, p. 195. In the Rec. des Voy. tom.
+II. p. 53, it is maintained that all the villages composing Sego are on
+the right or southern bank of the river. But the general character of
+the information there given will not bear to be weighed against the
+clear testimony of Park. It seems not improbable that Kársekhó was a
+part of Sego, but there is no necessity for insisting on that point.
+Perhaps if Caillié, who applied the Wolof term _Marigot_, which he had
+learned in Senegal, to all the creeks of the Great River, had inquired
+how they were called in Bambara, or lower down, he might have learned
+the name Ṣanṣarah. Perhaps, too, the Gozen-zaire of Sidi Hamed’s
+narrative (Riley, Loss of the Brig Commerce, p. 362), might have been
+more correctly written Go-sansarah. It seems to owe its present form to
+Riley’s partiality to the hypothesis uniting the Niger with the Zaire.]
+
+[Footnote 138: In the original thus: وحاضرَة الملك الاهل مالي هُوَ بلد
+ٮٮى]
+
+[Footnote 139: The wide arm of the river (Khalíj) reached by our
+traveller on the third night after his leaving Málí must have been the
+branch observed by Caillié to join the river from the west at Isaca. He
+supposed it to come from Sego (Voy. à Temboctou, p. 239), but its
+separation from the main stream must be lower down. There is, as yet, no
+sufficient reason to deny that the river of Sego is also the river of
+Jenni, and that the latter place stands between its branches, and not
+between two distinct rivers.]
+
+[Footnote 140: This anecdote, like most stories of cannibalism, has the
+defect of not proceeding from an eye witness; but it proves one fact,
+namely, that the people of Málí were not cannibals.]
+
+[Footnote 141: Korí Mansá كُرِى منسا. Perhaps this place was the
+residence of the chief (Mansá) who levied the tax on cotton (Korí). The
+name written in the original Rʿarí رعري has been here changed into
+Zagharí (See above, p. 75), as the existence of two places not far
+asunder, and with names written so much alike, is much less probable
+than a lapse in the MSS. Mímah ميمه is the Amímah of older writers.]
+
+[Footnote 142: The Daḳnó of Ibn Baṭúṭah is the Dokhnou of Caillié:—“Un
+mélange de farine de mil et de miel que l’on délaie pour ensuite le
+boire.” (Voy. à Temb. II. p. 236.) This word belongs apparently to the
+Kissour language.]
+
+[Footnote 143: The word here rendered merchants of Godémis, is Ḳodémiyín
+قداميين.]
+
+[Footnote 144: The Berdámah بردامه were probably a family of the
+Beghámah, a nomade tribe mentioned by El Idrísí, whose country lay
+behind that of the Merásah, to the east of Ghánah.]
+
+[Footnote 145: Ibn Baṭúṭah himself bought a female slave at Tekaddá for
+twenty-five mithḳáls, no exorbitant price apparently. Kúber كوبر. Rághá
+راغا. Káhir كاهر. Of Karkar some notice will be taken hereafter.]
+
+[Footnote 146: Cadamosto learned that Málí was thirty days from
+Tomboktú. The last-named city is generally said to be ten days from
+Jenni by land, and twenty-five by water; but the land journeys here
+meant cannot be those of a loaded caravan, but nearly half as long
+again. Sego is five or six days above Jenni.]
+
+[Footnote 147: It is fortunate that Ibn Khaldún removes all doubts as to
+the identity of Ibn Baṭúṭah’s Kaúkaú with Leo’s Gago. The latter writer
+calls it (pt. VII. c. 7) “una grandissima citta.” He also says that,
+compared with the rest of Negroland, it was “molto civile.” His list of
+prices is curious, as well as his Macchiavellian remark on the ignorance
+and oppressed condition of the lower orders.]
+
+[Footnote 148: When Ibn Khaldún says that Tekaddá is seventy days south-
+west of Wergelán (see p. 65), it is evident that he measures the
+circuitous route by Ghát; and that the bearing of Tekaddá from Ghát is
+incautiously taken by him for the direction of the whole journey.]
+
+[Footnote 149: The superiority of the people of Guber is plainly
+asserted by Sultan Bello, who says (Appendix to Denham and Clapperton’s
+Travels, 8vo. II. p. 450) that they alone, of all the Houssa tribes, are
+free born, being descended from the Copts, while the rest are the
+progeny of Bawwa, or Baúwa, that is, a slave (not Ba-oo, as in Mr.
+Salamé’s Translation). The country of the Baúwa is Baúchi, or Baúji,
+commonly written Bowshee. Sultan Bello’s History, brought to Europe by
+Clapperton, would well deserve a critical study: but where is the
+original? Did it belong to the public? and if it did, why is it not in
+the library of the British Museum?]
+
+[Footnote 150: The Arabic MS. here varies a little in its readings. It
+says—“from Kársekhó the Nile descends to Kabúrah كَبُورة and to Zághah
+زاغه; and these two cities, namely, al-Kábrah الكابرة and Zághíah زاغيه,
+pay tribute to Málí.” Tomboktú تُنْبُكْتُوا is carefully spelt by Ibn
+Baṭúṭah, the letters with which it is written being named by him, with
+their vowel points. Ibn Baṭúṭah never alludes to the native names of the
+Great River, but always calls it the Nile. The local names of the
+theoretical Niger (the Senegal and Great River together) collected by De
+Barros (Dec. I. liv. 3, c. 8), do not contain the Mandingo name Joliba.
+This name was first announced to the geographical world when speculation
+was unusually active, and it was immediately explained to mean _the
+Great Waters_. Park, though he seems to have adopted this interpretation
+(Travels, p. 194), can hardly be supposed to have been its author. Laing
+joins the statement of his precursors to his own information, and says
+(Travels, p. 327), that the Niger “is known by the synonymous
+appellations of Ba Ba and Joli Ba—“_Large River_.” Ba Bá certainly
+signifies Great River, the substantive _Ba_, a river, preceding the
+adjective _Bá_, great, according to the general rule of the Mandingo
+language. Thus in Ba-fing, black river, Ba-koé, white river, Ba-
+woollima, red river, the word _Ba_, a river, has precedence; but when
+joined with a substantive, as in Kuara-ba, the river of Kuara, it
+follows. With these examples before our eyes, it is impossible to admit
+the explanation of the name of Joliba given above, which receives
+moreover no support from the vocabularies. It is likely that the name
+Joliba, or, as written by Caillié, Dhioliba, by Mollien, Dialiba, means
+the river of the Jál or Jolá, Juli, Jaules, Diaules, or Dhioli (red
+men), from whose country it descends, whether its sources be, as stated
+by Park (Travels, App. p. xliv.), in Jallonké-dú, _i.e._ Jallo-man’s
+land, or in Bé-dú, where are the Juli towns and men of a red
+complexion.]
+
+[Footnote 151: Beldeh Múlí بلدة مُولي. The Fellátah geographer wrote
+sometimes Mouri (Appendix to Clapperton’s Second Journey, p. 332),
+sometimes (p. 340) Mouli (Múlí). He says, that the people of Núfí
+conquered, among other countries, “the west of Malee, or Moulee, and
+Abyou.” And again, that they subdued “the country of Abbi (in which we
+now are) and Kanbari” (Kombori). Abbi is probably the same as Abyou (or
+rather Abbíwa), and appears to have been near Sokkatú. In Hannah
+Kilham’s Specimens of Languages spoken in Sierra Leone, we find the
+Appah and Tapua, both related to the Aku or Yariba. The Tapua is
+evidently the Tappawa, or language of Núfí (called Tappa by its
+inhabitants), and the Appah is perhaps the language of Abbi. One of the
+native itineraries appended to Dupuis’ Residence in Ashantee (p.
+cxxix.), places Maury (Múri) next to Kábi on the west.]
+
+[Footnote 152: From Marra is formed the gentile noun Marrawa; just as
+Asbenawa is derived from Asben, Kachenawa from Kachena, Killiwawa from
+Killiwah. But the carelessness of authors has given to the country the
+name Marrawa, Mallawa, or Marroa, which properly belongs to the people.
+According to Dupuis (Resid. in Ashantee, App. lxxxviii.), Marroa was
+conquered by the Arabs at the close of the eighth century of our era.
+For Melil see p. 37. Bowdich (Essay on the Geogr. of N.W. Afr. p. 24)
+has laboured to show that Mallawa (or Malla) is the Melli of Leo, or
+Málí; and Dalzel (History of Dahomy, p. 34) speaks of a people of the
+interior called Malays or Mulays; but though the resemblance of the
+names Malla, Melli or Málí, and Múlí, favours confusion, all that we
+know of their application is on the side of discrimination.]
+
+[Footnote 153: Ibn Baṭúṭah relates the transaction above alluded to with
+many details illustrative of the manners of Málí. The King, it appears,
+grew tired of his chief wife, Bálbá Ḳásá, who, by the custom of the
+country, shared his authority: (Ḳásá, the Caza of old vocabularies,
+means Queen;) he therefore placed her in confinement in the house of one
+of his Farárí or captains, and took for queen in her stead his other
+wife Banjú, who was not of the blood royal. The people manifested
+dissatisfaction at this change. The female relatives of the King, in
+visiting Banjú, put dust on their elbows, but not on their heads. When
+Bálbá Ḳásá, however, was soon after released from confinement, the same
+parties presented themselves before her with their heads covered with
+dust and ashes. Thereupon Banjú complained that the deposed queen was
+treated with more honour than herself. Mansá Suleïmán was incensed; and
+his relatives, fearing his vengeance, fled to the sanctuary. He soon
+pardoned them, however, and then the ladies, according to custom,
+presented themselves before him naked. But the public discontent with
+the King continued to increase, till one day the Royal Interpreter Dúghá
+led forth before the assembly a young female slave in chains, who
+disclosed the conspiracy above related. It was then agreed that Bálbá
+Ḳásá deserved death.]
+
+[Footnote 154: The situation of Kanbari (Kombori) is described in the
+Appendix to Clapperton’s Second Expedition, pp. 339 & 340. For some
+account of the people who give their name to this country, see
+Clapperton’s Narrative, pp. 97, 102, 147, &c.; and also Lander’s
+Expedition to the Niger, II. pp. 87, 299.]
+
+[Footnote 155: For Yúfí يُوفِي Professor Lee (Travels of Ibn Baṭúṭah, p.
+238) reads Yúwí, and Burckhardt (Travels in Nubia, p. 491) Bowy. It is
+obviously Núfí mispointed.]
+
+[Footnote 156: In like manner the supposed Christian King named Ogané,
+of whom the early Portuguese navigators received intelligence at Benin,
+was at once assumed to be the King of Abyssinia. The fable of an
+intercourse between Abyssinia and Western Africa has been gravely
+repeated by a recent writer (M‘Queen’s Survey of Africa, p. 5).
+Fernandez de Enciso (Suma de Geografia, 1518) says, that in the Bight of
+Benin are the Blacks who trade with Libya and Meroe. Lalande (Mémoires
+de Paris, 1795, p. 15) has collected with equal industry and credulity
+the stories of an overland commerce between the eastern and western
+coasts of Africa.]
+
+[Footnote 157: Leo says (pt. VII. c. 1), “Our ancient writers on Africa,
+as El Bekrí and El Mesúdí, have written nothing respecting any part of
+Negroland, except el Waḥat (the Oases) and Cano.” This sentence, which
+has been of course copied with little change by Marmol (tom. III. fol.
+21), can be explained only by supposing that Cano (Kanó) here means
+Ghánah. However ill-considered or obscurely intimated may be Leo’s
+opinion, it yet probably influenced not a little the decision of
+D’Anville in favour of the identity of Kanó with Ghánah. Major Rennell
+most unaccountably assumes that by Cano Leo meant the town of Ganat (or
+rather Janat), between Fezzan and Ghát. Perhaps the latter writer’s
+statement that “Cano is a great province, about 500 miles distant from
+the Niger towards the east,” contained something incompatible with the
+Major’s system, and made it absolutely necessary for him to expel Leo’s
+Cano from Negroland. Major Rennell disserted always shrewdly, and
+sometimes with a very imperfect knowledge of his authors. Thus he
+asserts that, under the name Genni (Jenni), Leo meant to describe
+Ghánah; and that he was wrong in placing Genni or Ghánah, and Melli,
+west of Tomboktú, “for Leo certainly never saw the Niger.” Now Leo, when
+he speaks of Genni, says that it is the name used by the natives, and
+derives it (with little reason) from Gheneoa (Genéwa), a name as ancient
+as Ghánah, and quite distinct from it. Moreover Leo not only saw the
+Niger, but actually navigated it to Jenni and Málí (pt. I. c. 3). It is
+not easy to discover from Major Rennell’s dissertations the position
+assigned by him to Ghánah, but his map shows that he confounded it with
+Kanó. These two names, as pronounced in Africa, have much less
+resemblance in sound than is commonly imagined. Written in Arabic, they
+have but one letter in common. Ghánah begins with a peculiar sonorous
+guttural, which is followed by a long vowel; Kanó is like our word
+canoe. Einsiedel (Cuhn’s Merkwürdige Reisen, vol. III. p. 435) writes it
+_Gnou_.]
+
+[Footnote 158: In order to prove that Kanó was the Ghánah of early
+writers, it was necessary to assume not only the close resemblance of
+those names, but also that the name Aghades was a corruption of
+Aúdaghost. Then the distance between this place and Jermah, according to
+El Idrísí, is called in as a confirmation. A single particular is taken
+from that writer, all the others with which it stands connected being
+disregarded, though the rejected details are founded on experience, and
+the retained one on inference alone. Yet this arbitrary reasoning cannot
+after all attain its desired ends. Aghades is not twenty-five but forty-
+five days from Jermah, and Kanó is not twelve but twenty-eight days from
+Aghades (Walckenaer Rech. p. 448; Lyon’s Trav. p. 131). The deserts of
+ʿAhír and Káhir, beyond Aghades, are far from being utterly inhospitable
+tracts.]
+
+[Footnote 159: According to Sultan Bello (Denham and Clapperton’s Disc.
+8vo. II. p. 447), the people of Guber at one time held possession of the
+Desert of ʿAhír, but were dispossessed by five tribes of the Tawárik,
+who came out of Aowjal (Augila).]
+
+
+
+
+                                TEKRÚR.
+
+
+Ibn Baṭúṭah, in describing the course of the Great River below Kársekhó,
+makes no mention of Tekrúr, the first converted of the Negro communities
+in that quarter. That designation, though widely and vaguely extended in
+process of time, was certainly at first applied to a spot between Silla
+and Ṣínghánah, and not far from the former of these places. Wárjání, the
+chief of Tekrúr who first adopted the Mohammedan faith, and induced his
+subjects to follow his example, died in 432 H. (A.D. 1040-1); so that
+the conversion of his principality preceded, by thirty-five years at
+least, that of Ghánah and Western Negroland in general. Such a priority
+explains at once the religious eminence implied in the title Tekrúr
+(whatever may have been its original signification), and which caused it
+to be usurped till its proper application was at length forgotten.[160]
+
+But though Ibn Baṭúṭah does not expressly mention Tekrúr, yet he says of
+Zághah, situate between Kársekhó and Tomboktú, that it was the first
+city of Negroland which received the Mohammedan faith. Hence it may be
+inferred that Zághah was the proper territorial name of the place styled
+Tekrúr. And this conjecture receives from Ibn Khaldún strong
+confirmation, falling short of completeness only through the unsteady
+orthography which so often hinders the exact coincidence of Arab
+authorities. His words are as follows:—“I was told by the Sheíkh
+ʿOthmán, a learned man and theologian of the people of Ghánah, and one
+of the chief men of that country in respect to rank, intelligence, and
+piety, when he came to Egypt on his way to Mekkah in 796 (A.D. 1393),
+that the people of Ghánah employ the name Tekrúr to designate the
+Zagháï, and give the name Málí to Atakárthah.”—It can hardly be doubted
+that the people here called Zagháï derived their name from the place
+called by Ibn Baṭúṭah Zághah. The name Atakárthah does not admit of
+quite so easy an explanation; yet it may with much probability be
+assumed to be the original and complete Berber form of the name, now
+written in our maps, Kaarta. The statement of the Sheíkh ʿOthmán then
+amounts to this: the people of Ghánah discriminated, in terms naturally
+arising out of their local position, between Tekrúr and Málí, giving the
+former name to a certain tribe dwelling to the south, and the latter to
+a particular region higher up the river, and the frontier of which,
+facing Ghánah, was Atakárthah or Kaarta.[161]
+
+The country of Tekrúr or of the Zagháï thus discriminated from Málí,
+which lay further west, may be clearly recognized in modern accounts,
+notwithstanding the disguise of a variable orthography. Sultan Bello,
+after describing the country of Mósí, thus proceeds:—“Adjoining to it on
+the north side, the province of Sanghee (Zághí) lies. Its inhabitants
+are remnants of the Sonhaja (Zenágah), wandering Arabs and the Felateen.
