Our whole household now began to revive, and on Sunday we all met in the evening about sun-set, before the doors of our huts, and enjoyed the cool breeze for more than half an hour; even Doctor Oudney, whose eyes had ceased to be so painful, joined us—we had not enjoyed such a coterie for many months. A very hale strong negro woman, the mother of Mr. Clapperton’s servant, had taken the fever from her son, who had been more than a month laid on his back, and reduced her almost to death’s door. She was a Koorie from one of the islands to the east of the Tchad, and had sent for several fighis, who, after writing mysterious words, decided on her case as hopeless. At last an old Hadgi, more than seventy years of age, was requested to come to her:—he was a miserable old wretch, carrying nothing but an ink-bottle, made of a small gourd, and a few reed pens; but he set about his business with great form, and with the air of a master; and, in the evening, Zerega, my negro’s wife, came to me, quite in raptures at the following wonderful story: he said the woman was certainly enchanted, probably by the kaffirs, meaning the English, but, “By the head of the prophet,” he should drive the devil out of her, and which he called shetan (the devil). He wrote a new gidder (wooden bowl) all over sentences from the Koran; he washed it, and she drank the water; he said “Bismullah” forty times, and some other words, when she screamed out, and he directly produced two little red and white birds, which he said had come from her. “What did you do in that poor woman? she is not young,” said the fighi; “why perplex her? why did not you come out of her before?” “We did not wish to hurt her much,” said the birds; “but she has been kaffiring, old as she is, and must be punished: there are others in her yet who will not come out so easily; but now, since you are come, she will not die, but she had better take care for the future: we jumped into her when she went to the market; and she knows what she did there.” The poor woman shed an abundance of tears, and acknowledged that she had been a little thoughtless on the preceding market-day. The fighi was rewarded with her best Soudan shift, and they were all made happy at the news of her recovery.
October 7.—About three thousand of the sheikh’s spaheia (horsemen) had lately come in from the Tchad, Shary, and the different towns south and west of Angornou, in order that they might undergo a general inspection: their horses were in good condition. An extremely careful inspection took place by the sheikh himself, and punishment was instantly inflicted on any one who had a young horse, if it appeared to have been neglected: but those whose horses were old were excused, and the animal changed.
October 8.—A circumstance happened yesterday, which I acknowledge a good deal irritated my feelings. A Tripoli merchant had intrusted to one of the Mesurata a parcel of coral, to take for him to Angornou: it was, however, never forthcoming, and he declared that he had lost it on the road. The Koran law would not, in that case, oblige the loser to make good the loss—a thing lost is God’s will, and nobody’s fault. A servant of the owner, however, unluckily saw the coral afterwards in the Mesurata’s house; the merchant, therefore, appealed to the kadi, as, if he succeeded in proving this, the value would be recoverable. This servant had been for some time out of employ, and had assisted at our huts during the time that we had so many of our party sick. The kadi took this man’s oath, and was about to decide, when some one said, “Why, he eats bread and salt with the Christians.” “How!” said the kadi; “is that true?” “Yes,” replied he, “I have eaten their bread, but it was because no one else would feed me; but I don’t hate them the less for that.” “Turn him out,” said the kadi: “Staffur allah! God forbid that any one who has eaten with Christians should give justice by the laws of Mahommed!” His evidence was accordingly refused, and the merchant lost his cause. A Bornouese, a friend of mine, who was present, asked the kadi, with much simplicity, whether really these Christians were such bad people: “they seem kind,” said he; “and if they are so very bad, why does God suffer them to be so rich, and to know things so much better than we do?” “Don’t talk about them,” said the kadi, “don’t talk about them—please God, those who are here will die Mislem: as to their riches, let them enjoy them. God allows them the good things of this world, but to Mislem he has given paradise and eternity.” “Geree! geree!” (true! true!) was re-echoed from each; and the fatah was immediately recited aloud.
