Greatly delighted with my visit to the market, though not a little affected by the exposure to the sun during the hot hours, I returned to my quarters; for though a practised traveller will bear very well the most scorching power of the sun, if he sets out in the morning and by degrees becomes inured to greater and greater heat, he may suffer fatally from exposing himself for a long time to the midday sun, after having spent the morning in the shade. Later in the afternoon, the governor sent, as a gift to me and ʿAbd el Khafíf, through his principal courtiers (such as the ghaladíma, the chiróma, and others, who were accompanied by a long train of followers), a young bullock, they being instructed at the same time to receive in return the present, or “salám,” as it is generally called, which we had prepared for him. I gave them a subéta and a small flask with rose oil, which is an article in great request with the fashionable world in Háusa and Bórnu. In the evening, we received also corn for our horses.
Saturday, March 15.—This was a most fortunate and lucky day for me; for suddenly, when I least expected it, I was visited by an Arab from Sókna, of the name of Mohammed el Mughárbi, who had just arrived with a little caravan of Swákena from Múrzuk, and brought me a considerable number of letters from friends in Tripoli, England, and Germany, after my having been deprived of news from them for ten months. The letters gave me great delight; but besides the letters there was something with them which touched me more sensibly, by the providential way in which it supplied my most urgent wants.
I was extremely short of cash, and having spent almost my whole supply of shells in fitting up my quarters, paying my guides, and discharging Makhmúd, who had proved quite unfit for service, I had very little left wherewith to provide for our wants on our long journey to Kúkawa. How surprised and delighted was I, then, on opening Mr. Gagliuffi’s letter, at the unexpected appearance of two Spanish dollars, which he forwarded to me in order to make good an error in my account with him. Two Spanish dollars! it was the only current money I had at that time; and they were certainly more valuable to me than so many hundreds of pounds at other times. However, the rascal who brought me the letters had also merchandise on the account of the mission, to the value of one hundred pounds; but, either because he wished to deliver it to the director himself, or in order to obtain also the hire stipulated for him if he should be obliged to carry the merchandise on to Kúkawa, he declared that the things had gone on in advance to Kanó,—an evident falsehood, which eventually caused us much unnecessary expense, and brought Mr. Overweg and myself into the greatest distress; for I did not, in fact, receive this merchandise till after my return from Ádamáwa—having subsisted all the time upon “air and debts.”
This and the following day I was busy answering my letters, and I will only mention here that from this place I intimated to one of my friends—Mr. Richard Lepsius, of Berlin—my foreboding that it might be my destiny, after trying in vain to penetrate to any great distance in a south-eastern direction, to turn my steps westwards, and to fill up my researches into the regions about Timbúktu by my personal experience. Having finished my parcel of letters, I gave it to the Mughárbi to take with him to Kanó, and entrust it to the care of one of my Tinýlkum friends, who would soon forward it to Múrzuk. Having been thus freshly imbued with the restless impulse of European civilization, and strengthened with the assurance that highly respected persons at such a distance took a deep interest in the results of our proceedings, I resolved not to linger a moment longer in this place, but rather to forego the company of my amiable friend, particularly as I knew that he was going to Múniyo, and therefore, after a few days’ march, would at all events separate from me. And I did well; for my friend did not reach Kúkawa before the middle of May, that is, six weeks after me. Such are the Arabs, and woe to him who relies upon them! The same thing happened to me on my successful return from Bórnu to the coast in 1855. Everybody assured me that the caravan was to leave immediately: but I went on alone in May, and reached Tripoli in August, while the caravan did not reach Múrzuk before March 1856. I therefore sent to Dan-Tanóma, begging him to furnish me with a horseman who would escort me to Máshena, and he assented. It was a hazardous and troublesome undertaking: I had only one servant, faithful, but young, and who had never before travelled this road; besides a little boy, delicate in body and unsteady in mind, and I was sure that I myself should have to do half the work, as well in loading and unloading the camels as in pitching the tent, and looking after everything.
Monday, March 17.—Having, taken a hearty leave of ʿAbd el Khafíf, I followed my camels and—my good luck. This was the first time on my journey that I travelled quite alone, and I felt very happy, though, of course, I should have been glad to have had one or two good servants.