+They profess the Mohammedan faith, and their princes ruled them always
+with equity and justice. A great number of learned and pious persons
+have distinguished themselves from among them. Next to Sanghee on the
+west side, the country of Málí is situated. It embraces the province of
+Bambara,” &c.[162]—The situation here assigned to Sanghee, and the
+reputed piety of its inhabitants, clearly show that it is the country of
+Tekrúr or of the Zagháï mentioned by Ibn Khaldún, and the Zághah or
+Zághiyah of Ibn Baṭúṭah. The commercial activity of the people, or
+perhaps their social ascendency due to their religious reputation,
+appears in the wide diffusion of their language; for, according to Leo,
+the _Sungai_ (Zagháï) language was used in Walet, Tomboktú, Jenni, Málí,
+and Kághó.[163]
+
+The geographical sketch of Negroland drawn by Sultan Bello, differs
+materially from that made by his follower Mohammed Másíní, inasmuch as
+the former exhibits the territorial divisions of the indigenous
+population, whereas the latter offers only Fellátah names, and totally
+overlooks the aboriginal inhabitants. Nevertheless, the Zagháï, or
+people of Sanghee, are to be found in Mohammed’s descriptions with
+little change of denomination. In describing the road from Sokkatú to
+Másín, he places, seven days east of the latter country, “the territory
+of Hajrí,”—that is, the rocky or mountainous tract. The Fellátah, he
+says, possess the valleys, “but the mountains are inhabited by a people
+called Benoo-Hami, of the tribe of Sokai (Zagháï), who are great
+warriors. In the middle of this country is a great and lofty mountain,
+on which is a town called Oonbori, whose king is named Noohoo-Ghaloo-
+farma, of the tribe of Sokai, and is renowned for his generosity and
+munificence.” Further on we are told that Oonbori is comprised in the
+dominion of the Sultan of Másín, so that the people here called the
+tribe of Sokai probably extend from the mountains to the river.
+Alexander Scott received from his ignorant companions a distorted
+account of the Zachah (Zagháï) dwelling on the eastern shores of Lake
+Debú; and the town of Sankhaguibila, placed by Caillié on the right bank
+of the river farther south, appears to owe its name to the same tribe
+(Ḳabílah).[164]
+
+The Benú Hami, who are also Zagháï, or of the tribe of Sokai, are said
+by Mohammed Másíní, to dwell not only in the mountains near the western
+course of the Great River above Tomboktú, but also in the desert,
+mingled with the Tawárik, on the left bank of the same river below
+Kághó, and between that river and Sokkatú. And this information accords
+with the statement of Sultan Bello, who, speaking of the province of
+Kábi, west of Sokkatú, says, “its inhabitants, it is supposed, had their
+first father from Sanghee and their mother from Kashnah;” clearly
+implying by this genealogy, that the Zagháï, Sanghee, Sokai, or Benú
+Hami, have dwelt from time immemorial in Kábi, intermingled with and
+ruling the indigenous population.[165] The advance of the tribe or
+nation originally styled Tekrúr, from the vicinity of Jenni eastwards to
+Marra or Western Houssa, completely explains why Ibn Khaldún, placing
+the Ṣúṣú and then Málí next to Ghánah (an arrangement expressing
+historical perhaps rather than geographical relations), and beyond these
+Kághó, sets Tekrúr beyond, or, as he supposed, eastward from, the latter
+place; and also why Makrízí makes Tekrúr the western boundary of the
+great empire of Kánem or Bornú. In the last century Niebuhr the
+traveller learned that Tekrúr was the residence of a sultan, the vassal
+of Afnú (Houssa), who possessed Mara (Marra) and Adana (perhaps
+Ader).[166]
+
+Though the people of Ghánah always kept in view the original application
+of the name Tekrúr, even after the territory where it grew into
+importance became part of the empire of Málí, yet beyond the circle of
+exact local knowledge, such propriety of language was never thought of,
+and at a distance the name Tekrúr was employed in a very comprehensive
+and indefinite manner. Makrízí, in describing the pilgrimage of Mansá
+Músa, King of Málí, in A.D. 1324, styles him King of Tekrúr; but again,
+in the annals of A.D. 1351, he mentions another king of Tekrúr, who
+likewise passed through Egypt, and who certainly was not Mansá Suleïmán,
+at that time King of Málí. It is manifest therefore that Makrízí used
+the name Tekrúr in no properly restricted and perhaps in no fixed
+acceptation.[167] The Western Fellátah apply the epithet Tekrúrí to the
+religious classes of their own nation. In Egypt it is given generally to
+Mohammedan devotees, natives of Negroland; and when Sultan Bello makes
+Tekrúr comprise all Negroland from Dárfúr inclusively westward, he
+offers an example not of the correct use of that name, but of its widest
+abuse.[168]
+
+The history of Tekrúr may be thus briefly recapitulated:—The Zenágah
+early established themselves on the Great River, above Lake Debú, where
+the continued tract of desert conducted them to its banks, and there
+founded the city of Zághah, from which they afterwards took their name.
+They embraced Mohammedism, nearly half a century before the Blacks in
+their neighbourhood, and thereby obtained a reputation of sanctity which
+was nowise diminished by their activity as slave hunters. The general
+conversion of Western Negroland compelling them to go to a distance for
+their prey, they proceeded eastwards to Marra or Western Houssa, where
+the hilly region has been always, in an eminent degree, the country of
+slaves.[169] They thus broke the path in which they were afterwards
+followed by the people of Málí, and more recently still by the Fellátah.
+The kingdom of Tekrúr being extinguished in the west by the empire of
+Málí, rose more conspicuously in the east: though the people retained
+their old habitations, the political denomination completely shifted its
+place, and Tekrúr stood between Málí and Bornú. In the meantime the
+religious title Tekrúrí being widely usurped, the original and proper
+application of the name fell into neglect and oblivion.
+
+                               * * * * *
+
+
+[Footnote 160: Tekrúr, according to El Bekrí (Not. et Extr. tom. XII. p.
+637), was at no great distance from Ṣínghánah towards the south-west. El
+Idrísí always unites Silla and Tekrúr. The date of Wárjání’s death is
+given by El Bekrí (MS. B.M. fol. 110), who also states that the people
+of Silla embraced Mohammedism at that chief’s persuasion. Wárjání was
+probably a Zenágah, a great number of proper names in the Berber
+language beginning with the syllable _wer_ or _wár_ (the negative
+particle?). A prince of Tekrúr accompanied the Lumtúnah in their first
+religious wars.]
+
+[Footnote 161: The name Zagháí زغاي cannot, it is true, be formed from
+Zághah زاغة; but considering that they are taken from different authors,
+and that the orthography of African names is extremely unsettled, there
+is no great boldness in the hypothesis which connects them. It is easier
+to believe that one of these names requires a little correction, than
+that the Tekrúrí did not bear the name of the town which first received
+the Mohammedan faith. Makrízí, or Ibn Sʿaíd, from whom he copies, says
+(Hamaker, Specimen Catalogi, &c., p. 209,) “that all the nations
+comprised between Abyssinia on the south, Nubia on the east, Barkah on
+the north, and Tekrúr on the west, are called Zagháï.” Here the name
+Zagháï is derived from Zagháwah, and the Tekrúr spoken of is that of
+Houssa. An anecdote related in the ‘History of the Mohammedan
+Dynasties,’ by Gayangos (p. 303), shows that in the thirteenth century,
+there was a state called Tekrúr in the neighbourhood of Aïwalátin. An
+Arab writer of little merit apparently (in the Library of the British
+Museum, MS. No. 7,483), says that “the Blacks are now in general styled
+Tekrúr; but anciently the name Tekrúr was applied only to the
+inhabitants of the country called Atasama اتسمي.” It may be conjectured
+that Atasama is an ill-written derivative from Sámah, the country of the
+Bokmo or Bagamo. The _t_ is a Berber article; the initial _a_ the sign
+of the possessive case, and perhaps also of adjectives derived
+therefrom. Thus the Berbers say, Mohammed a-Mohammed a-Mast, to express
+Mohammed, son of Mohammed, of or belonging to Messah. Hence also from
+Mazig, the reputed ancestor of the Berbers, and personification of the
+μαζίκες of the Greeks, was formed the name Amazig (see De Sacy’s
+Analysis of Shehabeddin in Not. et Extr. tom. II. p. 153, and the
+extract from Ibn Khaldún’s History of the Berbers in the Nouv. Jour.
+Asiatique, No. VIII., 1828, p. 132). The reader may consider how far
+these remarks are applicable to such names as Atakárthah, Atasama,
+Amímah, and perhaps Awalílí or Aúlílí (see Note 107).]
+
+[Footnote 162: For Mósí, the translator of Bello’s History has written
+Moosher (Denham’s Discoveries, &c. 8vo. II. p. 455), just as he has
+written Bowsher for Baúshí (p. 450). The Arabic letter _ghain_, here
+represented by _gh_, easily becomes nasal; and on the east coast of
+Africa, where the nasal sound occurs frequently in the native names, as
+in Songa, Tongata, Mongallo, it is always expressed by _ghain_ alone.
+Hence Zághah in the mouth of a Mandingo, becomes Zanghah and Ṣanghah.]
+
+[Footnote 163: Leo, pt. I. c. 11. Marmol (tom. I. c. 23, fol. 44)
+includes Gelofe (the country of the Wolofs), also within the range of
+the Zungay or Sungai language; but the origin of this mistake is perhaps
+not undiscoverable. He says (tom. III. fol. 22) that the people of
+Gualata or Ganata are commonly called Benais, and that they speak the
+Zungay language. Whence did the people of Gualata (Walata) obtain that
+name? Were they colonists from the capital of Málí? In the ‘True
+Historical Discovery of Muley Hamet’s Rising,’ it is said that “the
+grasshoppers (locusts) come into Barbary every seven years from the
+parts of Benie, or Genie, as the country people imagine.” Although the
+names Beni (Benin) and Guinea were often coupled together by old
+writers, yet it seems more natural to suppose that, in the passage here
+cited, the parts of Negroland nearest to Barbary were intended, and that
+by Benie, or Genie, we are to understand the country of Marmol’s Benais,
+or Jenni. But Marmol (tom. I. fol. 2 & 15) also places a people named
+Benais on the coast near the Senegal. In this, perhaps, he was guided by
+the Jesuit missionaries, who visited, from Cape Verde, a king of Bena
+(Ragguagli d’alcuni Missioni, 1615, p. 75); probably the Benay of
+Mollien. But the king of Bena was a Mandingo or Suso, and boasted of
+being superior to all other Farims (Jarric, tom. III. p. 411). Marmol
+appears to have confounded the Bena near the coast, with the Benai
+people of the interior, and thus to have made one language extend from
+the mouth of the Senegal to Houssa. Hence Moore, in his Travels in
+Africa, (1737), calls the Wolofe language the Zanguay.]
+
+[Footnote 164: Oonbori, possessed by the Benú Hami of the tribe of Sokai
+(App. to Clapperton’s Journal of a Second Expedition, p. 331), is
+probably the Anbárah of El Bekrí (see above, p. 39). It is to be
+observed, that the chief of Oonbori has the Mandingo title _Farma_, a
+remnant of the supremacy of Málí, following his name, contrary to the
+usage of the Mandingo language. If the _Sungai_ then be the language of
+the Sokai, it is probably the same which Caillié calls the _Kissour_.
+May not the pilgrimage on which Scott was led into the country of the
+Zachah (Edinb. Phil. Jour. IV. p. 49), have been directed to the tomb of
+one of the early apostles of Negroland, and to a consecrated spot of
+Tekrúr? Notwithstanding the intrinsic weakness of an argument founded on
+the resemblance of ill-written names, there is more of coincidence here
+than can be ascribed to accident. Near the site of Tekrúr, the first
+converted Negro state, is the town of Zághah, having a like reputation.
+The title Tekrúr is given to the Zagháï; the devotees of the desert
+direct their steps to the country of the Zachah at that part of the
+river; there also we find a country called Sanghee, a tribe named Sokai,
+and the Sungai language. It can hardly be denied that these names are
+related.]
+
+[Footnote 165: Sultan Bello, in Denham, II. p. 452. From the Benú Hami
+of the tribe of Sokai, who live in the desert on the left bank of the
+river, the country of Sóghy, where Mungo Park was attacked (Clapperton,
+p. 334), obviously derived its name.]
+
+[Footnote 166: Deutches Museum, 1790, cited by Walck. Rech. p. 73.
+Yakút, in his Geographical Dictionary, says, that the King of Kaúkaú
+made war upon the Moslim of Ghánah on the west, and those of Tekrúr on
+the east. According to Ibn Sʿaíd (Hamaker, Specimen Cat. p. 209),
+Tekrúr, which thus appears to have been east (rather south-east) of
+Kaúkaú (Kághó), was also the western boundary of the Zagháï (of
+Zagháwah), or the empire of Kánem.]
+
+[Footnote 167: Not. et Extr. tom. XII. p. 637-8, note.]
+
+[Footnote 168: See _ante_, Note 73. Mollien (Voyage dans l’Intérieur de
+l’Afrique, I. p. 176) says, that in the Fellátah language, the word
+Toucolor signifies a Mohammedan priest. But he elsewhere (pp. 207, 215)
+seems to use that name as the designation not of a class but of a
+community. Toucolor, whence the Tucorones of De Barros, is an obvious
+corruption of Tokrúr.]
+
+[Footnote 169: The name Boushy (Baú-shi), now given to the hilly country
+south of Zegzeg, means the country of the Baúwa, that is, of the
+Slaves.]
+
+
+
+
+                   KÚGHAH — KÁGHÓ — KAÚKAÚ — KARKAR.
+
+
+Kúghah is said by El Bekrí to have been fifteen days from Ghánah; and if
+to this scanty information be added the statements of El Idrísí, that it
+stood on the Nile or Great River, and was nine days east of Samaḳanda,
+which was four days distant from Ghánah towards the south or south-east,
+it will be apparent that Kúghah was the place otherwise named Kághó. It
+was, of all the cities of the Blacks, that which furnished the largest
+quantity of gold,—the very remark made of Gago (Kághó) by Leo
+Africanus.[170] When Cadamosto relates that, of the gold collected in
+Melli (Málí), part was sent to Oden (Waddán), part to Tombutto
+(Tomboktú), and the remainder to “a place called Cochia, which is the
+road to Syria and Cairo,” it is manifest that he meant to speak of Kághó
+under the name of Kúghah.[171] But it has been shown that Kághó was also
+called Kaúkaú. It is therefore clearly ascertained that one place—the
+most important in Negroland—bore three different names,—viz. Kúgháh,
+Kaúkaú, and Kághó, of which the last alone was proper to it; the first
+two also designating, or appearing to designate, other places. But it is
+worth while to inquire more closely into the confusion arising from this
+frequent use of equivalent and equivocal names.
+
+El Bekrí does not speak quite so concisely of Kaúkaú as of Kúghah: he
+enters a little into detail respecting the former place; he says that it
+was nine days from Tádmekkah, which was situate fifty days eastward from
+Ghánah, and forty from Ghodémis. Tádmekkah was evidently a Berber town,
+in the desert, while Kaúkaú was considered as belonging to Negroland;
+yet if we suppose Kaúkaú to have been south of Tádmekkah, or forty-nine
+days from Ghodémis, and little more than fifty from Ghánah, still it
+could not, within nine days of Tádmekkah, have been in Negroland
+properly so called, but only on its frontiers towards the desert.