We had now received intelligence that the kafila which had left this place from Mourzuk, nearly a month since, was detained at Woodie, in consequence of the Tibboos having filled the wells between that place and Billma. Such of the Arabs as remained of our escort, after their return from Munga, left Kouka with the first kafila for Tripoli: they were all my professed friends; but, notwithstanding the miserable state in which they were, I had not the means of assisting them; the few dollars each man had received from the bashaw on quitting Tripoli, and all they possessed besides, being lost at Mandara, and they knew I was precisely in the same situation. One man in three or four sold his gun, an Arab’s greatest treasure, to provide them with water, skins, and corn, for their journey. Added to this, they were all weakened by sickness and wounds: the fancied riches they were to be masters of, by Boo-Khaloom’s victories over the Kerdies, had vanished into air, and they were about to return to their families after a year’s absence, even poorer than they left them.
That the desperation natural to an Arab should be excited by such circumstances was not to me a matter of surprise. I cautioned them, however, against returning to Tripoli with unclean hands: they promised fair enough, and even shuddered when I reminded them of the bashaw’s summary mode of punishing; all was, however, without effect; for, on arriving at the Tibboo country, they proceeded to the well Daggesheinga, a retreat which had been shown to Boo-Khaloom in confidence, on his last journey, by Mina Tahr, the road to which they too well remembered, and surprising the flocks of the Tibboos, and killing three of their people, marched off four hundred and upwards of their best maherhies: this had exasperated the Tibboos almost to madness; and they filled up all the wells, swearing they would be repaid, or that no kafilas should pass through their country. This news made us tremble for our supplies; but evils seemed to be crowding thick upon us, from all quarters. We discovered too, or thought we discovered, that the people now treated us with less respect, and were more lavish of the contemptuous appellations of kaffir, kelb, insara, unbeliever, dog, Christian, both to me and to our servants than formerly; and as the opinion of the oi polloi in all these countries is usually governed by authority, I concluded we had also lost ground in the estimation of the chief. A Bornou boy whom I had taken some notice of, and who used to come to me almost every day to talk Bornouese, was hooted in the streets, and called insara; and when we turned him from the huts for stealing nearly two dollars in strips of cloth, the money of the country, the people all exclaimed against such an act, as, by kaffiring with Christians, they said that the misfortune of being supposed a thief had come upon him.
October 10.—We had to-day a fresh breeze from the north-west, which was delightfully invigorating, and the natives promised us some few days of cold dry weather, which was to carry off all the fever and agues. This strongly reminded me of the Spanish villagers in Old Castile, who, during the sickly months of July and August, were, upon an average, three out of four confined to their beds with a very similar complaint: like these people, they took no medicines, but always said, “When the cold winds come we shall be better.” The winds in Bornou are regular and periodical: previous to our going to Munga, east and south-east winds were nearly constant; when the rainy season commenced, we had them from the south-west, with a thick atmosphere, a sultry, damp, and oppressive air. Previous to a storm, gusts of wind would accompany the black clouds which encompassed us, and blow with great force from the north-east; these winds, however, were not accompanied by such violent or lasting rains; but when the clouds formed themselves to the south-east, they were tremendous, accumulating, as it were, all their force, and gradually darkening into a deeper and more terrific black, with frequent and vivid forked lightning, accompanied by such deafening and repeated claps of thunder, as shook the ground beneath our feet like an earthquake. The rain always at these times burst upon us in torrents, continuing sometimes for several hours; while blasts of wind, from the same quarter, drove with a violence against our unsheltered huts, that made us expect, every instant, low as they were, to see the roofs fly from over our heads, and deprive us of the trifling protection they afforded. After these storms, the inclosures round our huts were often knee deep in water, and channels were formed, with all possible speed, in order to prevent the huts themselves from being inundated. At the full and change of the moon these storms were always most violent.
