Travels and discoveries in North and Central Africa

by Heinrich Barth

In the afternoon of the 15th of October (the eve of the great holiday) ten chiefs of the Kél-gerés, on horseback, entered the town, and towards evening news was brought that Astáfidet, the chief of the Kél-owí residing in Ásodi, was not far off, and would make his solemn entry early in the morning. My companions, therefore, were extremely busy in getting ready and cleaning their holiday dress, or “yadó,” and Hámma could not procure tassels enough to adorn his high red cap, in order to give to his short figure a little more height. Poor fellow! he was really a good man, and one of the best of the Kél-owí; and the news of his being killed, in the sanguinary battle which was fought between his tribe and the Kél-gerés in 1854, grieved me not a little. In the evening there were singing and dancing (“wargi” and “wása”) all over the town, and all the people were merry except the followers of Mákita, or Ímkiten, “the Pretender,” and the Sultan ʿAbd el Káder was obliged to imprison three chiefs of the Itísan, who had come to urge Mákita’s claims.

It was on this occasion that I learnt that the mighty King of Ágades had not only a common prison, “gida-n-damré,” wherein he might confine the most haughty chiefs, but that he even exercised over them the power of life and death, and that he dispensed the favours of a terrible dungeon, bristling with swords and spears standing upright, upon which he was authorized to throw any distinguished malefactor. This latter statement, of the truth of which I had some doubt, was afterwards confirmed to me by the old chief Ánnur. In any case, however, such a cruel punishment cannot but be extremely rare.

Wednesday, October 16.—The 10th of Dhú el kádhi, 1266, was the first day of the great festival ʿAid el kebír, or Salla-léja (the feast of the sacrifice of the sheep), which in these regions is the greatest holiday of the Mohammedans, and was in this instance to have a peculiar importance and solemnity for Agades, as the installation of ʿAbd el Káder, who had not yet publicly assumed the government, was to take place the same day. Early in the morning, before daylight, Hámma and his companions left the house and mounted their camels, in order to pay their compliments to Astáfidet, and join him in his procession; and about sunrise the young chief entered and went directly to the “fáda,” at the head of from two hundred to three hundred Mehára, having left the greater number of his troop, which was said to amount to about two thousand men, outside the town.

Then, without much ceremony or delay, the installation, or “sarauta” of the new Sultan took place. The ceremonial was gone through inside the fáda, but this was the procedure: First of all, ʿAbd el Káder was conducted from his private apartments to the public hall. Then the chiefs of the Itísan and Kél-gerés, who went in front, begged him to sit down upon the “gadó,” a sort of couch or divan made of the leaves of the palm-tree, or of the branches of other trees, similar to the angaríb used in Egypt and the lands of the Upper Nile, and covered with mats and a carpet. Upon this the new Sultan sat down, resting his feet on the ground, not being allowed to put them upon the gadó, and recline in the Oriental style, until the Kél-owí desired him to do so. Such is the ceremony, symbolical of the combined participation of these different tribes in the investiture of their Sultan.

This ceremony being concluded, the whole holiday procession left the palace on its way to a chapel of a merábet called Sídi Hammáda, in Tára-bére, outside the town, where, according to an old custom, the prince was to say his prayers. This is a rule prevailing over the whole of Mohammedan Africa, and one which I myself witnessed in some of the most important of its capitals—in Ágades, in Kúkawa, in Más-eña, in Sókoto, and in Timbúktu; everywhere the principle is the same. Not deeming it prudent on such an occasion to mix with the people, I witnessed the whole procession from the terrace of our house, though I should have liked to have had a nearer view. The procession having taken its course through the most important quarter of the town, and through the market-places, turned round from the “káswa-n-delélti” to the oldest quarter of the town, and then returned westward, till at last it reached the above-mentioned chapel or tomb of Sídi Hammáda, where there is a small cemetery. The prayers being finished, the procession returned by the southern part of the town, and about ten o’clock the different parties which had composed the cortège separated.

In going as well as in returning the order of the procession was as follows: In front of all, accompanied by the musicians, rode the Sultan, on a very handsome horse of Tawáti breed, wearing, over his fine Sudán robe of coloured cotton and silk, the blue bernús I had presented to him, and wearing on his side a handsome scimitar with gold handle. Next to him rode the two sáraki-n-turáwa—Bóro, the ex-serki, on his left, and Ashu, who held the office at the time, on his right—followed by the “fádawa-n-serki,” after whom came the chiefs of the Itísan and Kél-gerés, all on horseback, in full dress and armour, with their swords, daggers, long spears, and immense shields.