+Indeed, it may be inferred from El Bekrí’s words, that its inhabitants
+were of Berber rather than of Negro origin. They were called by the
+Arabs, he says, Baẓarkáyín; they dressed _like the Blacks_, they
+worshipped idols _like the Blacks_, but their king was a Mohammedan.
+They always threw the remains of the King’s dinner into the Nile,—an
+expression on which but little stress can be laid. El Bekrí, in tracing
+the course of the Great River eastwards from Ghánah, states that
+fourteen days below the latter place, it entered the territory of the
+Seghmárah; and “opposite to the Seghmárah,” he adds, “on the other side
+of the river, is Kaúkaú.” Now the Seghmárah also occupied the country
+north of Tádmekkah; they possessed therefore, or roved over, a desert
+exceeding a month’s journey in extent. In so wide a compass, it conduces
+little to accuracy to learn that Kaúkaú stood opposite to them; and as
+to the river, it may have been the theoretical stream uniting the Nile
+of Ghánah with that of Egypt. It is plain enough that Kaúkaú, nine days
+from Tádmekkah, was a very different place from Kúghah on the Great
+River, fifteen days below Ghánah; but since Kúghah was also called
+Kaúkaú, it is not quite clear that El Bekrí has not confounded in some
+degree those two places, and ascribed to the one the characteristics of
+the other.[172]
+
+In El Idrísí’s accounts of Kúghah and Kaúkaú, there is nothing so
+remarkable as his tone of uncertainty and the doubts uttered by him.
+Thus he says of Kúghah, that “it stands on the northern bank of the
+Nile, the waters of which are drunk by its inhabitants. It belongs to
+Wanghárah, _but some of the Blacks place it in Kánem_.” Again, he tells
+us that “Kaúkaú is the most celebrated city of Negroland: it is large,
+and stands on the banks of a river flowing through it from the north.
+_But_ many of the Blacks affirm that this city is built on the sides of
+a canal; _others say_, on a river running into the Nile; but the more
+probable opinion is, that the river of Kaúkaú has a course of many days
+before it reaches that city, and is afterwards lost in the sands.”[173]
+Doubts of this kind respecting the most important and celebrated cities
+of Negroland may be more naturally ascribed to ambiguity of information,
+than to actual want of it. Kúghah on the Great River below Ghánah, may
+have been confounded with Kaúghah adjoining Bornú, and thus transferred
+eastwards into the vicinity of Kánem. The celebrity of Kúghah (called
+also Kaúkaú) may have lent a semblance of importance to some place in
+the desert bearing apparently the latter name, and the physical
+geography of which was but little known.
+
+Respecting the position of this Kaúkaú of the desert, our information is
+far from being satisfactory; yet it all points towards the desert
+fronting Houssa, or between that country and Aghades. East of Ghánah,
+and behind the Merásah, El Idrísí places the nomade tribe of the
+Beghámah. Between the Beghámah and the Azḳár who passed the summer on
+Ṭanṭanah, the range of hills bounding Fezzán on the south, was a
+distance of twenty days. Now from Kúghah to Kaúkaú, he tells us, was a
+journey of twenty days going _northwards_ through the country of the
+Beghámah. It was the natural consequence of a system which arranged the
+frontier of Negroland in an undeviating straight line from west to east,
+to suppose that a route from Negroland to the desert went northwards:
+but, stripped of such inference, El Idrisí’s statement amounts to
+this,—that Kaúkaú was twenty days distant from Kúghah, not in Negroland,
+but in the desert. Again, when speaking of Ṭanṭanah and the Azḳár, he
+says, “further south are Kaúkaú and the Demdem;” and then repeating the
+various opinions current respecting the river of Kaúkaú, he adds, “the
+country contiguous to this territory (Kaúkaú) on the east, is chiefly
+that of Kawwár, well known and much frequented.” The well-known country
+of Kawwár lies half-way between Fezzán and Bornú, westward of which
+situation, and consequently in the desert, we must look for Kaúkaú.
+Obscure as these indications are in many respects, they are conclusive
+in showing that Kaúkaú, according to the Arab author’s conception, was
+in the desert, between Kúghah and Kawwár, Ṭanṭanah and the country of
+the Demdem.[174]
+
+Ibn Sʿaíd, who wrote in the latter half of the thirteenth century, or
+above a century later than El Idrísí, after stating that Kánem is the
+greatest kingdom of Negroland, that it has Fezzán on the north, and that
+it is the head of Bornú, adds, that it has on the west Kaúkaú, Baghárah
+or Taghárah, Tekrúr, &c. He says also, that “from Tádmekkah to Kaúkaú
+are ten stages, from Kaúkaú to Ghánah twenty; then follows the Ocean.”
+The reduced distance here allowed between Tádmekkah and Ghánah, may have
+arisen from confounding the Kaúkaú of the desert with the city of the
+same name (called also Kúghah and Kághó) on the Great River. But on one
+point Ibn Sʿaíd speaks clearly, namely, that Kaúkaú was not comprised in
+the kingdom of Kánem, which then included Bornú and part of the desert,
+but lay further west, between Tádmekkah and Ghánah.
+
+Numerous as are the Arab writers of Geographical Treatises and
+Dictionaries, it is vain to seek in their pages for any information on
+so obscure a point as the position of Kaúkaú. They all copy preceding
+writers literally, particularly El Idrísí; and on opening their volumes,
+we are almost sure of reading, that “Kaúkaú stands on a river of the
+same name, coming from the north, and afterwards sinking in the sands of
+the desert, though some say,” &c. Yet they present one striking
+variance; many, if not even a large majority of them write, not Kaúkaú,
+but Karkar. It may be said, indeed, that in Arabic writing, Kaúkaú is
+easily changed into Karkar, and that the latter name is probably only a
+clerical corruption of the former.[175] But can it be shown _à priori_
+that there could not have been a city or country named Karkar? and is
+not the readiness to suppose the corruption of Kaúkaú into Karkar,
+itself the result of a prejudice founded on the celebrity of the former
+of these names, and which was likely at all times to prompt copiers and
+compilers to a corruption of an opposite kind, namely, that of Karkar
+into Kaúkaú? Of two names resembling each other, the more famous and
+better known may be well presumed to have had the benefit of all doubts
+in the process of transcription; while on the other hand, if there were
+actually two important places named Kaúkaú in Negroland, it is
+inconceivable that Arab travellers visiting that region should have
+never called attention to so remarkable an instance of homonymy; nay,
+that Arab Geographers should never have even suspected the existence of
+two places of that name, but should have uniformly endeavoured to draw
+to a single point the double image before their eyes. The manifest
+double use of the name Kaúkaú; the remarkable absence of all direct
+testimony as to the existence of two places of that name; and the
+various readings of geographers compiling from the same authorities,
+being maturely considered, it is impossible to avoid concluding, that
+there actually were not two places named Kaúkaú, but that there was in
+the desert a tract called Karkar, which Arab authors easily transformed
+into Kaúkaú. They separated this well-known name from the names Kúghah
+and Kághó, with which it had no apparent relationship, and set it on
+Karkar, wherewith it almost naturally coincided.[176]
+
+But is there any direct and positive evidence, it will be asked, of the
+existence of a place or territory named Karkar? Yes, we reply, there is
+direct evidence to that effect, sufficient to confirm the authority of
+the numerous Arab geographers who write Karkar instead of Kaúkaú. Ibn
+Baṭúṭah informs us that the Desert of Káhir, eastward of Tekaddá,
+belonged to the Karkarí Sultan.[177] There is here no possibility of
+confusion; Kaúkaú, which that traveller had visited, was included in the
+empire of Málí; and Tekaddá, an independent state, stood between that
+place and Káhir, depending on the Karkarí. But Káhir had ʿAhír, the
+desert of the Tawárik, on the north and east; Tekaddá on the west; and
+southwards it extended—as we learn from Leo, who calls it Ghír—to the
+frontiers of Guber: in this latter direction, then, we may naturally
+look for the head quarters of the Karkarí.
+
+A modern writer, who has collected much, but not always distinct
+information relating to the interior of Africa, after mentioning the
+Kadarko (probably the Kotú-n-kúra) and the Shaderbah (the river of
+Kábi), adds,—“some of these rivers open a communication with a tribe of
+heathens named Gargari, who live in tents, and are not black, but a red-
+skinned people, yet they are not of the Arabian stock. The best breeds
+of horses and mules come from these parts.”[178] This is evidently a
+description of a Berber tribe, whose loose observance of the Mohammedan
+rites has caused them to be mistaken for pagans. They reared their
+horses and mules in the desert, and visited the high countries of
+Kachenah, Zamfarah, and Gúber, whence the rivers alluded to descend.
+Clapperton found the Tawárik near Kachenah to be in possession of a
+remarkably fine breed of horses. The same traveller learned that, five
+days south of Katagum there is an independent people named Kurrikurry,
+probably a colony of the Karkari who have fixed themselves on the
+eastern slopes of the hills of Baúshi.[179] In a route from Kanó to
+Tomboktú, described by an intelligent native of the former place, the
+following names occur in succession:—Berni-Kachenah (Berni means city),
+Berni-Gurgar, Zamfarah, Ulumdar, Mallay, Galefaty and Asben. Ulumdar is
+the name of one of the Arab tribes frequenting Houssa; Mallay means a
+town belonging to the indigenous population, or the Mallawa; Galefaty
+(Kiliwatí, in the Houssa language Kiliwawa) is the town of the Kiliwah,
+a Berber tribe; and Berni-Gurgar, on the frontier between Kachenah and
+Zamfarah, is probably the chief place of the Karkarí.[180]
+
+The obscurity and indistinctness which hung over the most important
+place in Negroland being thus removed, there still remains the inquiry,
+whether Kúghah, Kaúkaú, or Kághó, still exists and flourishes; has it
+mouldered to decay, or does it still retain the pre-eminence which we
+know it to have held during at least six centuries? These questions, in
+the present state of our information, cannot be answered with perfect
+confidence. The brief journal of Amadi Fatouma, the only survivor of
+Park’s second expedition, seems to contain no mention of Kághó. But
+without the original of that journal, how can a critic decide
+peremptorily as to its contents? Is there nothing to awaken suspicion in
+the published translation of that journal; or is it not possible, nay
+even probable, that the name there read Kaffo was really Kághó?[181]
+Bowdich says, that the places passed on the river below Tomboktú are
+Uzzalin, Googara, Koolmanna, Gauw, &c. The last-named place is in Marra;
+Koolmanna is probably the Gourmon of Amadi Fatouma, in the kingdom of
+Ghurma; and Googara is Kúghah, the burr of the letter ghain being
+represented by an _r_.[182] Mohammed Másíní, in his description of the
+Kowára, places on its banks, ten days below Tomboktú, a city named
+Ghagró, which name, as we have neither the original document, nor an
+explanation of the translator’s mode of representing the Arabic letters,
+we feel justified in supposing to be intended for Kághó.[183] Finally,
+in an account of the travels of an Egyptian-Arab, procured by Major
+Laing, are the following words:—“To the westward, between Houssa
+(Kachenah) and Yawoori [this is an indication of direction by the
+traveller in Núfí] is situated on the Niger, a town of immense magnitude
+and importance, called Kuku (Kaúkaú), of the power of which surrounding
+tribes stand in much awe.” These allusions, taken together, seem to
+warrant the conclusion that Kúghah, Kághó, or Kaúkaú still exists and
+flourishes.[184]
+
+The argument urged above to show that Kaúkaú is often written for Karkar
+may be thus briefly stated: Kaúkaú is described by Arab geographers with
+impossible conditions, the analysis of which shows that either there
+were two places named Kaúkaú, or two places not so named indeed, but of
+which the written names were so much alike, that, in nine cases out of
+ten, they would be both read Kaúkaú; and this is the preferable opinion.
+Having thus decided that the eastern Kaúkaú, or rather Karkar—as it
+shall be called hereafter for the sake of avoiding ambiguity—was the
+territory extending from the vicinity of the modern Aghades, to the
+frontiers of Gúber and Kachenah, we must now give a little attention to
+its river. Enough is known of Negroland in that quarter, to render it
+certain that a river described in such doubtful language, must belong to
+the desert. Streams flow southward from the mountains of Muḳsim near
+Aghades, and one of these was probably the river of Karkar.[185] Passing
+through this place, it turns westward (or rather south-westward), and
+then, according to some accounts, it winds towards the desert (or
+northward), and is lost in the sands. But some say that it joins the
+Nile (the Great River, or Kowára); and as the country north-west of the
+Quorrama is described as being well watered, and having rivers flowing
+through it to the Kowára, the river of Karkar may be assumed with
+probability to be one of them.[186]
+
+                               * * * * *
+
+
+[Footnote 170: Not. et Extr. p. 649. Leo (pt. VII. c. 7) says, that not
+above half or a third of the gold brought to Gago could find purchasers.
+Cowries were imported into Kúghah, and they were also the money of Gago.
+A Spanish writer (D. Jorge de Mendoza Dafranca) says of Muley Hamed,—“He
+increased his empire by the conquest of Gago and Tumbocotum, whence they
+bring an immense quantity of gold. And here I must state as a curious
+fact, that in the taking of Gago there was found, in that place, a piece
+of artillery, bearing the arms of Portugal; a small image of Our Lady,
+and a metal crucifix.” (Papeles Curiosas, in the Egerton Collection,
+Brit. Mus. Additional MSS. No. 10,262, p. 235).]
+
+[Footnote 171: Ramusio, 1554, tom. I. Navig. di Aluise Ca da Mosto, c.
+XIII.]
+
+[Footnote 172: Not. et Extr. p. 656.]
+
+[Footnote 173: Jaubert’s Idrísí, pp. 21, 22, 116.]
+
+[Footnote 174: Jaubert’s Idrísí, pp. 116, 117.]
+
+[Footnote 175: Hartmann (Commentatio de Geogr. Afr. Edrísianâ, p. 43)
+says, that Ibnu-l Wardi alone has Karkar. But this is a hasty assertion.
+The Kitábu-l-jʿarafíah, above cited, has also Karkar; and of four
+Geographical Dictionaries among the Arabic MSS. in the Library of the
+British Museum, viz., Nos. 7497, 7503, 7504, and 7505, the first three
+read Karkar. Ibnu-l Wardi sometimes writes Karkarah.]
+
+[Footnote 176: Kaúkaú كوكو in ordinary Arabic writing can hardly be
+distinguished from كركر, and the latter name is thus assumed to be the
+former.]
+
+[Footnote 177: Ibn Baṭúṭah writes “es-Sultan el-Karkarí,” the latter
+word expressing not Sultan’s dominion, but his native country or tribe.]
+
+[Footnote 178: Dupuis, in the passage referred to (Resid. in Ashantee,
+App. 55), says, that the Moslem merchants of Benin trade with the
+Gargari by means of those rivers. It is evident that he has here
+mistaken Bini, a name given by the people of Houssa to the countries
+adjoining Núfí, and even to Bornú (Clapperton’s Second Expedition p.
+103), for Benin.]
+
+[Footnote 179: Clapperton points out the situation of the Kurrikurry in
+the journal of his first expedition, II. p. 246. He speaks of the
+Tawárik horses in p. 317.]
+
+[Footnote 180: About twenty years ago, M. Andrada, the Portuguese
+Minister in Brazil, collected much information from the natives of
+Houssa whom he found there in slavery. The most interesting portion of
+it was transmitted by M. Menézes de Drummond, to the Journal des
+Voyages, and afterwards appeared in the German periodical the Hertha,
+July 1827, whence it is here quoted.]
+
+[Footnote 181: Park’s Second Journey, 8vo. p. 288. In coarse Arabic
+manuscript, Kaffo would be hardly distinguishable from Kagho.]
+
+[Footnote 182: Bowdich’s Account of a Mission to Ashantee, p. 199.]
+
+[Footnote 183: Clapperton’s Second Journey, p. 330.]
+
+[Footnote 184: Journal of Science, edited at the British Institution,
+vol. XIV. 1823, p. 8.]
+
+[Footnote 185: The rivers in ʿAhír on the northern side of Muḳsim
+(Walckenaer, Rech. p. 448) can hardly be supposed to flow southwards.
