Feb. 11.—A Felatah of respectability having arrived from the sultan, with offers of every accommodation on my journey, I visited the governor to compliment him on his return, and to inquire about my departure for Sackatoo. He received me with much civility, and, addressing me like an old acquaintance by my travelling name, Abdallah, he assured me I should set out in six days.
Feb. 12.—The weather was cold, and we had a fire all day. Indeed it is the invariable practice here to have fires all the year round, both in the wet and dry season, although generally I did not find one necessary.
Feb. 13 and 14.—I had a visit from the governor’s eldest son, a stupid fellow, who was afraid to taste a cup of tea with which I presented him. He bluntly told me, I possessed the power of changing people into rats, cats, dogs, and monkeys. I made a servant drink the tea he had refused, and then remarked, “Thank God, neither I, nor any one else, was able to work such wonders, otherwise both of us probably had been long ago metamorphosed into asses, and compelled to bear burdens on our backs.” He affected to blame the people of the town for these reports, and told me they were further persuaded, that, by reading in my book, I could at any time turn a handful of earth into gold. I easily refuted this absurdity, by asking him why I applied to Hadje Hat Salah for money if I knew such a secret. He now became somewhat tranquillized, and sipped a little of the tea, but with fear and trembling. He afterwards begged for a black-lead pencil, which I did not choose to give him. A son of Sultan Bello, named Abdelgader, also paid me a visit. He returns, early to-morrow morning, to Sackatoo.
Feb. 15.—This afternoon I ascended the eastern mount (one of the two already described) to take an eye sketch of the plan of the town, which, as nearly as I could guess it, may be represented as under. By way of precaution, I was accompanied by Hat Salah’s eldest son, to prevent the people fancying I was going to perform some magical feat. On the eastern side of the mount, the young man gravely pointed out to me the print of the foot of the she-camel on which the Prophet rode to heaven. It was certainly very like the print of a camel’s foot, only much larger, and seemed to be a hole where two stones had been picked out. I asked my companion, if the prophet’s naga, or she-camel, had only one leg. “Oh!” said he, “it had four.” Where are the other three? “Oh!” he replied, “God has done it:” an unanswerable argument, which with them settles all points of religious controversy. He added, “All the faithful of Soudan believe in the truth of this story.” The mount I found to consist of strata of clay iron-stone, and conglomerate, lying on a bed of soft light clay, apparently mixed with vegetable remains.
Feb. 16.—Early this morning two massi dubu, or jugglers, came to my door. Two snakes were let out of a bag, when one of the jugglers began to beat a little drum. The snakes immediately reared themselves on their tail, and made a kind of sham dance. The juggler afterwards played various tricks with them, sometimes wreathing them round his neck, coiling them in his bosom, or throwing them among the people. On pointing his finger at their mouth, they immediately raised themselves up in an attitude to spring forward; but after having exasperated them to the utmost, he had only to spit in their face to make them retreat quite crestfallen. I measured one of them: it was six feet three inches long; the head large, flat, and blunted, and, along the neck, a kind of gills fully two inches in breadth, and five inches in length, which they elevated when angry. The back and belly were of a dull white, and the sides of a dark lead colour. Between the gills there were five red stripes across the throat, decreasing in size from the mouth downwards. The venomous fangs had been extracted; but still, to guard against all possible injury, the fellow who played tricks with them had a large roll of cloth wound round the right arm. Their bite is said to be mortal, and to prove fatal to a horse or a cow in half an hour.
Having heard a great deal of the boxers of Haussa, I was anxious to witness their performance. Accordingly I sent one of my servants last night to offer 2000 whydah for a pugilistic exhibition in the morning. As the death of one of the combatants is almost certain before a battle is over, I expressly prohibited all fighting in earnest; for it would have been disgraceful, both to myself and my country, to hire men to kill one another for the gratification of idle curiosity. About half an hour after the massi dubu were gone, the boxers arrived, attended by two drums, and the whole body of butchers, who here compose “the fancy.” A ring was soon formed, by the master of the ceremonies throwing dust on the spectators to make them stand back. The drummers entered the ring, and began to drum lustily. One of the boxers followed, quite naked, except a skin round the middle. He placed himself in an attitude as if to oppose an antagonist, and wrought his muscles into action, seemingly to find out that every sinew was in full force for the approaching combat; then coming from time to time to the side of the ring, and presenting his right arm to the bystanders, he said, “I am a hyena;” “I am a lion;” “I am able to kill all that oppose me.” The spectators, to whom he presented himself, laid their hands on his shoulder, repeating, “The blessing of God be upon thee;” “Thou art a hyena;” “Thou art a lion.” He then abandoned the ring to another, who showed off in the same manner. The right hand and arm of the pugilists were now bound with narrow country cloth, beginning with a fold round the middle finger, when, the hand being first clinched with the thumb between the fore and mid fingers, the cloth was passed in many turns round the fist, the wrist, and the fore arm. After about twenty had separately gone through their attitudes of defiance, and appeals to the bystanders, they were next brought forward by pairs. If they happened to be friends, they laid their left breasts together twice, and exclaimed, “We are lions;” “We are friends.” One then left the ring, and another was brought forward. If the two did not recognise one another as friends, the set-to immediately commenced. On taking their stations, the two pugilists first stood at some distance, parrying with the left hand open, and, whenever opportunity offered, striking with the right. They generally aimed at the pit of the stomach, and under the ribs. Whenever they closed, one seized the other’s head under his arm, and beat it with his fist, at the same time striking with his knee between his antagonist’s thighs. In this position, with the head in chancery, they are said sometimes to attempt to gouge or scoop out one of the eyes. When they break loose, they never fail to give a swinging blow with the heel under the ribs, or sometimes under the left ear. It is these blows which are so often fatal. The combatants were repeatedly separated by my orders, as they were beginning to lose their temper. When this spectacle was heard of, girls left their pitchers at the wells, the market people threw down their baskets, and all ran to see the fight. The whole square before my house was crowded to excess. After six pairs had gone through several rounds, I ordered them, to their great satisfaction, the promised reward, and the multitude quietly dispersed.
