| Drawn by Major Denham. | Engraved by E. Finden. |
ARRIVAL AT MORA.
THE CAPITAL OF MANDARA.
Published Feb. 1826, by John Murray, London.
The parley was carried on in the Mandara language, by means of an interpreter; and I understood that we were to visit the sultan in the course of the day, and hear his determination.
Boo-Khaloom was, as usual, very sanguine: he said “he should make the sultan handsome presents, and that he was quite sure a Kirdy[25] town full of people would be given him to plunder.” The Arabs were all eagerness; they eyed the Kirdy huts, which were now visible on the sides of mountains before us, with longing eyes; and contrasting their own ragged and almost naked state with the appearance of the sultan of Mandara’s people in their silk tobes, not only thought, but said, “if Boo-Khaloom pleased, they would go no further; this would do.” Boo-Khaloom and the Arab sheikhs had repeatedly exclaimed, when urging El Kanemy to send them to some country for slaves, “Never mind their numbers! arrows are nothing! and ten thousand spears are of no importance. We have guns! guns!” exclaiming, with their favourite imprecations, “Nakalou-e-kelab fesaa,” (We’ll eat them, the dogs, quickly)—“eich nu, abeed occul,” (what! why, they are negroes all!) I fancied I could see the keen features of El Kanemy curl at these contemptuous expressions, which equally applied to his own people; and certainly nothing could be more galling than for him to hear them from such a handful of Arabs: his own people were abeed occul, and their only arms spears and arrows, and this he could not but feel and remember.
Towards the evening Barca Gana sent to desire me to mount, for the purpose of visiting the sultan. We entered the town, Boo-Khaloom and myself riding on his right and left; and at the farther end of a large square was the sultan’s palace. As is usual on approaching or visiting a great man, we galloped up to the skiffa at full speed, almost entering the gates. This is a perilous sort of salutation, but nothing must stop you; and it is seldom made except at the expense of one or more lives. On this occasion, a man and horse, which stood in our way, were ridden over in an instant, the horse’s leg broke, and the man killed on the spot. The trumpets sounded as we dismounted at the palace gate; our papouches, or outward slippers, were quickly pulled off; and we proceeded through a wide skiffa, or entrance, into a large court, where, under a dark blue tent of Soudan, sat the sultan, on a mud bench, covered however with a handsome carpet and silk pillows: he was surrounded by about two hundred persons, all handsomely dressed in tobes of silk and coloured cotton, with his five eunuchs; the principal men of the country sitting in front, but all with their backs turned towards him. The manner of saluting is curious: Barca Gana, as the sheikh’s representative, approached to a space in front of the eunuchs, his eyes fixed on the ground; he then sat down, with his eyes still fixed on the earth, with his back to the sultan, and, clapping his hands together, exclaimed, “Engouborou dagah! (May you live for ever!)—Allah kiaro! (God send you a happy old age!)—La, lai, barca, barca. (How is it with you? blessing! blessing!)” These words were repeated nearly by the sultan, and then sung out by all the court. The fatah was then said, and they proceeded to business. Boo-Khaloom produced some presents, which were carried off by the eunuchs unopened; the sultan then expressed his wish to serve him; said he would consider his request, and in a day or two give him his decision.
The sultan, whose name was Mohamed Bucker, was an intelligent little man of about fifty, with a beard dyed of a most beautiful sky-blue; he had been eyeing me for some time, as I sat between Boo-Khaloom and Barca Gana, and first asking Boo-Khaloom his name, inquired who I was? The answer that I was a native of a very distant and powerful nation, friends of the bashaw of Tripoli and the sheikh, who came to see the country, did not appear much to surprise him; and he looked gracious as he said, “But what does he want to see?” A fatal question however followed, and the answer appeared to petrify the whole assembly:—“Are they Moslem?” “La! la! (No! no!)” Every eye, which had before been turned towards me, was now hastily withdrawn, and, looking round, I really felt myself in a critical situation. “Has the great bashaw Kaffir friends?” said the sultan. The explanation which followed was of little use: they knew no distinctions; Christians they had merely heard of as the worst people in the world, and, probably, until they saw us, scarcely believed them to be human. We shortly after returned to our camp, and I never afterwards was invited to enter the sultan of Mandara’s presence.
Our tents had been pitched but a short distance from the town of Mora, and on our return upwards of forty slaves, preceded by one of the sultan’s eunuchs, came to the camp, bearing wooden bowls filled with paste of the gussub flour, with hot fat and pepper poured over it, mixed with a proportionate seasoning of onions. This was considered as the very acmè of Mandara cooking; it was savoury, and not very unpleasant; but a few sides of mutton roasted, which came for the chiefs, was the better part of our fare. Malem Chadily betook himself to another bowl, because on Barca Gana’s putting the mess towards me, I had, as usual, plunged my right hand in without any ceremony. Barca Gana saw that I observed it, and his dread of the sheikh’s displeasure induced him to make some observation in Bornouese, which drove the fighi out of the tent: this distressed me, and I determined on adopting some measures for preventing the repetition of these disagreeables.
On the 23d we halted; but I was so dreadfully bitten by the ants and other insects, which beset us in myriads, that my hands and eyes were so swelled that I could scarcely hold a pen, or see to use one: added to this, the heat was again insufferable; for several hours in the middle of the day, the thermometer was as high as 113°. Covering myself up with all the blankets I could find afforded me the greatest relief—these defending me as well from the flies as the power of the sun: occasionally making my negro pour cold water on my head was another undescribable comfort. I passed the greater part of the evening with Boo-Khaloom, who had seen the sultan of Mandara in the day. He complained of being delayed; but was, nevertheless, still sanguine, and believed the sultan was endeavouring to find him a Kerdy country, which he was to attack; it, however, never was the intention of the sultan of Mandara to take any such steps, or the sheikh’s wish that he should. It was against people who would create in the Arabs a little more respect for spears and arrows, that the sheikh wished them to be sent; and this he thought could not better be accomplished than by consigning them to the sultan of Mandara, whose natural enemies, as well as his own, were the Felatahs, the most warlike people in the whole country.