+But the Tatar merchant Wargee (Asiatic Journal, 1823, p. 16) also speaks
+of a great river one day’s journey south of Aghades; though perhaps it
+was one of those rivers which have but a short existence after the rains
+(Walckenaer, Rech. p. 450).]
+
+[Footnote 186: Clapperton’s Second Expedition, App. 332, 333.]
+
+
+
+
+                                LEMLEM.
+
+                 Remrem — Demdem — Yemyem — Al-Límiyín.
+
+
+“Going along the river,” says El Bekrí, “westwards from Kaúkaú (Karkar),
+you come to the country of the Remrem (or Demdem), who eat all who fall
+into their hands.” This sentence is copied verbatim by the greater
+number of the Arab geographers. El Idrísí however satisfies himself with
+merely stating that south of Ṭanṭanah are Kaúkaú (Karkar) and the
+Demdem; leaving it to be inferred that the last-named people are
+furthest south. From what has been said of the position of Karkar and
+the course of its river, it will be apparent that the Demdem, being
+negroes and savages, must have been situate, not due west, but rather
+south-west of that place, and consequently must be sought in the hills
+of Kábi, facing the desert, and still inhabited at the present day by a
+wild and intractable race.[187]
+
+In all accounts of Central Africa, from the time of El Bekrí to the
+present day, mention is made of cannibals variously called Remrem,
+Lemlem, Demdem, Yemyem, or N’yumn’yum. These names differ only in the
+consonants employed, one liquid being changed for another, except in the
+case of Demdem, which might be naturally an oral corruption of Remrem;
+if it be not merely a variety originating in error of
+transcription.[188] Are we then to believe that there are so many
+different nations of cannibals in Negroland, bearing names so singularly
+related to one another? Or is it not more likely that these various
+names are but modifications of one, which being the nickname of a
+particular class of savages, would be naturally carried about to the
+slave markets, and fashioned to suit the genius of every language which
+adopted it?[189] It is true that El Idrísí speaks of Lemlem and Demdem
+as of two distinct countries; but the position of his Lemlem depends on
+the westward course of the Great River to Ghaïárú, the absurdity of
+which has been already pointed out; and this error being corrected, his
+Lemlem and Demdem will be found to coincide.
+
+In modern accounts of Negroland, frequent mention is made of a race of
+cannibals, styled Yemyem or N’yemn’yem; and every precise indication of
+them, from whatever quarter it may come, points to the same spot, namely
+the hilly country extending southward from Kanó.[190] The Yemyem of the
+present day, therefore, dwell at no great distance from the site of the
+Demdem of earlier ages. They occupy the remote continuation of the chain
+of mountains once inhabited by the latter: and if the changes
+necessarily effected in the northern part of that region, or Houssa, by
+the introduction of Mohammedism, the influx of Berbers, Zagháï, and
+Fellátah, be duly considered, together with the fact that a wild people
+still keep possession of the hills on the frontier of the desert, it
+will appear a natural inference that the reproach of cannibalism, or the
+barbarity itself, has receded, owing to the progress of civilization,
+and that the Yemyem are the Demdem, changed in site and appellation only
+by the variations of the medium through which we view them.
+
+If the Yemyem or N’yemn’yem of the present day be not the same people as
+the Lemlem, Remrem, or Demdem of early writers, it must then be
+inquired, What has become of these latter?[191] To deny such identity is
+to plunge back into obscurity: to suppose nations of negroes become
+extinct, or—a still bolder hypothesis—to have wholly changed their
+character. On the other hand, the supposition that the Baúwa (or Slaves)
+in the hills south of Kanó, to the remoter portion of whom the epithet
+Yemyem is now applied, once occupied the hills of Zamfara and Kábi, and
+were stigmatised as Demdem or cannibals, reconciles ancient with modern
+authorities; it attributes a just permanence to a great moral feature of
+Negroland, depending on peculiarity of race, modelled by physical
+circumstances; and it adjusts with remarkable precision the geographical
+elements involved in the question, assigning to the Demdem a position,
+which exactly coincides with that deduced from the statements connecting
+them with Karkar and the Great River. It may be assumed as certain,
+therefore, that the Demdem peopled the hills of the country now called
+Houssa.[192]
+
+There is another name, much less known than Lemlem or Demdem, and
+apparently more comprehensive, applied to the inhabitants of the same
+region. Ibn Baṭúṭah says that Múlí, on the Great River, where the empire
+of Málí terminated, was in the country of the Límí (Al-Límiyín); and
+again, he says that Yúfí (Núfí) was in the country of the Límí; whence
+it is evident that the people so named were on the left bank of the
+river. The Blacks at Sofálah, he adds, were tattooed like the Límí of
+Genéwah, the latter name being in this instance used in the wide sense
+in which it was generally understood in the systematic geography of the
+Arabs. The practice of tattooing the body all over in fine patterns, is
+confined, in Central Africa, to the people of Marra. The Límí were said
+to wear clothing made of a plant called _worzi_, capable of resisting
+fire. The productions of their land seem to have been in general of a
+marvellous description.[193]
+
+We are told that in the country of the Remrem or Demdem was a castle,
+whereon was a statue of a woman, adored by the people; and it is
+remarkable that in the traditions of Houssa the history of Zegzeg begins
+with the conquests of a female. It matters not that her name is
+Arabicised or her antiquity underrated by the native Chroniclers; they
+leave untouched the essence of the tradition, which is, that Zegzeg was
+founded by a heroine.[194]
+
+                               * * * * *
+
+
+[Footnote 187: Not. et Extr. tom. XII. p. 655. Jaubert’s Idrísí, p.
+116.]
+
+[Footnote 188: The _l_ of the Arabs and _r_ of the Africans so often
+displace each other, that the change of Lemlem into Remrem is quite
+regular. In Arabic writing Remrem is hardly distinguishable from Demdem,
+which might therefore have originated in the ambiguous characters of the
+former name. But it will be shown further on, that in Marra (adjoining
+the original Demdem) the _r_ is often changed into _d_.]
+
+[Footnote 189: It may be naturally presumed that the slave market,
+whence the designation first proceeded, was that of Ghánah, and
+therefore that its meaning should be found in the language of Tomboktú
+or territory of Ghánah. Now in that language _lemlem_ signifies _to eat_
+(Caillié, tom. III. p. 311); and if the Kissúr be as simple in its
+construction as the Mandingo, it also signifies an _eater_ or cannibal.
+Thus from _domo_, to eat, in Mandingo, comes the verbal noun _domo_, in
+the plural _domolu_, eaters—not man-eaters, as it is translated by Park
+(First Journey, p. 217), who writes _dummulo_—the name with which the
+Bambarans stigmatize their neighbours the Maniana.]
+
+[Footnote 190: Burckhardt (Trav. in Nubia, p. 441) mentions the Yemyem
+without assigning their position. Einsiedel (Cuhn’s Merkw. Reis. III. p.
+436) vaguely connects them with Kanó. Hornemann (Trav. p. 119) sets them
+ten days south of the same place. Clapperton (Denh. and Clapp. Disc. II.
+p. 248) learned that the Baúwa in the country of Jacoba, between Kanó
+and Adamawa, are styled Yemyem; though Sultan Bello (Clapp. Sec. Exped.
+p. 250) removed the reproach of cannibalism to the country of Umburm,
+adjoining Jacoba. Hutchison also was informed in Ashantí (Bowdich’s
+Mission, &c. p. 203), that the Yemyem are in Quollaliffa, and couples
+their name with that of Dall, a mountainous district, a few days south
+of Kanó. According to Abdu-r-Raḥmán Aga, the informant of Niebuhr
+(Deutches Museum, 1790), the Yemyem are in Adamawa. Again, Lander
+(Exped. to the Niger, III. p. 83) was told that the journey from Funda
+to Bornú might be accomplished in fifteen days, and that the only
+dangerous place on the road was the country of the Yemyem. Browne (Trav.
+in Afr. p. 356) and others who have gathered their information on the
+eastern side of the desert, speak of cannibals under the name of
+Gnumgnum (N’yemn’yem), in vague terms, not indicating their situation.
+But a Tatar merchant named Wargee, who visited Cape Coast in 1822,
+stated that the Namnam (as he called them) were fifteen days south of
+Kanó, a distance reaching to the country of Jacoba. The ocular testimony
+of this intelligent man (Asiatic Journal, vol. XVI. p. 19), and of
+Sultan Bello, seems fully to establish the fact that cannibals exist in
+the quarter indicated.]
+
+[Footnote 191: It must not be supposed that Yemyem is the native name of
+any country or people south of Kanó: it is a foreign term applied with
+more or less vagueness to the inhabitants of that region. The misery and
+degradation of a people marked out especially as the prey of the slave
+hunter, exposes them to the imputation of cannibalism, which draws on
+them fresh injuries. Lander (Clapp. Second Exped. p. 292), on his way
+southwards from Kanó to Funda, saw at Fali-n-dúshi (the White rocks) for
+the first time, a people completely naked and ready to sell their
+offspring. But the natives of Zamfara also go nearly naked (Clapp. p.
+178): the Kombori in Kotú-n-kúra, are still treated as Demdem (id. p.
+146), and the pagan negroes near the desert (id. p. 334) are certainly
+not placed in circumstances more secure or favourable to civilization
+than the Baúwa further south. The change effected in Houssa by
+Mohammedism, and the influx of strangers, may be learned by comparing
+together the descriptions of that country by Clapperton and Leo
+Africanus. The latter writer (pt. VII. c. 11) knew of no city named
+Kachenah; the villages of the country so called were small and of the
+meanest construction; the people were of the deepest black, with noses
+and lips disproportionately large. He speaks of the people of Zamfara
+(c. 13) in still less flattering terms, concluding that “they are rather
+brutes than men.”]
+
+[Footnote 192: On the eastern side of the desert, the Shillúks are
+pointed out as a remarkably barbarous people, but yet they are not
+styled Yemyem. In the west, the people of Bambara accuse their
+neighbours, the people of Maniana (the Manegnan of Caillié), of
+cannibalism, yet without applying to them the epithet Lemlem, Demdem, or
+Yemyem. From east to west there is but the one spot to which this name
+is constantly and distinctly given. With respect to the Manegnan (or
+rather Manegna, the nasal final being superfluous) it may be suspected
+that the imputation cast on them by their enemies has its origin in
+tradition, and that they are descendants of the Manes, reputed cannibals
+who overran the coast in the latter half of the fifteenth century.]
+
+[Footnote 193: Al-Límiyín الليميين. This name occurs three or four times
+in Ibn Baṭúṭah’s Narrative. M. Quatremère (Not. et Extr. 650) has read
+it Lâmes, in the unpointed Parisian MS. of El Bekrí. May not the Worzi
+be the Bordi (Walck. Rech. p. 448) of the Moors? Marmol (vol. I. fol.
+31) quoting Ibn Gezzar, places the people called Lime (Límí) in Genéwah
+on the eastern side of the desert (that is, in the eastern part of the
+western division of the desert), between the cities of Rafin and Cuco.
+Rafin might be easily read for Rágha in Arabic text. Cuco is probably
+Kaúkaú or Kághó: it elsewhere occurs in the same author (vol. I. fol.
+34, and II. fol. 221), but evidently referring to the place so named in
+the province of Algiers (Peyssonel et Desfontaines, Voy. dans la Régence
+d’Alger, &c., 1838, tom. I. p. 380). Marmol again places the Limin
+(Límiyín) (fol. 45) between the Zinj and Western Ocean, and calls them
+savages. All his hints combined show that they possessed the interior of
+Houssa.]
+
+[Footnote 194: Not. et Extr. p. 655. The founder of the state of Zegzeg,
+which includes Baúshí, was ʿAmenáh, according to Bello (Denham’s Disc.
+II. p. 450). Lander (Clapp. p. 290), who learned a different version of
+her history, says that she built a town called Almena. May not the
+remarkable rocks described by him, on the hill above that town, have
+given rise to the story of the statue?]
+
+
+
+
+                    NEGROLAND DIVIDED INTO NATIONS.
+
+
+Ibn Khaldún, after making some prefatory remarks on the origin and
+genealogy of the Blacks, borrows from an earlier writer the following
+account of the nations into which they were supposed to be divided:—
+
+“Ibn Sʿaíd, a most diligent writer, enumerates nineteen nations of
+Blacks, beginning with the Zinj on the shores of the Indian Ocean, who
+have a city called Mombásah. They profess idolatry, and are the same
+people who in the reign of Al-Muʿatamid, seized on the city of Baṣrah;
+where great numbers of them were in slavery. They took up arms against
+their masters, and, assisted by the Zinj, got possession of the
+city.[195]
+
+“Near the Zinj are the Berber, among whom Islamism made great progress.
+They have a city named Maḳdishó, which is partly inhabited by Mohammedan
+merchants. In their country are the people called Demádem, who go naked.
+It is recorded in history that these made an irruption into Abyssinia
+and Nubia, exactly at the time when the Tatars invaded Irak. After
+laying waste the country, however, they retreated homewards.[196]
+
+“Adjoining the Berber are the Abyssinians, the most numerous and
+powerful of the Blacks. From their country Yemen once had its kings. The
+king of the Abyssinians was entitled Al-Negáshí, and the capital of his
+kingdom was the city of Kʿaber. The Abyssinians are Christians, but it
+is said that one of their kings embraced the true faith when Mohammed
+visited their country in the Hijra. They believe that they are destined
+to become masters of Yemen and all Arabia.[197]
+
+“Next to the Abyssinians are the Bojá, a mixed nation of Christians and
+Mohammedans, who possess Suwákin, an island in the sea of As-Suweís (the
+Red Sea).[198] They have for neighbours the Nubians, who are brethren of
+the Zinj and Abyssinians, and have, on the west of the Nile, a city
+called Donḳalah. They are chiefly Christians, and border on Egypt, where
+many of them are sold as slaves. Adjoining them are the Zagháwah, who
+are Mohammedans, and from whom are sprung the Tájúah.[199]
+
+“Next comes Al-Kánem, a populous kingdom, wherein the true faith is
+largely disseminated. Its capital city is Jíma. At one time the people
+of Kánem held the whole Ṣaḥrá in subjection; their ascendency being due
+to their intimacy with the Sultans of the house of Ḥafṣ, when this
+dynasty flourished in its prime.[200]
+
+“Next to the people of Kánem, on the west, are the people of Kaúkaú, and
+after them Beghárah, and At-Tekrúr, and Kimi, and Yemyem, and Jábi, and
+Kúra, and Inkizár; by the side of the ocean towards the west they reach
+the people of Ghánah in the west. What precedes has been copied from Ibn
+Sʿaíd’s work.”[201]
+
+It is observable that the names in this list of places or countries
+lying west of Kánem (nine in number) are not recognized at all, or not
+confidently, by modern geographers. But before we proceed to determine
+the position of each of them, it will be advantageous to examine the
+information which Makrízí, in quoting Ibn Sʿaíd, adds to that of his
+author.[202] His words are as follows:—“Al-Kánem is an extensive region
+watered by the blessed Nile, and distant a ten days’ journey from the
+borders of At-Tájú. In that country (Kánem) are naked Blacks, among whom
+are the Iklí, ruled by a just and mighty king; and Afnú, whose King,
+called Mastúr, guards his wives with extreme jealousy. Near this is
+another kingdom named Mambó, next to which lie Kátakúmá, Kátakú, and
+Ibkarem (Bekarmi), and another kingdom greater than the preceding, named
+Rábúmá (Umburm), the great kingdom of Haúdama (Adamawa), and the tribe
+of Ankarú, rich in herds, flocks, and elephants.[203] Next to these are
+the tribes Shádí, Mábiná, Abham, Atʿaná, Yáfalam, and Makabá, who are
+all naked Blacks, and hold clothed men in derision. The tribe of Mábiná
+is the most numerous, and the chief part of it is called Kálkín.[204]
+This region is covered with great trees and with pools from the
+overflowing of the Nile. It was invaded in the year 650 (A.D. 1252-3) by
+the King of Kánem, who killed many of the natives, or led them into
+slavery. Beyond this, westward to Kaúkaú, are many populous tribes, of
+which those next to Mábiná are the Adermá and Dafúmú, among whom are
+Mohammedan temples. Also the Abkalá (Ankalá), who have camels, wear
+skins for clothing, and are accounted unbelievers; and the Túkámá, who
+dwell on the borders of At-Tájú, possess palm-trees, and drink of the
+Nile. Al-Kánem is the greatest kingdom of Negroland, and has on the west
+Kaúkaú, then Baḳárah, Tekrúr, Nama, Temím, Já, and Inkizár, which extend
+in the west from the ocean to Ghánah.”[205]
+
+In this list of countries or tribes lying within the circle, as it were,
+of Kánem, the name Afnú, given by the people of Bornú to the adjacent
+part of Houssa, stands conspicuous, and cannot fail to be recognized.
