Chapter XXV: Appendix: IV

IBN BATUTAH’S JOURNEY

Ibn Abdallah Muhammad, better known as Ibn Batutah, seems to have returned to the north by way of Air from a visit to the Sudan which he made after his better known travels in the East. He left Fez in A.D. 1351 for the countries of the Upper Niger by way of Sijilmasa[449] and Tegaza,[450] and returned to Morocco in 1354. His account[451] of Air and the neighbouring parts is brief but very well worth examining, as it raises several interesting historical points.

After visiting all the Western Sudan as far as Kawkaw (Gao or Gago or Gaogao) on the Niger he went to Bardama, where the inhabitants protect caravans and the women are chaste and beautiful, and “next arrived at Nakda, which is handsome and built of red stone.”[452] The variants of this name are spelt نَكْدَا, Nakda; ثُكْذَا, Thukdha; تَكْدَا, Tukda, and by the learned Kosegarten in his version تَكَدَّا, Takadda. The latter, with a somewhat corrupt text, reads: “_Takadda scorpiis abundat. Segetes ibi raræ. Scorpii morsu repentinum infantibus adferunt mortem, cui remedio occurritur nullo: viros tamen raro perimunt. Urbis incolæ sola mercatura versantur. Ægyptum adeunt, indique vestes pretiosas afferunt; de servorum et mancipiorum multudine inter se gloriunt._” Lee’s translation, after describing the arrival at Tekadda, proceeds: “Its water runs over copper mines, which changes its colour and taste. The inhabitants are neither artisans nor merchants. The copper mine is without Nakda (Tekadda), and in this slaves are employed, who melt the ore and make it into bars. The merchants then take it to the infidel and other parts of the Sudan. The Sultan of Nakda is a Berber. I met him and was treated as his guest, and was also provided by him with the necessaries for my journey. I was often visited by the Commander of the Faithful in Nakda, who ordered me to wait on him, which I did, and then prepared for my journey. I then left this place in the month of Sha’aban in the year 54 (A.D. 1353), and travelled till I came to the territories of Hakar (هكاَر), the inhabitants of which are a tribe of the Berbers, but a worthless people. I next came to Sijilmasa and thence to Fez.” Kosegarten’s version, however, differs somewhat, reading, “. . . and left Tekadda with a band of travellers making for Tuat. It is seventy stages from there, for which travellers take their provisions with them, as nothing is to be found on the road. We reached Kahor, which is the country of the Sultan of Kerker, with much pasture. Leaving there we journeyed for three days through a desert without inhabitants and lacking water; thence for fifteen days we journeyed through desert not lacking water but without inhabitants. Then we came to a place of two roads where the road that goes to Egypt leaves the road which leads to Tuat. Here is a well whose water flows over iron: if anyone washes clothes with these waters they become black. Thence after completing ten days we came to Dehkar[453] (دَهْكاَر). Through these lands, where grasses are scarce, we made our way, reaching Buda, which is the largest of the towns of Tuat.”

Such are the accounts given by the first intelligent traveller in Air, and they are all too brief. The two versions are not contradictory, but in a sense supplementary to one another, and are probably excerpts made by different persons from a longer original work. The discrepancy between “Tekadda” and “Nakda,” and between “Hakar” and “Dehkar” are not difficult to account for in Arabic script. The first in each case seems to be correct. Ibn Batutah says the people of Hakar wore the veil; and “Hakar” is of course Haggar or Ahaggar, the mountains by which it is necessary to pass on the way from Air to Tuat; the Tuareg in Arab eyes are all worthless, as their name implies.

“Kahor” is a variant for “Kahir,” used indiscriminately by Arab writers with “Ahir” for Air. Barth’s[454] explanation of the insertion of an “h” in “Ahir” (اهير), is interesting but unnecessary if, as is clear, it is derived from “Kahir” (كاهير). These variants seem all to be merely Arabic attempts to spell “Air,” which the Tuaregs write in their own script ⵔⵉⴰ (R Y A).

Tekadda has been assumed by Barth[455] and others to be one, or a group, of three localities, Tagidda n’Adrar, Tagidda n’Tagei, Tagidda n’T’isemt,[456] lying some 40, 50 and 100 miles respectively W. or W.N.W. of Agades.[457] But there are good reasons for not accepting this identification. In the first place, though salt deposits are worked at Tagidda n’T’isemt, there are no signs of copper mines at this point, or indeed anywhere in Air. In the second place, it is very unlikely that the ruler of a locality so close as any of the Tagiddas to the important communities in Air, in any one of which the Sultan of that country might have had his throne,[458] should have equalled the latter in importance; but Ibn Batutah’s Sultan of Tekadda seems to have been at least as important a personage as the Sultan of Air, whom he calls the Sultan of Kerker, Ruler of Kahor.

