CONTENTS
OF
THE FOURTH VOLUME.

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
IN
THE FOURTH VOLUME.

CHAPTER LIII.

The treaty which I had at length succeeded in getting signed by the sheikh of Bórnu and his vizier on the last of August, together with a map of all the parts of Central Africa which I had as yet visited, and containing at the same time all the information which I had been able to collect concerning the neighbouring provinces[1], I had forwarded home in the middle of October, addressing at the same time the request to H.M.’s consul at Tripoli, to send me, by a special courier to Zínder, a certain sum of money. The road which I had before me was long, leading through the territories of a great many different chiefs, and partly even of powerful princes; and as soon as I should have left Zínder behind me, I could not expect to find fresh supplies, the sum of money which I had received on my return from Bagírmi being almost all spent in paying the debts which we had incurred when left without means. A sum of 400 dollars, besides a box containing choice English ironware, had been some time before consigned to a Tebú of the name of Áhmed Háj ʿAlí Bíllama: but instead of proceeding at once with the caravan with which he had left Fezzán, as he ought to have done, he staid behind in his native town Bilma to celebrate a marriage. The caravan, with about twenty horses and a hundred camels, arrived, on the 10th of November, without bringing me anything, except the proof of such reckless conduct; and as I could not afford to lose any more time in waiting for this parcel, I left orders that it should be forwarded to Zínder as soon as it should arrive. But never received it.

Nearly three fourths of the money in cash which we had received being required to pay off our debts, we had been obliged to give away a great portion even of the articles of merchandise, or presents, in order to reward friends who for so long a period had displayed their hospitality towards us, and rendered us services almost without the slightest recompense; so that, on the whole, it was only under the most pressing circumstances I could think of undertaking a journey to the west with the means then at my disposal. But, very luckily, a handsome sum of money was on the road to Zínder; I also expected to receive at that place a few new instruments, as the greater part of my thermometers were broken, and I had no instrument left for making hypsometrical observations.

An inroad on a large scale, of a tribe of the Tawárek, or Kindín, as they are called in Bórnu, under their chief, Músa, into the province of Múniyó, through which lay my road to Zínder, delayed my departure for a considerable time. This inroad of the hordes of the desert claimed a greater interest than usual, especially when considered in connection with the facts which I have set forth on a former occasion[2], the Tawárek or Berbers having originally formed an integral part of the settled population of Bórnu. These Díggera of Músa, who appear to have occupied these tracts at a former period, had evidently formed the firm intention of settling again in the fine valleys of the province of Múniyó, which are so favourable to the breeding of camels, that even when the country was in the hands of the Bórnu people they used to send their herds there.

At length, after a long series of delays, the road to the west became open, and I took leave of the sheikh on the 19th of November, in a private audience, none but the vizier being present. I then found reason to flatter myself that, from the manner in which I had explained to them the motives which had induced me to undertake a journey to the chiefs of the Fúlbe or Felláta, there were no grounds of suspicion remaining between us, although they made it a point that I should avoid going by Kanó; and even when I rejected their entreaty to remain with them after my successful return from Timbúktu, they found nothing to object, as I assured them that I might be more useful to them as a faithful friend in my own country, than by remaining with them in Bórnu. At that time I thought that Her Majesty’s Government would be induced to send a consul to Bórnu, and, in consequence, I raised their expectations on that point. But matters in Bórnu greatly changed during my absence in the west, and, in consequence of the temporary interregnum of the usurper ʿAbd e’ Rahmán and the overthrow and murder of the vizier, the state of affairs there assumed a less settled aspect. I concluded my leave-taking by requesting my kind hosts, once more, to send a copy of the history of Edrís Alawóma, the most celebrated Bórnu king, to the British Government, as I was sure that, in their desire to elucidate the history and geography of these regions, this would be an acceptable present.

The vizier, in particular, took great interest in my enterprise, admiring the confidence which I expressed, that the sheikh el Bakáy, in Timbúktu, of whom I had formed an opinion merely from hearsay, would receive me kindly and give me his full protection; and I did not fail to represent to them that, if the English should succeed in opening these great highroads of the interior for peaceful intercourse, it would be highly advantageous even for themselves, as they would thus be enabled to obtain those articles which they were in want of from the regions of Western Africa, such as kola nuts and gold, with much less expense and greater security; and they were thus induced to endeavour to derive a profit even from this my enterprise. The sheikh, who had formed the intention of undertaking a journey to Mekka, wanted me to procure for him some gold in Timbúktu; but, uncertain as were my prospects, and difficult as would be my situation, I could not guarantee such a result, which my character as a messenger of the British Government would scarcely allow. The sheikh sent me two very fine camels as a present, which stood the fatigue of the journey marvellously, one of them only succumbing on my return journey, three days from Kúkawa, when, seeing that it was unable to proceed, I gave it as a present to a native mʿallem. Having finished my letters, I fixed my departure for the 25th of November, without waiting any longer for the caravan of the Arabs, which was soon to leave for Zínder, and which, though it held out the prospect of a little more security, would have exposed me to a great deal of inconvenience and delay.