+The Arab writer appears to have commenced his survey from a prominent
+point, the Iklí being probably on the frontier of Negroland, between
+Afnú and the desert.[206] Kátakúmá may also be fairly assumed to be the
+Katagum of Clapperton; the writer therefore proceeds eastwards or south-
+eastwards, and consequently Mambó or Manbú will be near the country
+called Anbur by the English traveller. Continuing in the same course, he
+necessarily arrives at Kátakú and Bekarmi, having thus traced the
+frontiers of the independent tribes of Bornú facing Kánem.[207] He then
+seems to make the tour of the hilly country forming the remote boundary
+of the same region; but, it must be confessed, that this portion of his
+path is less easily investigated, and leaves a larger scope to
+conjecture. However it is a natural supposition that he enumerates the
+chief nations or tribes behind the line already traced, and so, eastward
+from Bekarmi, are Rábúmá (Umburm, a kingdom near Jacoba), Haúdama
+(ʿAdám, or, in the language of Houssa, Adamawa), and Ankarú (Angarú),
+the western part of Bornú.[208]
+
+Adjoining these, we should expect to find Baúshí, with its decried
+inhabitants; and accordingly our author here names several tribes of
+savages “who hold clothed men in derision.” Shádí is certainly the name
+of a place in Baúshí; but we must not yield to the temptation of
+detecting resemblances of names which may easily prove deceitful.[209]
+It is more important to consider the force of the words “from Mábiná
+westwards to Kaúkaú,” from which it may be concluded that Mábiná lay
+towards Kaúkaú, or was the north-westernmost point of the region
+described, and consequently that the Arab author proceeds in a circle,
+agreeably to our hypothesis, and terminates at a point in Afnú whence he
+first started. His picture, too, of a region covered with great trees
+and pools from the overflowing of the Nile, corresponds exactly with the
+physical character of Zegzeg and Zamfara.[210] The invasion by the King
+of Kánem for the purpose of carrying off slaves, further confirms the
+supposition that the country described was Houssa and Baúshí. What other
+region had equal attractions for the slave hunter,—or where else could
+be found a long line of savage tribes extending to the frontiers of the
+desert and of Kaúkaú? Next to the Mábiná, towards the desert, followed
+the Adermá and Dafúmú, who were not strangers to the Mohammedan rites;
+and then came the Túkámá (Togáma) and Angála, of whom the former have
+given their name to a place in the desert not far from Kachenah, while
+similar traces of the latter remain on the shores of Lake Chad.[211] The
+Túkáma of Makrízí, it is true, were on the east of Kánem, near Tajúah;
+but so easily do the tribes of the desert change their dwellings, that
+there is no improbability in the supposition that the same tribe
+subsequently spread westwards and settled near Houssa.
+
+In considering the interpretation here offered of Makrízí’s statement,
+less weight is to be allowed to the resemblance of names than to the
+order, coherence, and accordance with probability which the whole
+passage acquires from the mode of viewing it. Some points in it may be
+obscure; but others, as Afnú and Katagum, hardly admit of doubt; and we
+feel justified, therefore, in concluding that the nations or countries,
+as Kaúkaú, Baḳárah, Tekrúr, &c., which Makrízí (copying Ibn Sʿaíd)
+arranges west of Kánem, are all excluded from the region above
+described—that is to say, from Bornú and the hills of Baúshí and Houssa
+immediately encompassing it on the west.
+
+In endeavouring to ascertain the positions of the various nations
+mentioned by early Arab writers as extending across Negroland, it will
+be advantageous to compare the whole series of those nations with the
+list of kingdoms arranged by Leo Africanus in the same line. For this
+purpose Ibn Sʿaíd’s list shall be inverted, or taken from west to east;
+and then the names which are clearly related being placed opposite to
+each other, we shall have the geography of Negroland in the latter half
+of the thirteenth century, contrasted with that of the beginning of the
+sixteenth, as in the following table:—
+
+ IBN SʿAÍD.               LEO.
+
+  Ghánah   ············ Gualata.
+
+                          Ghinea.
+
+                          Melli.
+
+                      { Tombuto.
+  Inkizár  ···········{
+                      { Gago.
+
+                        Guber.
+
+  Kúra.
+
+                        Agadez.
+
+  Jábí.
+
+                        Cano.
+
+  Yemyem.
+
+                        Casena.
+
+  Kimí.
+
+                          Zegzeg.
+
+  Tekrúr.
+
+                          Zanfara.
+
+  Baghárah.
+
+                          Guangara.
+
+  Kaúkaú.
+
+  Kánem    ············ Borno.
+
+                        Gaoga.
+
+  Zagháwah.
+
+  Núbah    ············ Nubia.
+
+Here then, in the first place, it is manifest that Ghánah coincides with
+Gualata (Walata). The salient point of Negroland towards the north-west
+ranks as the extreme west, and the countries which lie to the south,
+though extending further westward, are placed after it. Hence the Ghinea
+and Melli of Leo, both supposed by him to reach the ocean, nevertheless
+follow Gualata.
+
+From the southern countries, Ghinea and Melli, Leo turns eastwards down
+the river to Tombuto and Gago; and thence proceeds across the desert to
+Guber, on the northern frontiers of Houssa. Ibn Sʿaíd, on the other
+hand, goes in two steps from Ghánah to Kúra, the western frontier (as
+will be seen further on) of the same region. He seems to take the
+straight road through Negroland to the eastern settlements of the
+Tekrúrí, while Leo keeps to the desert and the roads frequented by
+Moorish merchants. Inkizár then appears to be the region encompassed by
+the great circuit of the river between Jenni and Kághó. Its collective
+name, little known to geographers, probably never enjoyed political
+importance, but it seems still to survive in the name of the language
+called by Caillié the Kissour. This language extends from Jenni down the
+river to Tomboktú, where it is spoken, as the same traveller informs us,
+by the negro or indigenous population. But there is no authority for
+supposing that it extends no further eastward than Tomboktú; and it
+seems more reasonable to enlarge the limits of a language occupying so
+important a position, so that it may fill the area encircled by the
+river, and comprise Kághó (the Gago of Leo) in its domain. Inkizár then
+was a kingdom situate on the right bank of the Great River, between
+Jenni, Tomboktú, and Kághó, of which the political fabric has long since
+fallen to ruin, while a vestige of the original bond of unity still
+remains in the Kissour language.[212]
+
+From Gago Leo passes to Guber, on the northern frontier of Houssa; then
+to Agadez, which is more easterly; then to Cano and Casena, lying
+further south; then to Zegzeg and Zanfara, still more in the rear, till
+at length he arrives at Guangara (Wanghárah), which fills the remote
+interior. But he shows his imperfect acquaintance with Houssa, by
+setting Casena (Kachenah) on the east of Cano (Kanó), and Zanfara in
+like manner on the east of Zegzeg. It is not surprising, therefore, that
+he should place Guangara on the east of Zanfara. He may possibly have
+confounded (like some modern writers) Angarú, the western province of
+Bornú, with Wanghárah or Guangara; but it is more likely that his
+information was substantially good, and that he knew Wanghárah to be a
+region extending widely at some distance from Houssa; but his
+systematical ideas left no room for such expansion south-westward from
+Houssa, and consequently he was obliged to shift Wanghárah to the south-
+east. Since Nufí and the other comparatively industrious countries on
+the Great River, are not expressly named by him, it may be fairly
+presumed that they were included in his Wanghárah.[213]
+
+Ibn Sʿaíd, in like manner, passes from Inkizár to Houssa; not however to
+the northern part of this country next to the desert, but to its western
+side near the river. He goes not in the track of the merchant or slave
+dealer, but in that of the slave hunter. It may appear indeed difficult
+at first sight to recognize any part of Houssa in the names Kúra, Jábí,
+&c., but a little patient examination will dissipate the obscurity which
+involves them, and concentrate on them so many rays of probability as to
+guide us safely through the difficulties encompassing the first steps of
+our inquiry.
+
+In the Geographical Dictionary of Yakút, an earlier writer than Ibn
+Sʿaíd, and who is copied with little change by Abú-l-fedá, the names
+Kúra and Jábí occur together, with such explanatory details as to prove
+that the former is applied to the river Kowára, while the latter
+(probably pronounced Gábí) seems meant for Kábí. It is there stated that
+the King of Kaúkaú (Kághó) wages war with the moslim of Ghánah on the
+west, and with those of Tekrúr on the east; and that a little to the
+east of Kaúkaú is the Lake Kúra, which must consequently be near Tekrúr:
+and, indeed, the author adds, that it is navigated by the Tekrúri and
+their neighbours dwelling on its northern bank. On the shores of this
+lake is Jábí, near the capital of which flows the Nile of Ghánah, so
+that the continuity of the Nile of Ghánah with Lake Kúra seems to be
+here offered as a fact; and this statement must not be set in the same
+category with the theory afterwards enunciated by the Arab geographer,
+that Lake Kúra is the common source from which issue the Niles of
+Ghánah, of Egypt, and of Maḳdishó.[214]
+
+The same authors inform us that the tribes inhabiting the countries near
+Lake Kúra were cannibals: among the people of Jábí, whoever died was
+eaten by his neighbours. No one had ever seen the south side of the
+lake, but it was known that, at its remote end, it branched into two;
+and that by some means it extended westward into Kánem, whence flowed
+the Nile of Egypt. Now at the present day, the Kowára is generally
+called by the natives a lake; its name, written by them, is Lake Kúra;
+it is thought by them to join the sea, or rather to become a sea, a
+little below Núfí; they are quite ignorant of its southern termination,
+but know that it separates into what they consider as two branches, by
+one of which (the Chadda) it is supposed to communicate with Lake Chad,
+in Kánem and Bornú, and thence to mingle its waters with those of the
+Egyptian Nile.[215] In the country adjoining the Kowára and the Chadda
+are still found the Yemyem or cannibals. Thus it appears that the
+rudiments of the geographical system of the thirteenth century, so far
+as regards the waters of Central Africa, were precisely the same which
+now compose the native accounts of the Kowára, and its supposed
+continuation, the Chadda.[216]
+
+Next to Jábí, in the east, Ibn Sʿaíd places Yemyem, then Kimi, of which
+we are unable to give any account. Next to that, and towards the north
+perhaps, he sets Tekrúr; then Baghárah, probably a tribe of the desert,
+and then Kaúkaú, after which comes Kánem.[217] Leo, on the other hand,
+passes from Guangara (Wanghárah) eastwards to Bornú, which coincides
+sufficiently well with the Kánem of Ibn Sʿaíd to serve with it as an
+established point of adjustment. He then goes to Gaoga, a kingdom
+extending, according to him, from Bornú to Nubia, and which appears to
+be the Kaúghah placed by some modern inquirers in the Baḥr el-Gazel. At
+all events care must be taken not to confound the Kaúkaú of Ibn Sʿaíd,
+which lay beyond the north-western bounds of Kánem and Bornú, with the
+Kaughah of Leo, on the east of the latter kingdom.[218] East of Kánem
+stands Zagháwah in Ibn Sʿaíd’s list, and beyond that Núbah, which
+coincides with Leo’s Nubia.
+
+The results obtained by comparing Ibn Sʿaíd’s list of Negro nations with
+that furnished by Leo, are not, in a general view, of a doubtful
+character. At the extreme west, the coincidence of Ghánah with Walata is
+manifest. It is hardly less certain that Inkizár is the country embraced
+by the Great River, between Jenni and Kághó, and in which the Kissour
+(perhaps rather N’Kiṣár) language prevails. Though the Kánem of Ibn
+Sʿaíd and the Bornú of Leo do not exactly coincide, yet they approach so
+nearly to coincidence as to serve for terms of adjustment in the
+compared schemes. The tracts extending therefore between Inkizár and
+Kánem, in the one author, and from Gago to Bornú, in the other, may be
+said to lie between the same meridians, and to contain either the same
+countries under different names, or contiguous and intermingled
+countries. Now within those limits Leo describes the greater part of
+Houssa, proceeding, or meaning to proceed, from west to east, and from
+north to south. Ibn Sʿaíd, commencing with Kúra, goes on to Tekrúr and
+Kaúkaú, evidently from west to east, and from south to north. Tekrúr
+extended westwards from Zamfara (which may indeed have been included in
+it) to the desert, and therefore Kúra, Jábí or Gábí, Yemyem and Kimí,
+were all south-westward of the countries of Houssa named by Leo.[219]
+There can be little doubt that Kúra was a district situate on the Great
+River, the name of which is variously written or pronounced Kúra, Kuḍa,
+Quorra or Quolla. Jábí was Kábí, to the east (or south-east) of which
+lay Yowí or Yúfí (the modern Núfí), on the northern shore of Lake Kúra,
+and under which, as we are also informed, flowed the Nile of
+Ghánah.[220]
+
+The difference between Ibn Sʿaíd and Leo in their modes of viewing the
+same region, may be naturally ascribed to changes in the channels and
+manner of intercourse with it. The people of Gúber once possessed the
+desert of ʿAhír, but were displaced by the Tawárik. The invasion of
+Tekaddá by the people of Málí, had probably for its object to relieve
+the trade of Kághó from the exactions levied on caravans in the desert.
+It can hardly have failed to improve the road through that country, and
+increase the influx of strangers. A few years later, Aghades was
+founded, probably by the Kiliwah (the Kolluvi of Hornemann), who are now
+the predominant Berber tribe on the frontiers of Houssa. When these
+various changes are all taken into consideration, it will no longer
+appear surprising, that while Ibn Sʿaíd viewed Houssa from the road
+opened to it by the people of Tekrúr, Leo should look at it only from
+the opposite quarter, or from Aghades.[221]
+
+It is needless to follow the parallel between the systems of Ibn Sʿaíd
+and Leo beyond the western frontiers of Kánem and Bornú. Further east,
+the few points touched on by Arab geographers are not liable to
+misinterpretation. The inquiry into the early geography of Negroland, so
+far as concerns representations founded on fact, might here terminate.
+But it is worth while to observe how the framers of theories, the
+compilers of Dictionaries and Complete Treatises of Geography, dealt
+with the obscurer portion of it: how they endeavoured to fill up every
+void, and by arbitrary suppositions to give unity and coherence to their
+fragmentary information. The popular belief that the Great River of
+Negroland unites with the Nile of Egypt, is of ancient date, and may
+perhaps be traced back even to the time of Herodotus. It is stated with
+more or less distinctness by all the Arab geographers. Leo, however,
+discarded it, and adopted an original opinion of his own. The Shary,
+according to him, is the source of the Niger; for this river, he says,
+rises in the Desert of Seu (or country of the Shaúá), south-east of
+Bornú, and enters the Lake of Gaoga (the Chad). Respecting the
+hypothetical course of the river westwards from the lake, he is quite
+silent; and when he says that Cano is 500 miles east of the Niger, he
+seems to acknowledge his ignorance of its course south of that country.
+However, he believed it to flow westwards by Tomboktú and Jenni to the
+Western Ocean.
