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.