Chiefs in this part of Africa are accompanied by as many personal followers as they think proper to maintain, both as horse and footmen: some of them form the band, if I may so call it. Barca Gana had five mounted, who kept close behind him, three of whom carried a sort of drum, which hung round their necks, and beat time while they sang extempore songs; one carried a small pipe made of a reed, and the other blew, on a buffalo’s horn, loud and deep-toned blasts, as we moved through the wood: but by far the most entertaining and useful were the running footmen, who preceded the kashella, and acted as pioneers; they were twelve in number, and carried long forked poles, with which they, with great dexterity, kept back the branches, as they moved on at a quick pace, constantly keeping open a path, which would without them really have been scarcely passable; they, besides this, were constantly crying aloud something about the road, or the expedition, as they went on. For example: “Take care of the holes!—avoid the branches!—Here is the road!—take care of the tulloh!—its branches are like spears—worse than spears! Keep off the branches!” “For whom?” “Barca Gana.”—“Who in battle is like rolling of thunder?” “Barca Gana!”—“Now for Mandara!—now for the Kerdies!—now for the battle of spears!—Who is our leader?” “Barca Gana.”—“Here is the wadey, but no water.”—“God be praised!”—“In battle, who spreads terror around him like a buffalo in his rage?” “Barca Gana[24]”.
This sort of question and answer, at once useful and exhilarating, is constantly kept up until the time of halting. We did not move from Affagay until the next morning, when the whole army were supplied with bullocks and sheep. This was the first meal I had made since leaving Angornou, and the following is their method of roasting the meat: the sheep were killed, cut in half, and laid upon a frame-work of wood made of strong stakes, and having four supporters; under it was a strong fire, and by this means the meat was roasted better than I ever saw it done in any part of Europe except my own country. Towards the evening I received a summons from Barca Gana, and in his tent found five or six of the chiefs assembled: half of a roasted sheep was laid on green boughs placed on the sand before us; the black chiefs then stripped off the dark blue shirt, their only covering; the sharpest dagger in the party was searched for, and being given to one who acted as carver, large slices of the flesh were cut, distributed about, and quickly devoured without either bread or salt: when we arrived at the bones, another side shared the same fate, and our repast closed by huge draughts from a large wooden bowl of rice water, honey, tamarinds, and red pepper, which nobody was allowed to drink of but myself and the kashella.—I expressed my satisfaction at this plentiful feast. Barca Gana said, “What the country afforded he always lived on; that he never carried any thing with him in these expeditions but a kind of paste, made of rice, flour, and honey, which, mixed with water, he took, morning and evening, when no better fare was to be had.”
On the 20th at noon we reached Delahay, our road lying through a thick wood. Delahay is a spot surrounded by large wide-spreading acacias, affording a delightful shade; and here there are between thirty and forty wells of very sweet water: the huts of a numerous tribe of Shouaas, called Hajainy, are near this place. It was a cloudy day, sultry and oppressive; the thermometer in my tent, in the afternoon, was at 109°. In the evening we made another halting-place, called Hasbery, where we found no water; having come a distance of thirty-four miles.
The whole of this country is covered with alluvial soil; has a dark clayey appearance. Cracks, several inches in width, make the roads difficult, and, in the wet season, the water which falls remains on the ground for several months after. This evening, Boo-Khaloom’s camels, unable to keep pace with the light-footed maherhies of the Bornou people, were so long in coming up, that he came to Barca Gana’s tent, and a few unfortunate questions put to him, on the subject of my religion, sank me wofully in the opinion of my Bornou friends. Boo-Khaloom had been a great traveller, and was extremely liberal in his religious opinions for a Musselman; more so than he dared to acknowledge to these bigoted followers of the Prophet. The kashella’s fighi, Malem Chadily, had always eyed me with a look of suspicion, and had once said, when the whole army halted, at dawn, “Do you wash and pray?” “Yes,” said I. “Where?” rejoined the fighi. “In my tent,” I replied. This fighi, who continued throughout my mortal enemy and annoyance, now asked Boo-Khaloom “what these English were? were they Hanafy or Maleki?” still believing, that as we appeared a little better than the Kerdies, or savages, that we must be Moslem in some way or other. Boo-Khaloom answered, with some hesitation, “No: that we were mesquine (unfortunate); that we believed not in ‘the book,’ the title always given to the Koran; that we did not sully, or pray, as they did, five times a day; that we were not circumcised; that we had a book of our own, which did not mention Saidna Mohamed, and that, blind as we were, we believed in it: but In sh’ allah,” added he, “they will see their error, and die Musselmans, for they are naz zein zein Yassur (good people, very good).” This account was followed by a general groan; and the fighi clasped his hands, looked thoughtful, and then said, “Why does not the great bashaw of Tripoli make them all Musselmans?” This question made Boo-Khaloom smile: “Why!” replied Boo-Khaloom, “that he could not very well do, great as he is; these people are powerful, very powerful, and an affront to even one of these might cost the bashaw his kingdom:—they are also rich, very rich.” “May it please the Lord quickly to send all their riches into the hands of true Musselmans,” said the fighi; to which the whole assembly echoed “Amen.” “However,” continued Boo-Khaloom, “there are insara Yassur fi denier (a great many Christians in the world), but the English are the best of any; they worship no images; they believe in one God, and are almost Moslem.” This was as much as he could say, although it raised me but little in the fighi’s estimation; and as he decided, so every body was obliged to think.