Then came the longer train of the Kél-owí, mostly on mehára, or swift camels, with Sultan Astáfidet at their head; and last of all followed the people of the town, a few on horseback, but most of them on foot, and armed with swords and spears, and several with bows and arrows. The people were all dressed in their greatest finery, and it would have formed a good subject for an artist. It recalled the martial processions of the Middle Ages, the more so as the high caps of the Tuarek, surrounded by a profusion of tassels on every side, together with the black “tesílgemist,” or lithám, which covers the whole face, leaving nothing but the eyes visible, and the shawls wound over this and round the cap, combine to imitate the shape of the helmet, while the black and coloured tobes (over which on such occasions the principal people wear a red bernús thrown across their shoulders) represent very well the heavier dress of the knights of yore. I will only add that the fact of the Sultan wearing on so important and solemn an occasion a robe which had been presented to him by a stranger and a Christian had a powerful influence on the tribes collected here, and spread a beneficial report far westward over the desert.

Shortly after the procession was over, the friendly Haj ʿAbdúwa, who, after he had parted from us in Eghellál, had attached himself to the troop of Astáfidet, came to pay me a visit. He was now tolerably free from fever, but begged for some Epsom salts, besides a little gunpowder. He informed me that there was much sickness in the town, that from two to three people died daily, and that even Astáfidet was suffering from the prevalent disease. This was the small-pox, a very fatal disease in Central Africa, against which, however, several of the native Pagan tribes secure themselves by inoculation, a precaution from which Mohammedans are withheld by religious prejudice. I then received a visit from the sons of Bóro, in their official character as “fádawa-n-serki.” They wished to inform themselves, apparently, with reference to my adventure the other night, whether the townspeople behaved well towards me; and I was prudent enough to tell them that I had nothing to complain of, my alarm having been the consequence of my own imprudence. In fact the people behaved remarkably well, considering that I was the first Christian that ever visited the town; and the little explosions of fanaticism into which the women and children sometimes broke out, when they saw me on our terrace, rather amused me. During the first days of my residence in Ágades they most probably took me for a Pagan or a Polytheist, and cried after me the confessional words of Islam, laying all the stress upon the word Allah, “the One God;” but after a few days, when they had learnt that I likewise worshipped the Deity, they began to emphasize the name of their Prophet.

There was held about sunset a grave and well-attended divan of all the chiefs, to consult with respect to a “yáki,” or “égehen,” a ghazzia to be undertaken against the Mehárebin or freebooters of the Awelímmiden. While we were still in Tin-téllust the rumour had spread of an expedition undertaken by the latter tribe against Aïr, and the people were all greatly excited. For the poor Kél-owí, who have degenerated from their original vigour and warlike spirit by their intermixture with the black population and by their peaceable pursuits, are not less afraid of the Awelímmiden than they are of the Kél-gerés; and old Ánnur himself used to give me a dreadful description of that tribe, at which I afterwards often laughed heartily with the very people whom he intended to depict to me as monsters. By way of consoling us for the losses we had sustained, and the ill-treatment we had experienced from the people of Aïr, he told us that among the Awelímmiden we should have been exposed to far greater hardships, as they would not have hesitated to cut the tent over our heads into pieces, in order to make shirts of it. The old chief’s serious speeches had afterwards the more comical effect upon me as the tent alluded to, a common English marquee, mended as it was with cotton strips of all the various fashions of Negroland, constantly formed a subject of the most lively scientific dispute among those barbarians, who, not having seen linen before, were at a loss to make out of what stuff it was originally made. But, unluckily, I had not among the Kél-owí such a steadfast protector and mediator and so sensible a friend as I had when, three years later, I went among the Awelímmiden, who would certainly have treated me in another way if I had fallen into their hands unprotected.

The old and lurking hostility amongst the Kél-owí and Kél-gerés, which was at this very moment threatening an outbreak, had been smoothed down by the influential and intelligent chief Sídi Ghalli el Háj Ánnur (properly Eʾ Núr), one of the first men in Ágades; and those tribes had sworn to forget their private animosities, in order to defend themselves against, and revenge themselves upon, their common enemy the Awelímmiden. Hámma was very anxious to get from me a good supply of powder for Sídi Ghalli, who was to be the leader of the expedition; but I had scarcely any with me. While I was reclining in the evening rather mournfully upon my mat, not having been out of the house these last few days, the old friendly blacksmith came up, and invited me to a promenade, and with the greatest pleasure I acceded to the proposal. We left the town by the eastern side, the moon shining brightly, and throwing her magic light over the ruins of this once wealthy abode of commerce. Turning then a little south, we wandered over the pebbly plain till the voices heard from the encampment of the Kél-gerés frightened my companion, and we turned more northwards to the wells in Amelúli; having rested here awhile, we returned to our quarters.