FOOTNOTES:
[1]A title given to several African sovereigns.
[2]Grigri a kind of writing which these people consider as a talisman.
[3]Negotiations, traffic.
[4]A piece of cotton cloth of the country, six feet long and two and a half wide.
[5]Blue India calico. The pieces are about sixteen yards long.
[6]Couscous, a kind of pottage made with millet.
[7]The Tabasky is the last day of the Ramadan: it may be likened to our Easter Sunday.
[8]The Peulhs inhabit Fouta-Toro; they are also called Foulahs.
[9]Or Niegueh.
[10]The carrier-bullock is a particular species. It has a bunch on the back. After it has been castrated, it is accustomed while very young to carry burdens; and to make it the more tractable, a cord is run through its nostrils.
[11]The name given at the Senegal to an arm of the river.
[12]Piastres: at the Senegal five and six franc pieces are called gourdes.
[13]A sort of gruel made of the flour of millet or other grain.
[14]The negroes who inhabit the countries of Cayor, Wâlo, and Ghiolof, are called Wolofs. They all speak the same language, with some modifications in the different countries. This language is understood by the Foulahs of Fouta Toro and their neighbours, the Serreres, as also by the Moors who travel in those parts.
[15]This is the same thing as the bakat of the negroes of Wâlo; it is a holcus, the grain of which nearly resembles our millet—perhaps the holcus sorghum.
[16]A small basket of straw, resembling those of our shop-keepers: it is used for winnowing the flour for the purpose of separating the bran. The negresses are very expert at this operation, turning out the bran and the imperfectly pounded grain; the flour is left on the layot.
[17]To say prayers.
[18]I had chosen the name of Abd-Allahi as the most satisfactory to Musulman piety; it signifies slave of God.
[19]A sort of round frock without sleeves.
[20]Or hassanyéh. The Moors call those who bear arms hassanes; they are also called harabis.
[21]The marabouts are the priests; they are not armed and do not go to war.
[22]Instead of wool the sheep of this part of Africa are covered with hair; the coat of some of them is so short that it is impossible to shear them.
[23]The Laratines are the offspring of Moors and female slaves; they are slaves themselves, but are never sold, and proud of their origin; they sometimes refuse to obey their master. They are an intermediate race between the Moors and the slaves.
[24]Among the Moors, and also the negroes, it is always a marabout who kills the animals intended for food; they would not eat meat which had been killed by a slave, or even by a man who was not a marabout.
[25]A wandering tribe, spread all over the western parts of Africa. The Laobés are carpenters and pedlars; they are the Jews of this country.
[26]Or Douichs, see the Map of the Course of the Senegal below Moussala.
[27]Perhaps the Teja-Kants, or Takants, reputed to dwell further eastward.
[28]Or Ouled-Douleeme.
[29]Perhaps the Abou-Sebahs.
[30]A coussabe is a piece of cloth two yards long and three quarters wide, doubled and sewed together, with holes left for the arms at the top. Another opening is left for the head; so that it is a sort of shirt without sleeves.
[31]A sort of light, blue calico very coarse and thin in its texture, and used by the Moors for mosquito-curtains, and sometimes for coussabes for their slaves. It is sold at the Senegal at from eight to twelve shillings the piece of fourteen yards.
[32]A Moorish nation inhabiting the lower part of the river, westward of the country of the Braknas.
[33]Nobody is admitted to traffic without paying customs or dues; which are proportioned to the tonnage of the vessel and the value of the goods traded for. Government pays duty annually to all the princes on the banks of the river, with whom the inhabitants of St. Louis have dealings, to secure protection for their commerce.
[34]Worth about £166 sterling.
[35]Negro sailors are so called.
[36]This tribe has a market near the mouth of the river, known by the name of the post of the Darmancours or Darmankous.
[37]The name given to the Mulattoes.
[38]This establishment is so called from Richard, the gardener, who founded it, and Tol, which signifies a garden in the Wolof language.
[39]A French factory on the Gambia.
[40]The seracolets, or sarakolas, are a corporation of itinerant merchants who travel over Africa; it is an error to suppose that the sarakolas are a nation.
[41]Almamy is the name given to the kings of many of these countries.
[42]This is the name given by Europeans to this fruit in the African colonies; the Mandingoes call it ourou.
[43]Some inhabitants of Kakondy, acquainted with the manners of the Bagos, informed me that they make gods of any thing that comes into their hands, such as a ram’s horn, a cow’s tail, a reptile, etc., and sacrifice to them.
[44]The nédé is a species of mimosa, the fruit of which contains a feculent substance, which is eaten by the negroes of this part of Africa.
[45]A place which the masters of slaves allot to their agricultural negroes; they have each a hut and a piece of ground, the produce of which supports them.
[46]The Cé or Shea of Mungo Park.
[47]The sherifs are the descendants of the Prophet; they are the Arabian nobility.
[48]Arabs or Musulmans in general.
[49]The word Kaffre, or Kafir, means infidel, idolater.
[50]The boatmen who navigate this river are called sognios.
[51]The caravans assemble to travel in a body through these woods, which are infested with robbers.
[52]The title of a chief.
[53]Poulh and Foulah are the same.
[54]Zambala is the seed of the nédé, boiled and dried; it is pounded for sauce.
[55]A small univalve shell, which passes for money.
[56]A Mandingo who has eight or ten slaves is reckoned rich.
[57]Télé, day, sun.
[58]See the Mandingo vocabulary.
[59]Charms, like the grigris.
[60]The Arabic word for soap is saboun.
[61]I trust I shall be pardoned for this misrepresentation, for, had I admitted the liberty of worship, there were some among my interrogators who would have been acute enough to ask me why I had undertaken so toilsome a journey, since I could freely exercise my religion among a people, who, according to my own account had treated me very kindly.