Our rice water, and honey, was always brought in a brass basin tinned on the inside, such as are only used by sultans and people of the highest rank, wooden bowls being always drunk out of by the people; and out of this basin Barca Gana and myself only were allowed to drink. To-night, while I was drinking, the fighi made some remark; what I left in the bowl was instantly thrown away, and soon after a separate vessel was assigned me.
We continued our course to Ally Mabur, where there is a large lake of still water. The horses, who had not drunk the night before, rushed into the lake by hundreds, and, in consequence, the water we got to drink was nearly as thick as pease-soup. The day was dreadfully sultry. My camel not coming up, I could not pitch my tent, and I became nearly exhausted by the intolerable heat. The thermometer was at 113° in the best shade I could find, and covered completely with a cloth, besides a thick woollen bornouse, I kept up some little moisture by excluding entirely all external air; still it was almost insupportable.
Ally Mabur, in the afternoon, and at night, halted at an open spot in the wood called Emcheday. The trees we had seen within the last two days were of a much larger kind, and the underwood less. We had no water but the muddy beverage we had brought with us. Through an open space, or break in the wood, I had this day seen part of the Mandara hills, and had passed an extensive line of huts belonging to the Beni-hassan Shouaas. We were now but a few miles from the capital of Mandara, and several persons had arrived from the sultan, within the last two days, to welcome Barca Gana; but this evening one of his chiefs came, attended by about twenty horsemen, saying, “that the sultan would himself meet us the next day, on the road to Mora, his residence.” Our force had been increased, during the march, by several Shouaa sheikhs joining us, with their followers, both from the banks of the Tchad and from the west. We always found them drawn up on a certain spot on the road; and their salutation was by charging rapidly up, and shaking the spear at the kashella, wishing he might “crush his enemies as an elephant tramples on his victim,” and such like expressions.
By these accessions we were now upwards of three thousand strong, all cavalry, with the exception of about eighty Arabs on foot. We continued to approach a noble chain of hills, which were now full in our view, of considerable height and extent, with numerous trees growing on their steep and rugged sides. Delow, the first town we arrived at in Mandara, formerly the residence of the sultan, containing at least 10,000 inhabitants, has springs of beautiful fresh water; and in the valleys fig-trees; and trees, which bore a white flower resembling the zeringa, possessing a grateful odour, were plentiful.
At about a mile from this town, we saw before us the sultan of Mandara, surrounded by about five hundred horsemen, posted on a rising ground ready to receive us, when Barca Gana instantly commanded a halt. Different parties now charged up to the front of our line, and wheeling suddenly round, charged back again to the sultan. These people were finely dressed in Soudan tobes of different colours; dark blue, and striped with yellow and red; bornouses of coarse scarlet cloth; with large turbans of white or dark coloured cotton. Their horses were really beautiful, larger and more powerful than any thing found in Bornou, and they managed them with great skill. The sultan’s guard was composed of thirty of his sons, all mounted on very superior horses, clothed in striped silk tobes; and the skin of the tiger-cat and leopard forming their shabracks, which hung fully over their horses’ haunches. After these had returned to their station in front of the sultan, we approached at full speed in our turn, halting with the guard between us and the royal presence. The parley then commenced, and the object of Boo-Khaloom’s visit having been explained, we retired again to the place we had left; while the sultan returned to the town, preceded by several men blowing long pipes, not unlike clarionets, ornamented with shells, and two immense trumpets from twelve to fourteen feet long, borne by men on horseback, made of pieces of hollow wood, with a brass mouth-piece, the sounds of which were not unpleasing.