The country on the east side of Gúmmel, at least at this time of the year, presented a very dull and melancholy appearance, and the most decided contrast to that cheerful and splendid scenery which is peculiar to the landscape round Kanó. Nevertheless, it seemed to be well inhabited, and we passed several places, some of them of tolerable size, and surrounded with earthen walls, of very inconsiderable elevation, and ditches; the courtyards, especially in the first town which we passed, the name of which is Kadángaré, “the lizard” in Háusa, were wide and spacious. A little later in the season the drought must be terribly felt in these quarters; for even at present we had great difficulty in watering our horses and filling a water-skin. Trees of good size became continually more scarce, but the country was still well inhabited, and after ten o’clock, near the little town Gósuwa, surrounded likewise by a low earthen wall, we reached a small market-place, consisting of about thirty stalls, where a market is held every Sunday; the town, however, was not thickly inhabited, and near its north-east corner especially there were large empty spaces.
Beyond this place the country became a little richer in trees, and we here passed a large village called Gáreji, where a path branches off leading to Maimágariá, a road generally taken by caravans. The population of all these places is composed of Bórnu and Háusa people, and many particular customs might be observed hereabouts, which are rather peculiar to the latter race. Dull as the country appeared, a feeling of tranquillity and security was communicated by the sight of little granaries, such as I have described above, scattered about without any protection in the neighbourhood of some villages. After we had passed the empty market-place of the little walled town Kábbori, the surface of the ground had a very peculiar look, being covered entirely with colocynths, which were just in maturity. About a mile and a half further on we took up our quarters in Benzári, a town belonging to the province of Máshena, or Másena, and were well received and hospitably treated by the ghaladíma. The town is separated into two parts by a spacious opening, wherein is the principal well which supplies almost the whole population, but its depth is considerable, being more than twenty fathoms. Here we filled our water-skin the next morning before we set out.
Tuesday, March 18.—Scarcely had we left Benzári behind us when my ears were struck by the distant sound of drums and singing, and I learnt on inquiry that it was Bokhári, or, as the Bórnu people call him, Bowári, the deposed governor of Khadéja and the brother of Áhmedu, the present ruler of that town. Bokhári’s name was then new, not only to me, but even to the natives of the neighbouring provinces. He had been governor of Khadéja, but being a clever and restless man he, or rather his jealous brother, had excited the suspicion of his liege lord ʿAlíyu, the ruler of Sókoto, who had deposed him and given the government to his brother Áhmedu, whereupon Bokhári had nothing else to do but to throw himself upon the hospitality and protection of the Bórnu people, who received him with open arms, the governor of Máshena, with the sanction of his liege lord the sheikh of Bórnu, assigning to him a neighbouring place, Yerímarí, for his residence. This is an incident of very frequent occurrence in these loosely connected empires; but it is particularly so with the Fúlbe, among whom one brother often cherishes the most inveterate hatred against another. Exactly the same thing we have seen already in Kátsena. Bokhári having remained some time quietly in this place, strengthening his party and assisted underhand with arms and men by the vizier of Bórnu, had just now set out to try his fortune against his brother, and was beating the drums in order to collect as many people as possible.
Predatory incursions are nothing new in these quarters, where several provinces and entirely distinct empires have a common frontier; but this, as the event proved, was rather a memorable campaign for the whole of this part of Negroland, and was to become “the beginning of sorrows” for all the country around. For Bokhári having taken the strong town of Khadéja, and killed his brother, was not only able to defend himself in his new position, vanquishing all the armies sent against him, and amongst them the whole military force of the empire of Sókoto, which was led on by the vizier in person, ʿAbdu the son of Gegádo, Clapperton’s old friend, but spread terror and devastation to the very gates of Kanó. Indeed, on my second journey through these regions, I shall have the sad duty of describing the state of misery into which districts, which on my former visit I had found flourishing and populous, had been reduced by this warlike chieftain, who instead of founding a strong kingdom and showing himself a great prince, chose rather, like most of his countrymen, to base his power on the destruction and devastation of the country around him, and to make himself a slave-dealer on a grand scale. Tens of thousands of unfortunate people, pagans as well as Mohammedans, unprotected in their wellbeing by their lazy and effeminate rulers, have from the hands of Bokhári passed into those of the slave-dealer, and have been carried away from their native home into distant regions.
Kept in alarm by the drumming, and making some not very tranquillizing reflections on the weakness of our little band, which consisted of three men and a boy, in the turbulent state of the country through which we were passing, we continued silently on, while the character of the landscape had nothing peculiarly adapted to cheer the mind. Cultivation beginning to cease, nothing was to be seen but an immense level tract of country covered with the monotonous Asclepias gigantea with only a single poor Balanites now and then. But the scene became more animated as we approached Chifówa, a considerable town surrounded by a low earthen wall, which I was greatly astonished to hear belonged still to the territory of Gúmmel, and was also assigned to Bokhári during his exile. The boundary between the provinces must run here in a very waving line.