Wheat and barley are not raised in Bornou; but the horse-bean of Europe and the common kidney-bean are cultivated with great assiduity, as they are used for food, both by the slaves and by the cattle.[15]
In the culture of these different grains, the hoe alone is employed, as the use of the plough is still unknown to the people. The women divide with the men the labours of their husbandry; for while the latter, with their hoes, open the ground, and form the trenches in straight lines parallel to each other, the women follow and throw in the seed: nor is this the only part which they take in the business of the field; for to them, as soon as the weeds begin to rise on the ridges of the lines in which the grain is sowed, the hoe is constantly transferred.
The sowing season commences at the end of the periodical rains of April; and such in that climate is the rapid vegetation, that on the 9th of July the gassób is reaped; but the gamphúly, a grain of slower growth, is seldom cut till the month of August or September.
Such are the several species of corn that, among the people of Bornou, supply the place of the wheat, the barley, and the oats of Europe. Two species of roots are also used as wholesome and substantial food: the one, which is called the Dondoo, produces a low plant, with branches that spread four or five feet upon the ground, and leaves that resemble those of the garden-bean. At the end of five months, from the time of its being planted, the leaves fall off, and the root is taken from the ground, and being cut into small pieces, is dried in the sun, in which state it may be kept for two years. Its further preparation consists in reducing it to a fine powder, and mixing it with palm oil till it assumes the consistency of paste.
The other root is that of a tree, of which the name had escaped the Shereef’s recollection: boiling is the only process that is requisite in preparing it for use.
The same character of sufficiency which marks the catalogue of the different kinds of grain in Bornou, belongs also to the list of its various Fruits; for though neither olives nor oranges are seen in the empire, and even figs are rare, and though the apples and plumbs of its growth deserve no commendation, and the dates are as indifferent as they are scarce, yet grapes, and apricots, and pomegranates, together with lemons and limes, and the two species of melons, the water and the musk, are produced in large abundance.[16] But one of the most valuable of its vegetable stores, is a tree which is called Kedéynah, that in form and height resembles the olive, is like the lemon in its leaf, and bears a nut, of which the kernel and the shell are both in great estimation, the first as a fruit, the last on account of the oil which it furnishes when bruised, and which supplies the lamps of the people of Bornou with a substitute for the oil of olives.
To this competent provision of such vegetables as are requisite to the support, or grateful to the appetite of man, must be added a much more ample and more varied supply, of Animal Food. Innumerable flocks of sheep, and herds of goats and cows, (for there are no oxen) together with multitudes of horses, buffaloes, and camels, (the flesh of which is in high estimation) cover the vales or pasture on the mountains of Bornou.[17]
The common, though not the Guinea fowl is also reared by the inhabitants; and their hives of bees are so extremely numerous, that the wax is often thrown away as an article of no value in the market.
Their game consists of the Huaddee, and other species of antelopes, of the partridge, the wild duck, and the ostrich, the flesh of which they prize above every other.
Their other wild animals are the lion, the leopard, the civet cat, the small wolf, the fox, the wild dog, that hunts the antelope; the elephant, which is not common, and of which they make no use; the crocodile, the hippopotamus, which is often killed on the banks of the river that runs from the Neel Shem, (the Nile of Egypt) to the Desart of Bilma; and a large and singular animal, which is distinguished by the name of Zarapah, and which is described as resembling the camel in its head and body, as having a long and slender neck like the ostrich, as being much taller at the shoulders than the haunches, and as defended by so tough a skin, as to furnish the natives with shields that no arrow or javelin can pierce.[18]