Both Hat Salah and Benderachmani, another Fezzan merchant residing here, had been with the late Mr. Hornemann at the time of his death. They travelled with him from Mourzuk to Nyffee, where he died of dysentery, after an illness of six days. He passed himself off as an English merchant, professing the Mahometan faith, and had sold two fine horses here. At my instance, Benderachmani sent a courier to Nyffee, to endeavour to recover Mr. Hornemann’s manuscripts, for which I offered him a reward of a hundred dollars; but, on my return from Sackatoo, I found the messenger come back with the information, that Jussuf Felatah, a learned man of the country, with whom Mr. Hornemann lodged, had been burned in his own house, together with all Mr. Hornemann’s papers, by the negro rabble, from a superstitious dread of his holding intercourse with evil spirits.
All the date trees, of which there is a great number, as well as the fig and pappaw trees, &c. together with the waste ground, and fields of wheat, onions, &c. bordering on the morass, belong to the governor. The date trees bear twice a year, before and after the annual rains, which fall between the middle of May and the end of August.
Cotton, after it is gathered from the shrub, is prepared by the careful housewife, or a steady female slave, by laying a quantity of it on a stone, or a piece of board, along which she twirls two slender iron rods about a foot in length, and thus dexterously separates the seeds from the cotton wool. The cotton is afterwards teazed or opened out with a small bone, something like an instrument used by us in the manufacture of hat felt. Women then spin it out of a basket upon a slender spindle. The basket always contains a little pocket mirror, used at least once every five minutes, for adjusting or contemplating their charms. It is now sold in yarn, or made into cloth. The common cloth of the country is, as formerly stated, only three or four inches broad. The weaver’s loom is very simple, having a fly and treadles like ours, but no beam; and the warp, fastened to a stone, is drawn along the ground as wanted. The shuttle is passed by the hand. When close at work, they are said to weave from twenty to thirty fathoms of cloth a day. Kano is famed over all central Africa for the dyeing of cloth; for which process there are numerous establishments. Indigo is here prepared in rather a different manner from that of India and America. When the plant is ripe, the fresh green tops are cut off, and put into a wooden trough about a foot and a half across, and one foot deep, in which, when pounded, they are left to ferment. When dry, this indigo looks like earth mixed with decayed grass, retains the shape of the trough, and three or four lumps being tied together with Indian corn-stalks, it is carried in this state to market. The apparatus for dyeing is a large pot of clay, about nine feet deep, and three feet broad, sunk in the earth. The indigo is thrown in, mixed with the ashes of the residuum of a former dyeing. These are prepared from the lees of the dye-pot, kneaded up and dried in the sun, after which they are burned. In the process of dyeing cold water alone is used. The articles to be dyed remain in the pot three or four days, and are frequently stirred up with a pole; besides which, they are well wrung out every night, and hung up to dry till morning, during which time the dye-pot is covered with a straw mat. After the tobes, turkadees, &c. are dyed, they are sent to the cloth-glazer, who places them between mats, laid over a large block of wood, and two men, with wooden mallets in each hand, continue to beat the cloth, sprinkling a little water from time to time upon the mats, until it acquires a japan-like gloss. The block for beating the tobes is part of the trunk of a large tree, and when brought to the gates of the city, the proprietor musters three or four drummers, at whose summons the mob never fails to assemble, and the block is gratuitously rolled to the workshop. The price of dyeing a good tobe of the darkest blue colour is 3000 cowries, or a dollar and a half; and for glazing it, 700 cowries. The total price of a tobe is 5000 cowries, and of a turkadee, from 2000 to 3000 cowries.