+
+At the present day all African geographers believe in the junction of
+the Kowára with Lake Chad. Some suppose the line of connexion to be
+formed by the Quorrama and the Yeou; others look upon the Chadda as the
+continuation of the Kowára, and think that they can trace its course
+into Lake Chad by the river of Katagum and the Yeou; while others again
+carry it through Adamawa into the Shary.[222] All this hypothesis arises
+naturally from the constitution of the human mind, which is averse from
+doubt and systematic suspension of opinion. It hurries on to the
+solution of every problem presented to it. Furnished with a knowledge of
+portions of seas, continents, or rivers, it feels no pleasure in
+devising their limits and separations, but prefers joining the fragments
+together, as if it thus advanced a step in discovery, or mounted to a
+higher and simpler truth. Illustrations of this remark might be drawn
+from the history of geography in every age and country. It is not
+extraordinary therefore that Yaḳút, copied by Abú-l-fedá and others,
+should delineate decisively and with the air of a master, that
+assemblage of waters in Central Africa, the existence of which seemed
+proved by popular belief. Lake Kúra, says Abú-l-fedá, is 1000 miles
+long. On its western side, near Jábi, flows the Nile of Ghánah; and at
+its north-eastern angle, near the capital of Kánem, the Nile of Egypt
+issues from it. Here it is apparent that the lake Kúra described by Ibn
+Fáṭimah, the lake Kúra, or river Kowára or Quorra of the present day, is
+supposed to be united with Lake Chad, and that it gives its name to the
+great inland sea, thus formed by theory. The lake Kúra of Yáḳút and Abú-
+l-fedá derives its origin from facts arbitrarily combined and expanded;
+it owes its magnitude to the distance between the waters thus connected
+together, and its name to the western portion of them, the river Kowára
+or Quorra.
+
+Some of the systematic Arab geographers divided Africa into three great
+regions, viz. Genéwah, Kaúkaú or Karkar, and Habesh or Abyssinia; others
+into four, Genéwah, Nubia, Habesh, and Zinj.[223] Genéwah, or the
+western division, was disproportionately enlarged, owing to the
+protraction of the Great River, the incurvations of which were
+overlooked, and because, in speculative geography, the known has a
+constant tendency to encroach upon and narrow the limits of the unknown.
+Zinj, on the other hand, must have been diminished, since Ibn Baṭúṭah
+believed Sofálah to be but a month’s journey distant from Yúfi (Núfí),
+on the left bank of the Great River, before it turned towards Nubia. The
+centre of the continent, where those divisions met, was occupied by Lake
+Kúra, whence issued the Niles of Ghánah, Egypt, and Maḳdishó. The shores
+of the lake were inhabited by the Demdem or (in the Arabicised plural)
+Demádem, who therefore stood, as occupants of the remote interior, in a
+defined relation with the coasts to which those rivers descended. When
+Arab writers, therefore, in speaking of the eastern coast of Africa,
+state that the interior is possessed by the Demádem, who invaded
+Abyssinia and Nubia in the early part of the thirteenth century, it is
+obvious that they speak the language of system (the name Demdem or
+Demádem being in reality unknown on the eastern coast), and
+hypothetically trace the course of the invaders from the shores of Lake
+Kúra and the sources of the great rivers.[224]
+
+There is no injustice done to the Arabs in thus ascribing altogether to
+theory a positive statement made by many of their best authors. It is in
+the highest degree improbable, that with little or no knowledge of the
+various Black nations inhabiting the eastern coast of Africa, they
+should have had any accurate acquaintance with the remote interior: and
+besides, the acquiescence in system here imputed to them, is no greater
+than must have inevitably arisen from the imperfect state of their
+knowledge. Little more than a century ago, European geographers
+represented Abyssinia as occupying nearly a fourth of the African
+continent; on its eastern borders they placed a great lake, from which
+issued the Egyptian Nile, and all the great rivers of Southern
+Africa.[225] The maps of Africa of that date exhibit less vacant space
+than they do at the present day. The improvement of geography, with
+respect to that quarter of the globe, has consisted chiefly in reducing
+what is known within its proper limits. Distant nations were of course
+as easily brought together and united as distant countries. The
+different African tribes which, in the course of the sixteenth century,
+devastated the widely-separate coasts of Sierra Leone, of Angola, and of
+Melinda, were, by a sweeping generalization, all supposed to be one and
+the same people, and were furthermore identified with the Agows and
+Gallas of Abyssinia.[226] Vestiges of these ideas still remain in our
+treatises of geography, and in some of the latest maps, nor is the
+system of thinking from which they emanated yet quite obsolete.[227] But
+the close resemblance of European theories respecting the mysterious
+interior of Africa to those of the Arabs, is strikingly manifest in the
+following words of the Portuguese historian, Da Couto:—“About the year
+1570, a horde of barbarians, like locusts, issued from the heart of
+Ethiopia, from the great lake whence flows the Cuama, the Zaire, the
+Rhapta, and the Nile.”[228]—Here then we have the exact counterpart of
+Lake Kúra and the Demdem or Demádem. The subsequent history of the horde
+referred to by Da Couto is taken up by other learned writers, who affect
+to describe its march southwards from Mombása to the Cape of Good Hope;
+thence to Angola, whence it spread to Sierra Leone and elsewhere: so
+that not even the Demádem were ever carried by conjecture so far from
+their native homes.[229] Thus it appears that the theories ascribed
+above to the Arabs, much excelled in sobriety, while they were exactly
+parallel in design with the geographical speculations of a later age.
+
+The position of the kingdoms of Negroland enumerated by Arab writers
+having been now discussed and determined, and the efforts of Arab
+theorists to mould into unity and form the isolated facts before them,
+having been traced out, our task is at an end. The demonstration of the
+fact that Ghánah lay between the desert and the Great River near
+Tomboktú, at once reconciles with nature and probability, the history of
+the constant intercourse of that state with Sijilmésah. The nation whose
+language is spoken in the most important part of Negroland, is now
+brought into light. The Tekrúr have been traced from the vicinity of
+Silla to the eastern bank of the Kowára. The History of Málí has been
+made known, and the limits of that empire partially determined. It has
+been clearly shown that Kághó was also called Kaúkaú, but that the
+application of the latter name to one or more other places, further
+east, has caused incurable confusion. The ignorance and erroneous
+hypothesis of the Africans respecting the course of the Kowára, have
+been detected in the ancient accounts of Lake Kúra; and the limits of
+the positive knowledge of the Arabs have been ascertained in the fact
+that their theoretical geography embraced that lake, and the Demdem who
+inhabited its shores.
+
+It will not be necessary to dwell here on the general harmony and
+widely-extended coincidence attending the conclusions arrived at in the
+preceding pages. A long series of inferences, each stamped with the
+character of likelihood, and all agreeing perfectly among themselves,
+yet obtained independently of one another, not by straining arbitrarily
+selected texts, but by eliciting and examining each author’s fullest
+meaning, and which form together a complete whole, reconcileable not
+only with geographical facts, but also with that speculative mind, which
+in the history of human knowledge is itself an incontestible though not
+easily seized fact;—such a series of inferences, we say, carries with it
+an internal evidence of truth not easily impugned. It remains therefore
+only to recal attention to the chief historical revolutions brought to
+light in the course of our inquiries. The wars and conquests of the
+Morabites eventually opened the Western Desert to commercial enterprise.
+The impulse given by the religious enthusiasm of the same people to
+Tekrúr, spread rapidly through western Negroland, till at length the
+wave recoiling on the desert, the Ṣúṣú first, and then the people of
+Málí, became masters of Ghánah, and reckoned some of the Zenágah tribes
+among their tributaries.[230] The outlines of the history of Málí
+deserve particular attention. The establishment of extensive empires in
+the early stages of society, almost always give rise to a better order
+of things, by breaking down the obstructions to general intercourse, and
+allowing free scope to aspiring industry. The progress of Tekrúr
+eastwards, the foundation of Aghades, and the change effected by both
+these events in the condition of Houssa, have been already pointed out,
+and need not be further insisted on.[231]
+
+It is impossible to deny the advancement of civilization in that zone of
+the African continent which has formed the field of our inquiry. Yet
+barbarism is there supported by natural circumstances with which it is
+vain to think of coping. It may be doubted whether, if mankind had
+inhabited the earth only in populous and adjoining communities, slavery
+would have ever existed. The Desert, if it be not absolutely the root of
+the evil, has, at least, been from the earliest times the great nursery
+of slave hunters.[232] The demoralization of the towns on the southern
+borders of the desert has been pointed out; and if the vast extent be
+considered of the region in which man has no riches but slaves, no
+enjoyment but slaves, no article of trade but slaves, and where the
+hearts of wandering thousands are closed against pity by the galling
+misery of life, it will be difficult to resist the conviction that the
+solid buttress on which slavery rests in Africa, is—The Desert.
+
+
+[Footnote 195: At the present day the servile and perhaps most numerous
+class of the population of the southern shores of the Persian Gulf, are
+Zinj, or Blacks, originally from Zinjibar (corrupted into Zanguebar), or
+the eastern coast of Africa. In Zinjibar, that is, the country of the
+Zinj, on the other hand, the rulers and upper classes are chiefly Arabs
+from ʿOmán and the Persian Gulf. The tribe of the Lámí, who have given
+their name to Lámú, near Patta, are originally from the neighbourhood of
+Baṣrah. The event related in the text ceases to appear improbable when
+the nature and antiquity of the intercourse between Zinjibar and the
+Persian Gulf are considered.]
+
+[Footnote 196: The Berbers here spoken of are the inhabitants of the
+country called by the Greeks in general Βαρβαρία, and by the Arabs
+Al-ʿajemí—that is, foreign; which latter name has been converted by
+ancient geographers into Azania (Ptolemy; and Arrian, Perip. Mar.
+Eryth.), and by moderns into Ajan. The name Berber, in this as in most
+other instances, originated in the commercial and diplomatic language of
+the Roman Empire. The east-African Berbers are now called Somáli; but
+their ancient designation still remains to Berberah, a town or rather
+encampment opposite to ʿAden. The tribe who possess Maḳdishó (the
+Magadoxa or Magadocia of our maps) are the Bajúna or Bagúna, called by
+the Sawáḥilí, or natives of the coast of Zinjibar, Wagúña. They are the
+Baẓúnah of El Idrísí (Jaubert’s Idrísí, I. p. 55, where مدونه is read
+for بذونه). It will be shown further on, that the Demádem have been
+transferred to the eastern side of Africa by an ordinary effort of
+speculative geography.]
+
+[Footnote 197: The title of the Emperor of Abyssinia was Negusa Negast,
+or King of Kings. (Ludolf. Comment. p. 11.) The city called by the Arab
+writer Kʿaber was Ankó-ber (or the Pass of the Ankó, a tribe formerly
+occupying that tract, but now removed further north), at present the
+capital of Shoa. The Arabs and Abyssinians in ancient times were
+intimately connected. The language of Tigré, or Northern Abyssinia, is
+of Arabic origin, and even the Amharic is thought by Gesenius (Ersch and
+Gruber’s Encyklopedie, art. Amharische sprache) to be an older offset of
+the same stock.]
+
+[Footnote 198: The Bojá or Bogá are the Βουγαείται of the Greek
+inscription of Axum, copied by Salt (Trav. p. 410). Under that general
+name was included all the tribes of the desert between Abyssinia and
+Egypt; the Blemyes of ancient geographers, and the Bisharee or Bishareen
+of modern travellers.]
+
+[Footnote 199: By the expression that the Nubians are brethren of the
+Zinj, it must be understood that they are of negro origin; and indeed
+there is little reason to doubt that the Nubians on the Nile were
+originally a servile population, the progeny of the Nubah of Kordofán,
+who, in the course of events, became sole possessors of their master’s
+domains. Their emancipation was forwarded by powerful external causes
+(see Edinb. Rev. No. 125. p. 297), and does not appear to have been
+accomplished by means of revolt or invasion, as was the case with the
+Zinj in Baṣrah, and the Funj in Sennár (Bruce’s Trav. vol. VI. p. 370).
+When the Arabs conquered Nubia, they exacted an annual tribute of
+slaves, which was called _Bakt_ (Quatremère, Mémoires sur la Nubie, II.
+p. 42), a word evidently derived from the ancient Egyptian language, in
+which _Bok_ signified a slave.]
+
+[Footnote 200: The family of Abú Ḥafṣ, of Berber origin, rose to the
+sovereign power in Tunis, in the early part of the thirteenth century.
+(Makrízí in Hamaker, Spec. Cat. p. 105.)]
+
+[Footnote 201: The names of nations from Kaúkaú westwards, enumerated by
+Ibn Sʿaíd, are written as follows by Ibn Khaldún (MS. B.M. fol. 90) and
+Makrízí (Hamaker, Spec. Cat. &c. p. 107, whose orthography is here
+retained) respectively: ?aghárah ٮغارة I.K.; Baḳárah بقارة M.—At-Tekrúr
+التكرور I.K. & M.—Kimí كمي I.K.; Nama نمي M.—?emyem ٮميم I.K.; Temím
+تميم M.—Ḥáyí (?) حايى I.K.; Já جا M.—Kúra كورى I.K.; omitted by
+Makrízí.—Inkizár انكزار I.K. & M.]
+
+[Footnote 202: The comparison of texts made in the preceding note proves
+that Makrízí borrowed from Ibn Sʿaíd, but it is not easy to define the
+extent of his obligations to that writer. The Tunisian dynasty of Abú
+Hafṣ, the wars of the Zagháwah with the Wathekú (the opponents of that
+dynasty), and the invasion of Mábiná by the King of Kánem in 1252,
+referred to by Makrízí, all belong to the age of Ibn Sʿaíd, from whom he
+probably obtained his knowledge of them. But, on the other hand, Makrízí
+names the King of Kánem reigning in A.D. 1398, a century later than Ibn
+Sʿaíd. It appears more probable that his list of the Black nations near
+Kánem was the fruit of his own inquiry, than a transcript from an
+earlier writer.]
+
+[Footnote 203: As names changed from Arabic to European writing are apt
+to acquire thereby a more determinate form than properly belongs to
+them, those mentioned in the text shall be here represented in their
+original character, that the reader may be enabled to appreciate our
+conjectures respecting them. Iklí اكلي; Afnú افنوا; Mambó منبو.
+Caancouma (in Hamaker) كانكوما is evidently Kátakúmá كاتكوما wanting a
+point. In like manner Hamaker’s Caancou must be changed into Kátakú. It
+may be thought that there is not sufficient authority to prove that
+Kátakúmá and Kátakú are distinct countries. But Burckhardt (Trav. in
+Nubia, p. 433) has stated the position of the latter, and the districts
+comprised in it (nearly all pointed out by Denham) with so much
+precision, that his testimony, corroborated by that of Mohammed Miṣrí
+(Journ. of the Roy. Inst.), decisively separates Kátakú from the Katagum
+(Kátakúmá), which was visited by Clapperton.—Ibkarem ابقرم—Rábúmá
+رابوما—Haúdama هودمي—Ankarar انكرر is probably written by an error of
+the pen for Ankarú انكرو.]
+
+[Footnote 204: Shádí شادي; Mábiná مابنا; Abham ابهم; Atʿaná اتعنا;
+Yáfalam يافلم; Mekba مكبا; Kálkín كالكين.]
+
+[Footnote 205: Aderma ادرما; Dafúmú دفومو; Abkalá ابكلا we have ventured
+to change into Ankalá انكلا; Túkámá توكاما.]
+
+[Footnote 206: Afnú is the name given by the people of Bornú to Houssa
+(Lucas in Proc. Afr. Assoc. I. p. 165), or the eastern part of it.
+Einsiedel (Cuhn’s Merkw. Reisen. III. p. 439) understood that Hafnou
+(Afnú) lies between Bornú and Zegzeg. Abdu-r-Raḥmán Aga, Niebuhr’s
+informant (Walck. Rech. p. 72) also uses the name Afnú as equivalent to
+Houssa. The Sultan of Tekrúr, he says, who possessed Mara (Marra), was
+tributary to the Sultan of Afnú, residing in Zamfara. Seetzen also (Von
+Zach’s Monatliche Correspondenz, vol. XXI. 1810, p. 152), places Affano
+immediately to the west of Bornú. See also the Bulletin de la Soc. de
+Geogr. de Paris, tom. VI. p. 169, where Kachenah is stated to be the
+capital of Afnú. It is remarkable that in Bornú, and the adjoining
+deserts, the Arabic expression Súdán (country of the Blacks) is always
+given to Afnú or Houssa (Lucas, as above; Denham’s Discoveries, &c. II.
+p. 85), a strong proof that it was the country of the Remrem or Demdem,
+and the point to which the slave merchants directed their march.]