Oct. 16.—“How use doth breed a habit in a man.” Miserably solitary as were all my pursuits, disheartening as were my prospects, and demi-savage as was my life altogether, I was incapable of accounting, even to myself, for the tranquillity in which my days glided away. The appetite with which I generally devoured the rice or paste, which formed my lone repasts, for no one could endure the smell of food but myself, so heavy was sickness upon them; the satisfaction felt in my morning and evening visits to Barca Gana, and the plans, full of hope of further progress, which floated in my imagination, when at night I laid my head upon my pillow, frequently excited in my mind the most proud and grateful sensations.
I had been fully employed (convinced that I was best consulting the interests of the mission, the primary object of all my thoughts, by cultivating the favour and good will of the sheikh), during the two last days in superintending the manufacture of cartridges, for the two field-pieces, which were now both mounted, as we had plenty of very good paper for the purpose with us. In this I succeeded to my wishes; but the providing of balls was a great difficulty; and after trying a number of musket-balls in a small linen bag, which would not answer, I succeeded in getting from the negro blacksmith, by means of a paper model, a small tin canister, the size of the mouth of the piece, and holding sixteen musket balls. The sheikh’s delight was extreme at this acquisition to his own implements of war, and he became impatient to see the guns exercised. I offered, if he would appoint six of his best slaves, three to each gun, that I would instruct them as well as I was able—as firing them quick was a very material augmentation of their utility; and I at the same time strongly recommended his holding forth to his people the promise of reward, in the event of their being brought safe out of battle; and that the punishment would be most severe in case they were deserted, and fell into the hands of an enemy. The sheikh’s preparation for war had been carried on for the last two months with great vigour; his whole armoury had been renovated; and he told me, exultingly, that he had two hundred guns, pistols, and carbines—although from the locks of full fifty it would have been in vain to attempt producing fire.
The sheikh had, in the beginning of his conquests, seen the advantage of encouraging the discontented of other countries to settle in his new towns; and, besides the Kanemboo who accompanied him, he had Tuaricks, Tibboos, Arabs, and Begharmis,—and on those he appeared to rest his chief reliance. To check this warlike spirit was far from his wish or interest; for by indulging it, he not only enriched himself, and his people, and strengthened his power, but might also hope to render it eventually a source of strength, prosperity, and permanency to his kingdom.
Notwithstanding the business of war appeared so fully to occupy the sheikh’s thoughts, yet his anxiety for a reformation, as despotic as it was impracticable, amongst the frail of his woman-kind, was still uppermost in his mind; an instance of which occurred when two of these unfortunates fell into his hands, whose sinnings were placed beyond all doubt by the activity of the spies he employed to watch over this department; and although his decisions on ordinary occasions were ever on the side of mercy, these poor girls were sentenced to be hanged by the neck until they were dead[38]. The agitation and sorrow which the threatened execution of these two girls, who were both of them under seventeen, excited in the minds of all the people, were most creditable to their feelings; and although on other occasions their submission to the decrees of their chief was abject in the extreme, yet on this (to say the least of it) rigorous sentence being made public, loud murmurs were uttered by the men, and railings by the women. The lover of one of the girls swore that he would stab any man who attempted to place the rope. He had offered to read the fatah with her[39], which offer had been refused. The general feeling was pity, and the severity of the punishment caused the sin to be almost forgotten, which would not have been the case had the penalty been of a more lenient nature: indeed, it was natural that pity should be felt—notwithstanding all one’s morality, it was impossible to feel otherwise. The day after (for punishments are summary in eastern countries) was fixed for the expiation of their crime, but a fighi, nearly equal to the sheikh in skill, took upon himself to remonstrate, and declared such punishments were themselves haram (sins), for in no part of the Koran could an authority be found for such a sentence. To disgrace or set a mark on such culprits was the law of the Prophet, not death;—and that should these poor offenders suffer, God would avenge their death on the country, and sickness, with bad crops, would come upon them. The sheikh for a long time continued inexorable, and observed that riches, plenty, and prosperity, without virtue, were not worth possessing—the punishment of the two girls, however, was eventually commuted to that of head-shaving, a heavy disgrace, and which was performed in the public street.