Five of the fourteen days which are requisite for this part of their rout, are consumed in the passage of a sandy desart, in which their usual expedient of covering their goat skins, both within and without, with a resinous substance, prevents but imperfectly the dreaded evaporation of their water.
From the Province of Hiatts they cross the low mountains of Eyré, which separate the Kingdom of Fezzan from the vast Empire of Cashna; and leaving to their right the small river which flows from these hills, and is lost in the deep sands of a neighbouring desart, they enter a wide heath, uninhabited, but not destitute of water. The sixth day conducts them from this extended solitude to the long desired refreshments of the Town of Ganatt, where the two next days are devoted to repose.
From thence, by a march of nineteen days, during six of which they are immersed in the heats of a thirsty desart, they pass on to the Town of Assouda, which offers them equal refreshments with Ganatt, and equally suspends their journey.
On leaving Assouda, they traverse a delightful country, as fertile as it is numerously peopled; and while the exhilarating sight of Indian corn and of frequent herds of cattle accompanies and chears their passage, the eighth day introduces them to the large and populous City of Agadez, the capital of an extensive province.
Distinguished as the most commercial of all the towns of Cashna, and, like Assouda and Ganatt, inhabited by Mahometans alone, Agadez naturally attracts the peculiar attention of the Merchants of Fezzan. Many of them proceed no further; but the greatest part, committing to their Agents the care of the slaves, cotton, and senna, which they purchase in the course of a ten days residence, continue their journey to the South.
In this manner, if the camels are compleatly loaded, seven and forty days, exclusive of those which are allotted to refreshment and necessary rest, are employed in travelling from Mourzouk to Agadez.
At the end of three days more, amidst fields that are enriched with the luxuriant growth of Indian corn, and pastures that are covered with multitudes of cows, and with flocks of sheep and goats, the Traveller reaches the small Town of Begzam; from which, through a country of herdsmen, whose dwellings are in tents of hides, the second day conducts him to the Town of Tegomáh. There, as he surveys the stoney, uninhabited, desolate hills that form the chearless prospect before him, he casts a regretful eye on those verdant scenes that surrounded him the day before. Employed for two days in the passage of these dreary heights, he descends on the third to a deep and scorching sand, from which he emerges at the approach of the fifth evening, and entering a beautiful country, as pleasingly diversified with the natural beauties of hills and vales and woods, as with the rich rewards of the husbandman’s and the shepherd’s toil, he arrives in seven days more at the City of Cashna, the capital of the empire of which it bears the name, and the usual residence of its powerful Sultan.
The country to which the Geographers of Europe have given the name of Nigritia, is called by the Arabs Soudán, and by the natives Aafnou, two words of similar import, that, like the European appellation, express the land of the Blacks, and like that too, are applied to a part only of the region to which their meaning so obviously belongs.—Yet, even in this limited sense, the word Soudán is often variously employed; for while some of the Africans restrict it to the Empire of Cashna, which is situated to the North of the Niger, others extend it, with indefinite comprehension, to the Negro States on the South of the river, and applying it as a means of expressing the extended rule and transcendant power of the Emperor of Cashna, call him, with extravagant compliment, the Sultan of all Soudán.
His real sovereignty is bounded, on the North, by the mountains of Eyré, and by one of those districts of the great Zahara, that furnish no means of useful property or available dominion; on the South, by the Niger; and on the East, by the Kingdom of Zamphara and the Empire of Bornou. Its western limit is not described by the Shereef; nor is any thing said of the Capital, except that it is situated to the North of the Niger, at the distance of five days journey, and that its buildings resemble those of Bornou.
The observations which introduced the account of Bornou, have already announced the remarkable similarity, as well with respect to climate, soil, and natural productions, as with regard to the colour, genius, religion, and political institutions of the people, that prevails between that powerful State and its sister Kingdom of Cashna.