+
+[Footnote 207: Kátakú comprises Mandara, Musgow, and the other provinces
+on the west of the River Shary, which are therefore not named. It is not
+to be ascribed to mere chance, that two names are changed, by the
+addition of a single point to each, into Kátakúmá (the Katagum of
+Clapperton) and Kátakú, the Katákó of Burckhardt, the Kotoko of the
+native of Bornú cited in the preceding note (Bullet. Soc. Geogr.), and
+the Kotko of Seetzen (p. 153).]
+
+[Footnote 208: Umburm is in the country of the Yemyem near Jacoba
+(Clapp. Sec. Exped. p. 250). In Sultan Bello’s account of Baúshí (Denham
+and Clapp. Disc. II. p. 451), he mentions a province of that country
+called Aádám. We cannot venture to say whether this is the root from
+which Adamawa is derived, but it might be easily changed in discourse
+into Haúdama. Angarú (Ankarú) is three long days’ journey west of the
+capital of Bornú (Mohammed Míṣrí, in Jour. Roy. Inst.), and within the
+dominions of Bello (Clapp. in Denh. Disc. II. p. 313). It is the Ungura
+of Hornemann, which was supposed to be identical with Wanghárah (Proc.
+of Afr. Assoc. II. p. 200).]
+
+[Footnote 209: One of the natives of Houssa, interrogated by M. Menézes
+de Drummond (Hertha, July, 1827, p. 12), mentioned the Schadŭh (Shádí)
+among the tribes depending on Zegzeg. Can the name Mábiná be the same
+word as Foobina, said by Mohammed Másíni (Clapp. Sec. Exped. p. 335) to
+be sometimes affixed to Adamawa? The name Bobyra, given in the Quarterly
+Review (No. 77, p. 178), on the authority of Clapperton, in whose
+published Journal it nowhere occurs, might easily have its origin in
+Fobina, or even Mabina ill-written in Arabic. According to Abdu-r-Raḥmán
+Aga, the King of Tekrúr possessed Marra and Adana. One of the
+Itineraries collected by Dupuis (Resid. in Ashantee, App. p. 129,)
+places an Etana on the river west of Marra.]
+
+[Footnote 210: Clapperton found the plains of Zamfara covered with a
+chain of lakes which are connected in the rainy season; and Lyon (Trav.
+in N. Afr. p. 151) was told that the country between Kanó and Zegzeg is
+annually covered with water.]
+
+[Footnote 211: The name Angalawha, occurring on the northern shores of
+Lake Chad, is easily traced by an analogy of the Bornowí language
+indicated by Denham (the tree Kuka being called also Kukawha,) to
+Angala, which name also occurs on the southern shores of the lake. The
+town or station of Togáma is seven days distant from Kachenah, on the
+road to Aghades (Lyon’s Trav. p. 131). Hornemann (Proc. Afr. Assoc. II.
+p. 300) gives some account of the tribe so called.]
+
+[Footnote 212: If we suppose the word Kissour pronounced N’Kissúr with
+the nasal sound, which among the Africans so often precedes the letter
+_k_, then its affinity with Inkizár becomes more apparent. The
+Portuguese, like the Arabs, employ an initial vowel in prefixing the
+nasal; thus for N’Yáka, N’Yambána, N’Góla, they write Inhaqua,
+Inhambana, Angola. Of the guttural pronunciation which seems to foreign
+ears to confound the _a_ and _u_, many examples might be given. Leo
+Africanus says that one language (which he calls Sungai) extended from
+Málí to Kághó; and as we know that the Kissour, commencing at Jenni, now
+extends at least to Tomboktú, we are justified in concluding that it is
+the Sungai, or the language to which the Zagháï, the chief inhabitants
+of Inkizár, lent their name. We have seen that the word Daḳno, the name
+of the ordinary beverage of the people from Jenni downwards, was in use
+below Tomboktú in the fourteenth century. (See above, p. 84.) It avails
+little against this, that the Sungai language was also spoken in Málí:
+for what is more natural than that the language of the most populous and
+industrious part of an empire should be generally spoken in its capital;
+and that a Moorish merchant should give little attention to the language
+of the lower classes?]
+
+[Footnote 213: Two intelligent natives of Kanó, who were in London a few
+years ago, when interrogated respecting Wanghárah, agreed in stating
+that it is “behind Ako,” or Yariba. In the same vague manner probably,
+Leo Africanus, little acquainted with the interior, conceived it to be
+behind Zamfara. But his description of Wanghárah (pt. VII. c. 14), the
+nature of the journey to it, its trade, and its fear of Tomboktú, leave
+no doubt as to the country intended by him. The meditated invasion of
+Wanghárah by the King of Bornú, may indeed provoke scepticism; but let
+it be considered that the historical traditions related to Clapperton
+(Second Exped. p. 102, 103) by the King of Boussa (Busá), testify the
+former conquests of Bornú on the western side of the Kowára. Leo had a
+very inadequate idea of the extent of Negroland south of the Great
+River. He even speaks of the ocean encircling the desert from Cape Nún
+to Gaoga (pt. I. c. 2). He could not, consistently with such views,
+place the distant and populous country of Wanghárah south-westwards from
+Zamfara.]
+
+[Footnote 214: Ibn Sʿaíd died A.D. 1286, at an advanced age. Yaḳút, of
+whose Geographical Dictionary the Bodleian Library possesses a copy,
+flourished somewhat earlier. Both these writers are quoted by Abú-l-
+fedá, who died A.D. 1331. Yaḳút and Abú-l-fedá cite Ibn Fáṭimah with no
+other variance than is usual in different MS. copies of the same work.
+The Jábí of Abú-l-fedá is clearly preferable to Yáḳút’s Ḥání (see Note
+201); but the Bedí of the former and the Yuthí of the latter are
+probably equally erroneous. It may seem a bold emendation to alter them
+into Yúfí or Núfí; but let it be considered that the country now called
+Núfí or Níffí may have changed its name with its population; that Ibn
+Baṭúṭah clearly means Núfí when he speaks of Yúfí; and that the name
+written Yúfí in the Gayangos MS., is in other MSS. written Yuwí (Lee and
+Kosegarten, Lee’s Ibn Baṭúṭah, p. 238), and in others Buwí (Burckhardt,
+Trav. in Nubia, p. 491; and Lee). Now Bedí بدي and Yuthí يُذي lie, with
+respect to Buwí بُوي, Yúwí يُوي and Yúfí يُوفي, within what may be
+called reasonable limits of corruption, and the proposed change brings
+all into order.]
+
+[Footnote 215: Abú-l-fedá and Yakut wrote Kúra كُورَى; in one of the
+Routes (No. 4) published by Dupuis the river is called Koara كُوَرَا,
+though had the points been correctly written, we should probably have
+had Kúrá. Bello writes in his map Kowára كوارَ, or, as our travellers
+have called it, Quorra. In Brahima’s Itinerary (Bowdich, Mission, &c. p.
+491), and in another translated by De Sacy, (Walck. Rech. p. 453), the
+Great River is named Lake Koad or Caudh كوض, which ought rather to be
+read Kúḍa. Further on we shall show that in these Itineraries the Arabic
+letter Dád ض is substituted for _r_; so that Lake Kúra is here intended.
+The Kowára, Kúra, or Quorra is frequently styled by the natives a sea or
+lake, according to some accounts, of forty-eight days’ sail in extent
+(Ali Bey Badia’s Travels, I. p. 338). Clapperton (Denham, Disc. II. p.
+269) was told that the river Kowára falls into the sea (of Nyffi or
+Núfí) at Raka, where it is as wide as from Kano to Katagum, or about 150
+miles. But not to multiply authorities, it will be sufficient to observe
+that Sultan Bello believed Raka (Rághá),—which has been recently reached
+by Mr. Jamieson’s steamer Ethiope,—to be a sea-port, and represented it
+as such in his letter to the King of England.]
+
+[Footnote 216: According to Ibn Fáṭimah, “when any one among these
+people dies, they cast the dead body to their neighbours, and their
+neighbours do the like for them.” So Sultan Bello related (Clapp. Sec.
+Exped. p. 251) that in Umburm, where those who ail are killed at once,
+for economy, “the person falling sick is requested by some other family,
+and repaid when they have a sick relation.”]
+
+[Footnote 217: Kimí might without much violence be changed into Límí,
+and thus explain the name Al-Límiyín. At-Tekrúr we may assign, on the
+authority of Abdu-r-Raḥmán Aga, to Marra, which probably extended from
+Zamfara westwards between Guber and Kábí. The Baghárah or Baḳárah were
+probably a tribe of the desert. The Kaúkaú of Ibn Sʿaíd is too far east
+to be the city of that name on the Great River; we must suppose him
+therefore to extend this name to Karkar.]
+
+[Footnote 218: Leo’s Gago seems to be identical with the Caugha of
+Hornemann, or Kaúka of Burckhardt (Trav. in Nubia, p. 436). Its empire
+extended, he says, from Bornú to Nubia. The use of the name Bornú, in
+former times, however, and the modern geography of the countries round
+Lake Chad, are involved in an obscurity which it does not lie within the
+scope of this essay to dispel. Leo’s text offers not only the names Gago
+and Gaoga, but also, in two instances, Gaogao. He says (pt. VII. c. 14),
+that while he was in Negroland, the King of Bornú marched against
+Wanghárah; but learning, on his way, that Omar, King of Gaogao,
+meditated an attack on his dominions, he turned back, and Wanghárah was
+saved. But, in this passage, Gaogao is a misprint for Gaoga, as Leo
+himself discloses by naming the King of Gaoga “Omar chi oggidí regna.”
+In the other instance (pt. VII. c. 1), his Gaogao is justly changed by
+Marmol (vol. III. fol. 21) into Gaoga. Leo (pt. I. c. 7) having
+enumerated the fifteen kingdoms of Negroland visited by him, adds, that
+there are three times as many, sufficiently well known, lying to the
+south of the preceding; and names five of them, viz. Bito, Temiam,
+Dauma, Medra, Goran. Marmol (vol. I. fol. 15), in copying this passage,
+omits Dauma, and substitutes for it Mandinga. But Leo had no idea of
+increasing the kingdoms of Western Negroland. His Bito is the Bede of
+Denham and Clapperton, adjoining or comprised in the modern Bornú.
+Einsiedel names together, Schikou—the Schaïkou of Lyon (Trav. in N. Afr.
+p. 126), two days from the capital of Bornú—Bitou (Leo’s Bito), and
+Engar (Angarú). Temiam may be an error for Yemyem: Dauma is probably the
+Doma of our maps, or the country on the right bank of the River Chadda.
+Medra seems to be Mandara, one letter being obliterated in the Arabic
+MS. Goran (in Marmol Gorhan), which is often referred to by Leo, is
+evidently the Desert of Kordofán. This name كردفان might easily become,
+in negligent writing, Korhán كرهان; or as Leo, uniformly writing _kef_
+with a _g_, and omitting the aspirates, would represent it, Goran.
+Another region often named by Leo, may be fitly considered here. In the
+Desert of Seu, south of Bornú (pt. VII. c. 15), and environing an
+immense lake (pt. I. c. 27), called the Lake of the Desert of Gaoga (pt.
+I. c. 2), he places the sources of the Niger (pt. I. c. 3). It is
+obvious that the lake alluded to is Lake Chad, and that the name Seu is
+the root of the appellative Showy, and the name Shouaa, respectively
+given by Denham to a town on the Shary, and the Arab tribes inhabiting
+the adjacent country.]
+
+[Footnote 219: Yaḳút and Abú-l-fedá both mention the towns of Maghzá and
+Jájah in the vicinity of Lake Kúra. Al-Maghzá, according to the former
+writer, was the port in which were fitted out the fleets of the King of
+Tekrúr, “who wages perpetual war with the infidels to the south of his
+states.” Al-Maghzá signifies the place whence invaders sally forth. Abú-
+l-fedá however differs from Yaḳút in assigning both Maghzá and Jájah,
+not to Tekrúr, but to Kánem. Jájah (perhaps the Gagai of Clapperton,
+Sec. Exped. p. 174) was the capital of a petty state situate probably
+between those two kingdoms. It was remarkable for its fertility and
+variety of its productions; among other things for its spotted sheep
+(described by Lander in Clapp. Sec. Exped. p. 259-60). But it must be
+observed that the Arab geographers, in describing the bearings of those
+places, particularly in reference to the lake, speak in general the
+language of misconception.]
+
+[Footnote 220: Bowdich remarks (Mission to Ashantee, p. 478 note), that
+the name of the river written Kúra, Kúda, &c. was always pronounced
+Quolla by the natives in their conversations with Mr. Hutchinson. Ignaz
+Pallme (in the Athenæum, 1840, p. 54), a traveller in Kordofán, relates
+that the natives of that country think that the Bahr el-Abiad may be
+followed westward through Baghermi, Kúḳo (Kouka), and Niero (Naroo, the
+hilly country north-east of Zegzeg); and “further on (he says), in Kúla
+(Kúra) flows a river not identified” (that is, different from the Nile).
+Browne also (Travels in Africa, p. 254) heard in Darfúr of Darkulla (the
+Land of Kúla or Kúra), where pepper was in abundance, and the rivers
+were navigated in large canoes. He indeed supposed Darkulla to lie
+towards the south. But his map exposes his mistake; for the rivers Bahr
+Wullad Ráshid, B. el Salamat, and B. Heimad, crossed on the route to
+Darkulla, and which he places to the south and west of Baghermi, bear
+the names of Arab tribes dwelling in Wadaí and on the shores of Lake
+Chad (Burckhardt, Trav. in Nubia, pp. 433, 436). The route therefore
+went westwards.]
+
+[Footnote 221: The Kiliwah (the Kalawa of Capt. Lyon, Kolluvi of
+Hornemann), a Tawárik tribe, are masters of Asben, or the territory
+between Houssa and Aghades. Their town in Guber is called by Clapperton
+Killiwawa or Calawawa, by the Tatar merchant Wargee, Galibaba.
+Clapperton frequently mentions also the Kilghí (whom he calls Killgris),
+another powerful tribe of the same nation. Their territory is the
+kingdom called by Bowdich (p. 208), Kallaghee, fourteen days’ journey
+from Gamhadi (Kambari), or from the Quolla, crossing the Gambarou
+(Kamba-róa, or Kamba water) on the tenth. Kamba is apparently the name
+given by the indigenous population to Kábi, or a part of Yaúrí (Dupuis,
+Append. 85). The Gambarou of Bowdich is the Gulbi Kambáji, or river of
+Kambáji or Konbash of Dupuis’ Itineraries (App. 126 and 192). The name
+Kilghí is changed by the Blacks into Kilinghi (see Note 162), whence
+comes the title Kilinghiwa given to the King of Kachenah (Walck. Rech.
+p. 451).]
+
+[Footnote 222: Hají Hamed (Quart. Rev. 1820, No. 45, p. 232), among
+others, bears witness to the course of the Great River from the Sea of
+Nyffé to Egypt by Kachenah and Kano. Capt. Lyon’s informant, however
+(Lyon’s Trav. p. 142), traces the stream from Funda to Katagum, while
+Ben Yusuf, Hornemann’s son (Denham, I. p. 334), and Mohammed Miṣri
+(Jour. Roy. Inst. 1823, p. 5) are equally positive in making it flow
+through Adamawa. Much has been said of the unanimity of the natives in
+connecting the waters of Lake Chad with the River Chadda, but they agree
+only in the vague outlines of a theory, not in facts; they are unanimous
+in making the Kowára flow into the Chad, and not the Chad into the
+Kowára.]
+
+[Footnote 223: The author of the Kitábu-l-Jʿarafiah divides Africa into
+three parts, one of which is Karkar: Shehabeddin (Not. et Extr. tom. II.
+p. 156), adopting the same division, writes Kaúkaú. The division into
+four parts is frequently referred to by Marmol (tom. I. pp. 18, 21, 31),
+who follows probably Ibn Gezzar.]
+
+[Footnote 224: El Bekrí probably wrote Remrem; though El Idrísí, copying
+him, writes Demdem; the latter author names also the Lemlem. Ibn Sʿaíd
+may be conjectured to have written Yemyem, but the doubtful text of the
+MSS. leaves the point undecided. Abú-l-fedá mentions not only the
+Demdem, but also the Nemnem, which latter people he places south of
+Saharte (the most eastern district of Tígré in Abyssinia) and of Samhar
+(the Dankali coast), and consequently in what is now called the Taltal
+country. All those names, Nemnem excepted, refer to the same people.]
