Chapter V: Part 5

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.