The problem presented by “Kerker” is not easy, but the existence of a district still called Gerigeri, some fifty miles east of the Air mountains, and about forty miles north of Tagidda n’T’isemt, inclines one to regard this Sultan, who was also ruler of Kahor, as one of the Aulimmiden chiefs who are known at various times to have dominated the mountains. If this view is correct the Sultan of Tekadda must certainly have had his being some way further south than the Tagiddas, since two rulers of such an importance as Ibn Batutah makes them out to be would certainly not have lived only forty miles apart.

Lastly, the traveller speaks of seventy stages between Tekadda and Tuat, which is in fact only forty-five stages from Agades,[459] and therefore the same or perhaps rather less from the Tagiddas, which are in the latitude or even somewhat north of the city. Now forty-five marching stages are equivalent to some sixty caravan days, including halts, while seventy stages correspond to about one hundred days’ journeying. As it is clear that he did not delay on the road, the disproportion between the normal time taken to travel from the Tagiddas to Tuat and the time he did take from Tekadda to Tuat makes it impossible not to look for Ibn Batutah’s point of departure at some considerable distance south of Agades.

An examination of the times assigned to the various stages of the journey makes it apparent that in the first part he actually marched rather faster than an ordinary commercial caravan. Considering the actual times he employed, we find that he took one month crossing Ahaggar to Tuat; the usual time for this section on the Agades In Salah road is twenty marching days, and Ibn Batutah probably took about that time, making thirty days with halts. We next find that it took ten days from Hakar (Ahaggar) to the place where the roads to Egypt and Tuat divided. This point is at the wells of In Azawa or Asiu, which are close together on the northern boundary of Air; the distance between them and Ahaggar is in fact ten days’ marching. It is reasonable to assume that Ibn Batutah’s point where the roads divide is, in fact, In Azawa or Asiu, and has therefore remained unchanged for over four centuries. South of these wells he had spent fifteen days in a country which was barren but had numerous watering-points—a good description of Air by a traveller who was used to the fertile and populous Sudan; the period of fifteen days corresponds accurately with the number of stages between In Azawa and Agades by any of the routes through Air.[460] As Agades was probably not founded at this date, Ibn Batutah in coming from the Niger would have no reason to travel as far as the site of the city and probably therefore kept west of the Central massifs and counted this stage from some point west of Agades like In Gall, though the exact locality is immaterial. South of this stage he crossed a desert where there is no water for three days: this is clearly the sterile tract separating Air from the Southland. The total of these times is fifty-eight days, even counting thirty days in Ahaggar instead of twenty; this, at a generous estimate, may be called sixty, from the northern edge of the Southland across Air and Ahaggar to Tuat, and this reckoning coincides with the usual forty-five caravan marching stages to which previous reference has been made. There are, therefore, still at least ten days to be accounted for, and they are referred to in the passage in which he simply states that he left Tekadda and marched for an indefinite time, making no mention of the number of days employed till he reached the domains of the Sultan of Kerker. I would be inclined to look for Tekadda not at any of the Tagiddas, which are rather north of the River of Agades and consequently north of the three days’ desert travelling, but at some point in the direction of Gao, thirteen days’ journey from the southernmost part of Air, or ten days from the northern fringe of the Southland below the desert belt. I have unfortunately no knowledge of the country west of Damergu to suggest an identification, but am convinced that no place in or just west of Air is intended by the description of Tekadda.

[Footnote 449: Sijilmasa (Sigilmasiyah) was the capital of the Tafilelt area in Morocco south of the Atlas. Its ruins in the Wadi Ifli are now called Medinet el ’Amira.]

[Footnote 450: The salt mines of Tegaza were referred to in Chap. XII. They were abandoned in A.D. 1586, and those of Taodenit, where caravans still go from Timbuctoo to fetch salt for the Upper Niger, were opened instead. Vide Barth, _op. cit._, Vol. V. p. 612, and Map No. 14 (Western Sheet) in Vol. V.]

[Footnote 451: _Ibn Batutah_: by Lee in the Oriental Translations Fund, 1829, pp. 241-2, etc.]

[Footnote 452: _Scilicet_, red mud.]

[Footnote 453: Probably another version of Hakar (هَكاَر).]

[Footnote 454: Barth, _op. cit._, Vol. I. p. 336.]

[Footnote 455: Barth, _op. cit._, Vol. I. p. 335.]

[Footnote 456: Tagidda (Cortier, Map of Air—Teguidda) means a small hollow or basin where water collects (De Foucauld, I. 276). The names of the three places therefore mean “Basin of the Mountain,” “Basin of the Dûm palm,” and “Basin of Salt.” Tagidda = basin, is not to be confused with Tiggedi = cliff (as the Cliff S. of Agades), from the root _egged_, “to jump.” De Foucauld, _op. cit._, I. 273, and Motylinski, _Dictionnaire_, etc., 1908.]

[Footnote 457: Not three days south-west, as Barth says.]

[Footnote 458: Agades was probably not founded in Ibn Batutah’s day, or he would certainly have referred to it; there were, however, other large settlements in Air already in existence at this time, such as Assode (see Chap. XVII).]

[Footnote 459: Barth, _op. cit._, Vol. I., App., and others; also my information.]

[Footnote 460: Cf. Chap. III.]