+
+[Footnote 225: In the maps of Forlani and others of the sixteenth
+century, the Nile, Zaire, Cuama, and Spirito Santo, were all made to
+flow from Lake Zambere. Sanson however (1650) allowed that lake no
+outlet towards the east, but Hollar (London, 1667) still joined the
+river of Kílwah with Lake Zaflan, which, as well as Lake Zambere, was
+connected with the Nile. In all these maps Abyssinia extended to lat.
+18° S. Delisle was the first who reformed these absurdities.]
+
+[Footnote 226: Labat (Rel. Hist. de l’Ethiopie Occidentale, II. p. 90),
+copying, but not faithfully, Cavazzi de Montecucoli, states, with
+surprising coolness, as matter of history, the supposed origin of the
+Jagas in the country of the Monoemugi (Monomoézi). The country of the
+Jagas, that is to say, of the chieftains so entitled, lies immediately
+behind Angola, perhaps not above 250 miles from the sea coast, and there
+is nothing in the history of their followers calculated to show that
+they come from the remote interior. Andrew Battel, who was seized on the
+coast and carried off by the Jagas, with whom he spent above a year,
+says (Purchas’ Pilgrims, II. p. 973), that they told him they come from
+Sierra Leone. This absurd statement shows that Battel had got into his
+head some of the geographical speculations of his day. The Jesuit
+Sandoval (Hist. de Ethiop. p. 48) thus abridges the information of the
+missionaries: “About ninety years back, a nation called in their own
+country Gangedes, in Congo, Jagas, in Angola, Guindes, in India (Eastern
+Africa), Zimbas, in Ethiopia (Abyssinia), Gallas, and in Sierra Leone,
+Zumbas (Cumbas, in Jarric, probably for Çumbas), which name they changed
+for Manes, and who lived on human flesh, issued forth,” &c. Finally,
+Anguiano (Epitome Historial &c. del Imp. Abyss. 1706, p. 8), speaking of
+the Agows, assures us that the names Agáo, Agag, and Giagos, or Giacos,
+are all the same.]
+
+[Footnote 227: A writer in a popular journal, says of the Zoolus
+(properly Amazúla,) near Natal,—“They extend much further northward,
+where they are found under the names Sualies and Gallas.” (Quart. Rev.
+Febr. 1837, p. 178.) The Arabic word Sowáḥilí means “inhabiting the
+coasts.”]
+
+[Footnote 228: The portion of Da Couto’s History here quoted (Decade X.
+lib. 6, c. 15) has never been printed, but the Library of the British
+Museum possesses two MS. copies of it. The lake here referred to is
+called by De Barros Zambere, a name copied servilely by all succeeding
+writers, though it was doubtless a misprint for Zambeze. Cuama is the
+name given to the lower portion of the Zambeze, which river is so named
+according to Dos Santos (Ethiop. Orient. p. 44), because, on quitting
+the Great Lake, from which proceed the chief rivers of Southern Africa,
+it flows through a territory inhabited by a people of that name.” The
+people alluded to are the Ambios of Da Couto, the Movíza of the
+Portuguese of the present day, but who call themselves M’Bíza. The true
+name of the river, therefore (and that intended also to be given to the
+lake), is Zambíza. N’yassi, or _the sea_, as this lake is called by the
+natives (whence D’Anville’s Massi, by mistake for Niassi), is commonly
+but erroneously designated in our maps Lake Marávi. The Marávi country,
+that is to say, the country in which the chieftains bear the title of
+Marávi, extends from the Zambíza to the Livúma behind Cape Delgado, and
+touches but does not encompass the lake. Da Couto, following De Barros,
+borrows the name Rhapta from Ptolemy. It serves to indicate eruditely
+rather than clearly what the Arabs call the River of Maḳdishó, that is,
+the Juba.]
+
+[Footnote 229: Cavazzi de Montecucoli, a laborious and sincere writer,
+relates (Istorica Descrittione de tre Regni, &c. 1690, book II. c. 3)
+that a chief named Zimbo raised an army in Congo, with which he invaded
+Melinda on the opposite coast. Being there defeated, he retired towards
+the Cape of Good Hope, and afterwards attacked Angola, &c. Zimbo’s
+marches equalled those of Tamerlane. The enormous exaggerations and
+mistakes of the Catholic Missionaries respecting the interior of
+Southern Africa, still retain their places in works of geography.]
+
+[Footnote 230: A Mandingo warrior named Abba Manca (Mança?), conquered
+Bambúk in the beginning of the twelfth century, and compelled its
+inhabitants to adopt the Mohammedan rites (Golberry, Fragmens d’un Voy.
+I. p. 419). Silla was one of the first converted of the negro towns; and
+as, in the Mandingo language, the word Silla means a way, road, pass, or
+ferry, and might therefore have been naturally employed to designate a
+town situate on the line of traffic, it may be conjectured that Silla
+belonged to the Mandingoes from the beginning. It may be here observed
+that the termination _boo_ (see Note 52), characterizing the names of
+villages in Bambara, signifies a hut. (Dard. Dict. Wolofe, pp. 19, 22;
+Caillié, III. p. 301).]
+
+[Footnote 231: The Sultan of the Fellátah dynasty in Houssa styles
+himself Sultan of Tekrúr. The Fellátah conquerors of Houssa issued, in
+the beginning of the present century, from the province of Ader,
+adjoining Kábí on the north, and where they may have been long
+established. It is possible then that the kingdom of Tekrúr, mentioned
+to Niebuhr by Abdu-r-Raḥmán Aga, and also heard of by Hutchinson
+(Bowdich, p. 483), may have belonged to the Fellátah dynasty now
+dominant in Houssa.]
+
+[Footnote 232: The Garamantes, a Libyan nation, chased, in chariots
+drawn by four horses, the Ethiopian Troglodytes (Herodotus, book IV. c.
+152). El Idrísí (in Jaubert’s Trans. I. p. 110,) remarks that stealing
+children to sell them to strangers for a trifle, is a general practice
+in the desert, and “no one there sees harm in it.”]
+
+
+
+
+                              POSTSCRIPT.
+
+                               * * * * *
+
+                           REMARKS ON HOUSSA.
+
+
+The route from the capital of Ashantí, through Gonja, to the Kowára or
+Quorra opposite to Yaúry, is determined as satisfactorily as can be
+expected from native information. Three different itineraries of that
+route agree in the chief points, conducting from Lake Buro, or from
+Salagha (which is the same as Dagwumba), through Tonuma, Jabzogho,
+Ghofil, Zogho, Jambodú, Suso and Kúka to Nikki, the capital of Borghú.
+Beyond this place is the town of Rugha, the River Wori, and the
+mountains over which lies the road to Sholo on the banks of lake Kúra
+(the Quorra). But in two of the itineraries the names Rugha, Wori, and
+Kúra are written Ḍugha, Woḍi, and Kúḍa.[233]
+
+From Sholo the route conducts by Kambashi, Ghúnti, and Yendukka to
+Kachenah in twenty-five days. Other native routes, passing northwards of
+this through the mountainous country of Fagh, cross the river at Gongo
+(_i.e._ the ferry,) to Múrí (Múli), and then proceed through Kábí, over
+the Gulbi Kambaji to Raka, and thence through Kotú-n-kúra to Marki, and
+crossing the hills near Surami to Kachenah. The Gulbi Kambaji (river of
+Kambaji) of Dupuis, it has been already observed, is the same as the
+Gambarou (Kamba-roa, or Kamba water) of Bowdich. The latter writer
+places to the north of it, Mallowa, Kallaghee (Kilghí), Barrabadi
+(Beráberi), and Kachenah. On the south side of his Gambarou, or between
+it and the Quorra, he sets Gauw, Gamhadi (Kombori), Fillani, Goubirri,
+Zamfarra, Yaoura, and Noufí. If a partial error in the position of
+Mallowa be allowed for, and a more decided one in the case of Gauw, it
+will be evident that the river dividing the countries here enumerated is
+the Quorrama, or river of Kábí.[234]
+
+Mohammed Masíní, describing the Kowára, says, “this great river issues
+from the Mountain of the Moon; and what we know of it is, that it comes
+from Sookan (Sókaí) to Kiya (Kiyaú, the Gauw of Bowdich), to Kabi, to
+Yaouri, to Boossa, to Wawa, and to Noofee; but in that place there is
+another river that springs from Zirmá, to Ghoober, to Zeffra, to Kory or
+Koora, and then enters Noofee; its name is Kaduna. On the north of it
+Kanbari lies; on the east is Kory; on the south are Cankan and Kafath;
+and on the west is Bassoa or Bashwa (Busawa, the territory of Busá).
+About the centre of it is the kingdom of Noofee, with that of Abyou
+(Abbiwa).”[235]
+
+The river here described under the name of Kaduna, as running first
+northwards from Zirmá to Guber, and then southwards to Núfí, is
+apparently the same described by Clapperton in these words: “This stream
+rises only a day’s journey in the mountains or hills south of Guari,
+runs through part of Zamfrá, and divides in one part the states of
+Katongkora and Guari, and enters into the Kodonia in Nyffé.” The Kaduna
+or Kadunia enters the Kowára in the vicinity of Raka and Rabba, perhaps
+a little above the latter place. According to the native accounts, it is
+during part of the year a great river, navigated in canoes made of a
+single trunk of a tree, yet large enough to carry nine horses, but in
+the summer it is quite dry.[236]
+
+The country called by Mohammed Masíní, Kory or Koora (Kúra), is either
+the Guari of the maps, or else Kotú-n-kúra. The resemblance of this name
+to that of the great river (Lake Kúra) deserves attention. It appears
+probable that the natives of Houssa name the Great River from what they
+conceive to be its sources in their own country, tracing it from Kowára
+(the Guari of Clapperton), through Zamfara and Kábí, down to the sea of
+Kúra or of Núfí.[237] Hence it is not surprising, that, while Ibn Sʿaíd
+mentions Kúra among the kingdoms of Negroland, Yaḳút and Abú-l-fedá
+should apply that name to the great water which there received the Nile
+of Ghánah.
+
+
+                                LONDON:
+                J. HOLMES, TOOK’S COURT, CHANCERY LANE.
+
+
+[Footnote 233: One of these routes is given by Dupuis (App. 124),
+another by Bowdich (p. 491), and a third, translated from the original
+Arabic by De Sacy, is inserted in Walckenaer’s Recherches (p. 453). The
+comparison of this last route with the fragment (No. 11) in Dupuis’
+Appendix (p. 135), shows that its author was Mohammed al Marrawi, the
+servant of Ibrahim, from whom Bowdich derived his information. The Sholo
+of the Itineraries is the Sooloo of Lander (Exped. to the Niger, II. p.
+28), who means by the expression “the left bank of the river,” the bank
+on his left hand, and contra-distinguishes it from the east bank, on
+which his horses were. The systematic substitution of _d_ for _r_ by the
+natives of a part of Houssa, is manifest from these itineraries. The
+words Barrabadi and Gamhadi, for Beráberi and Kombori, are other
+instances of the same change; and probably the savage and naked people
+called Maradi, said to inhabit the country between Kachenah and Guber
+(Lyon, p. 140), are no other than the Marrí, or people of Marra. The
+deposed King of Houssa lives in Maradi (Lander, Sec. Exped. p. 63, 153).
+Dupuis describes a route from Salagha, a little eastward of north, to
+what he calls the great city of Andari, respecting which there is room
+for some curious conjectures. But it will be sufficient for the present
+to remark that his Andari عنظر (Itin. No. 6) and Fadaly فضلى (No. 10),
+on the importance of both of which places he dwells with complacency,
+are in reality one and the same.]
+
+[Footnote 234: For the Gharanti and Yendoto of Dupuis, Ghúnti (the Gonde
+of Clapperton) and Yendukka (the Yendukwa of that traveller, and
+Yendakka of Lyon,) are here read, the change in Arabic writing being
+extremely easy. The name Kandashy, which Mr. Dupuis gives to a part of
+Houssa, originated in a mistake. He joined the word Dúshi, signifying
+the hills or mountains, to a part of some preceding word. Marina,
+Kandashy, ought to be Markí, and Dúshi, or the hills. Mr. Dupuis
+continues, “Great Souy is the name of the adjoining country; there is
+also another Souy, where the water is very broad, and bears the name of
+Boromi Mághami.” For Souy سُوْوِ in this place we must read Surmi
+سُرْمِ, a name variously altered into Solan, Zulami, Zurmie and Zirmie.
+The situation of Surmi, or rather Surami the less, is pointed out by
+Clapperton (Sec. Exped. p. 164). Lander crossed the river of Makamie
+(Mághami). The word Boromi apparently signifies river, in some dialect
+the use of which extends into Bornú and Kánem.]
+
+[Footnote 235: The Cankan of Mohammed Masíní is probably the Ghana-
+ghanah of Wargee. (Asiat. Journ. 1823, vol. XVI. p. 23.)]
+
+[Footnote 236: There is, no doubt, some difficulty in believing that the
+mouth of the Kadunia is above Rabba, when Lander states so clearly that
+it is below Fofo; yet a MS. sketch of the route from Kano to the Kowára
+in Núfí, drawn by Clapperton from native information, places it between
+Rabba and Leechee, and directly opposite to Raka. Bakani, the capital,
+is one day from the mouth of the river; it seems to lie directly in the
+road from Kanó and Zegzeg to Raka and Katunga (Hertha, July 1827, Geogr.
+Zeit. pp. 11, 14). From one of Clapperton’s MS. vocabularies,
+communicated to me by my invaluable friend, the Rev. G. C. Renouard, it
+would appear that the word Kaduna, in the Houssa language, signifies
+_little_. If this be correct, which appears very questionable, there are
+probably several rivers of that name. Here it may be remarked, that when
+Dupuis (pt. II. p. 100) speaks of Saghona, the capital of Yekoo (Ako or
+Yariba), he means Raka, which is also called Saguda (Clapp. p. 60).]
+
+[Footnote 237: Clapperton (Sec. Exped. p. 232) says that the capital of
+Zegzeg is called Quorra. He probably means to speak of the town which he
+elsewhere calls Guari, but the name of which, in the native maps brought
+home by him, is written Ḳowárah. When he speaks of Kóra (p. 133), he
+appears to have in view the capital of Kotú-n-Kúra. This name is,
+through obvious mistake, written Kotunfauda in Bello’s map. Kotú is a
+name of frequent occurrence, as in Kotú-n-karafi (in the maps Cuttum
+Curraffee), “where there is a copper mine” (Bello in Denh. Disc. II. p.
+451). Karafi means metal in general. The country named Kúra is
+mentioned, together with Niffi and Raka, by the Kaíd ben Yusuf (Denh.
+Disc. I. p. 334). The slaves Boniface and Francisco agreed in
+representing to M. Menézes de Drummond (Hertha, pp. 13, 14), that the
+Kowára rises in the centre of Houssa, and that it takes its name from
+the country named Kuara (Kowára), through which it flows.]
+
+
+
+
+Transcriber's note:
+
+
+  Vowel diacritics in Arabic names have sometimes been adjusted to
+  match their transliteration.
+
+  Unpointed Beh-shape letters in medial or initial form have been
+  represented with the Alef Maksura (ى) character. Other unpointed
+  consonants are shown as printed.
+
+  Changes in the CORRECTIONS have been done, as well as:
+
+  pg xv, Changed: "GHÁNAH, AUDÁGHOST, AÚLÍL" to: "AÚDAGHOST"
+
+  pg 6, footnote 9, Changed: "Támedelt تَلمدَلْت (MS. B.M.)"
+  to: "تَامدَلْت"
+
+  pg 12, footnote 24, Changed: "Agharef أَغَوَفْ MS. B.M." to: "أَغَرَفْ"
+
+  pg 111, footnote 185, Changed: "(Walcknenaer, Rech. p. 450)." to:
+  "Walckenaer"
+
+  pg 124, Changed: "it it manifest that Ghánah coincides" to: "it is"
+
+  pg 134, Changed: "thirteenth century, it it obvious" to: "it is"
+
+  Other spelling inconsistencies have been left unchanged.
+
+*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 78434 ***