Thursday, November 25th, 1852.It was half-past ten in the morning when I left the town of Kúkawa, which for upwards of twenty months I had regarded as my head quarters, and as a place upon which, in any emergency, I might safely fall back upon; for although I even then expected that I should be obliged to return to this place once more, and even of my own free will made my plans accordingly, yet I was convinced that, in the course of my proceedings, I should not be able to derive any further aid from the friendship and protection of the sheikh of Bórnu, and I likewise fully understood that circumstances might oblige me to make my return by the western coast. For I never formed such a scheme voluntarily, as I regarded it of much greater importance for the government in whose service I had the honour to be employed, to survey the course of the great river from Timbúktu downwards, than to attempt, if I should have succeeded in reaching that place, to come out on the other side of the continent, while I was fully aware that, even under the most favourable circumstances, in going, I should be unable to keep along the river, on account of its being entirely in the hands of the lawless tribes of Tawárek, whom I should not be able to pass before I had obtained the protection of a powerful chief in those quarters. Meanwhile, well aware from my own experience how far man generally remains in arrear of his projects, in my letter to Government I represented my principal object as only to reach the Niger at the town of Sáy, while all beyond that was extremely uncertain.

My little troop consisted of the following individuals. First, Mohammed el Gatróni, the same faithful young lad who had accompanied me as a servant all the way from Fezzán to Kúkawa, and whom, on my starting for Ádamáwa, I had sent home, very reluctantly, with my despatches and with the late Mr. Richardson’s effects, on condition that, after having staid some time with his wife and children, he should return. He had lately come back with the same caravan which had brought me the fresh supplies. Faithful to my promise, I had mounted him on horseback, and made him my chief servant, with a salary of four Spanish dollars per month—and a present of fifty dollars besides, in the event of my enterprise being successfully terminated. My second servant, and the one upon whom, next to Mohammed, I relied most, was ʿAbd-Alláhi, or rather, as the name is pronounced in this country, ʿAbd-Alléhi, a young Shúwa from Kótokó, whom I had taken into my service on my journey to Bagírmi, and who, never having been in a similar situation, and not having dealt before with Europeans, at first had caused me a great deal of trouble, especially as he was laid up with the small pox for forty days during my stay in that country. He was a young man of very pleasing manners and straightforward character, and, as a good and pious Moslim, formed a useful link between myself and the Mohammedans; but he was sometimes extremely whimsical, and, after having written out his contract for my whole journey to the west and back, I had the greatest trouble in making him adhere to his own stipulations. I had unbounded control over my men, because I agreed with them that they should not receive any part of their salary on the road, but the whole on my successful return to Haúsa. ʿAbd-Alláhi was likewise mounted on horseback, but had only a salary of two dollars, and a present of twenty dollars. Then came Mohammed ben Áhmed, the fellow of whom I have already spoken on my journey to Kánem, and who, though a person of very indifferent abilities, and at the same time very self-conceited on account of his Islám, was yet valued by me for his honesty, while he, on his part, having been left by his countrymen and co-religionists in a very destitute situation, became attached to myself.

I had two more freemen in my service, one, a brother of Mohammed el Gatróni, who was only to accompany me as far as Zínder; the other an Arab from the borders of Egypt, and called Slimán el Ferjáni, a fine, strong man, who had once formed part of the band of the Welád Slimán in Kánem, and who might have been of great service to me, from his knowledge of the use of firearms and his bodily strength; but he was not to be trusted, and deserted me in a rather shameful manner a little beyond Kátsena.

Besides these freemen, I had in my service two liberated slaves, Dýrregu, a Haúsa boy, and Ábbega, a Marghí lad, who had been set free by the late Mr. Overweg,—the same young lads whom on my return to Europe I brought to this country, where they promised to lay in a store of knowledge, and who on the whole have been extremely useful to me, although Ábbega not unfrequently found some other object more interesting than my camels, which were intrusted to his care, and which in consequence he lost repeatedly.