What the revenue of the Sultan may at present amount to it is difficult to say. His means and income consist chiefly in the presents which he receives on his accession to authority, in a contribution of one bullock’s hide or kulábu (being about the value of half a Spanish dollar) from each family, in a more considerable but rather uncertain tribute levied upon the Imghád, in the tax of ten mithkáls or four Spanish dollars which he levies on each camel-load of foreign merchandise which enters the town of Ágades (articles of food being exempt from charge), in a small tribute derived from the salt brought from Bilma, and in the fines levied on lawless people and marauders, and often on whole tribes. Thus it is very probable that the expedition which ʿAbd el Káder undertook immediately after his accession, against the tribes who had plundered us, enriched him considerably. As for the inhabitants of Ágades themselves, I was assured that they do not pay him any tribute at all, but are only obliged to accompany him on his expeditions. Of course in earlier times, when the commerce of the town was far greater than at present, and when the Imghád (who had to provide him with cattle, corn, fruit, and vegetables) were strictly obedient, his income far exceeded that of the present day. When taken altogether it is certainly considerably under twenty thousand dollars. His title is Amanókal, or Amanókal Imakóren, in Temáshight, Kókoy bére in the Emgédesi, and Babá-n-Serkí in the Háusa language.
The person second in authority in the town, and in certain respects the Vizier, is now, and apparently was also in ancient times, the “kókoy gerégeré” (i.e. master of the courtyard or the interior of the palace). This is his real indigenous character, while the foreigners, who regarded him only in his relation to themselves, called him Sheikh el ʿArab, or, in the Háusa language, Serkí-n-turáwa (the Chief of the Whites), and this is the title by which he is generally known. For it was he who had to levy the tax on the merchandise imported into the town, an office which in former times, when a considerable trade was carried on, was of great importance. But the chief duty of the “serkí-n-turáwa,” at the present time, is to accompany annually the salt-caravan of the Kél-gerés, which supplies the western part of Middle Sudán with the salt of Bilma, from Ágades to Sókoto, and to protect it on the road as well as to secure it against exorbitant exactions on the part of the Fúlbe of Sókoto. For this trouble he receives one “kántu,” that is to say the eighth part (eight kántu weighing three Turkish kantars or quintals) of a middle-sized camel-load, a contribution which forms a considerable income in this country, probably of from eight to ten thousand Spanish dollars, the caravan consisting generally of some thousand camels, not all equally laden, and the kántu of salt fetching in Sudán from five thousand to seven and eight thousand kurdí or shells, which are worth from two to three dollars. Under such circumstances those officers, who at the same time trade on their own account, cannot but amass considerable wealth. Mohammed Bóro as well as Áshu are very rich, considering the circumstances of the country.
After having escorted the salt-caravan to Sókoto, and settled the business with the Emír of this place, the serkí-n-turáwa in former times had to go to Kanó, where he received a small portion of the six hundred kurdí, the duty levied on each slave brought to the slave-market, after which he returned to Ágades with the Kél-gerés that had frequented the market of Kanó. I had full opportunity, in the further course of my journey, to convince myself that such is not now the case; but I cannot say what is the reason of this custom having been discontinued, though it may be the dangerous state of the road between Sókoto and Kanó. Mohammed Bóro, the former serkí-n-turáwa, has still residences as well in Kanó and Zínder as in Sókoto and Ágades. From what I have said it is clear that at present the serkí-n-turáwa has much more to do with the Tuarek and Fúlbe than with the Arabs, and at the same time is a sort of mediator between Agades and Sókoto. Of the other persons in connection with the Sultan, the “kókoy kaina” or “bába-n-serkí” (the chief eunuch), at present Ámagay, the fádawa-n-serkí (the aides-de-camp of the Sultan), as well as the kádhi or alkáli, and the war-chief Sídi Ghalli, I have spoken in the diary of my residence in the place.
I have already stated above that the southern part of the town, which at present is almost entirely deserted, formed the oldest quarter, while katánga, or “báki-n-bírni,” seems to have been its northern limit. Within these limits the town was about two miles in circuit, and when thickly peopled may have contained about thirty thousand inhabitants; but after the northern quarter was added the whole town had a circuit of about three miles and a half, and may easily have mustered as many as fifty thousand inhabitants, or even more. The highest degree of power seems to have been attained before the conquest of the town by Mohammed Áskiá in the year 1515, though it is said to have been a considerable and wealthy place till about sixty years ago (reckoned from 1850), when the greatest part of the inhabitants emigrated to the neighbouring towns of Háusa, chiefly Kátsena, Tasáwa, Marádi, and Kanó. The exact circumstances which brought about this deplorable desertion and desolation of the place I was not able to learn; and the date of the event cannot be made to coincide with the period of the great revolution effected in Middle Sudán by the rising of the Jihádi, “the Reformer,” ʿOthmán da-n-Fódiye, which it preceded by more than fifteen years; but it coincides with or closely follows upon an event which I shall have to dwell upon in the further course of my proceedings. This is the conquest of Gáo, or Gógo (the former capital of the Sónghay empire, and which since 1591 had become a province of the empire of Morocco), by the Tuarek. As we have seen above that Ágades had evidently been founded as an entrepôt for the great trade with this most flourishing commercial place on the Ísa, or Niger, at that time the centre of the gold trade, of course the ransacking and wholesale destruction of this town could not but affect in the most serious manner the wellbeing of Agades, cutting away the very roots through which it received life.
1, House where I lodged; 2, Great Mosque, or Mesállaje; 3, Palace, or Fáda; 4, Káswa-n-delélti, or Tama-n-lókoy; 5, Káswa-n-rákoma; 6, Katánga; 7, Erárar-n-zákan; 8, Mohammed Bóro’s house; 9, House of the Kádhi; 10, Well Shedwánka; 11, Pools of Stagnant Water; 12, Kófa-n-Alkáli; 13, Masráta Hogúme; 14, Suburb of Ben Gottára.
At present I still think that I was not far wrong in estimating the number of the inhabited houses at from six hundred to seven hundred, and the population at about seven thousand, though it must be borne in mind that, as the inhabitants have still preserved their trading character, a great many of the male inhabitants are always absent from home, a circumstance which reduces the armed force of the place to about six hundred. A numerical element, capable of controlling the estimated amount of the population, is offered by the number of from two hundred and fifty to three hundred well-bred boys, who at the time of my visit were learning a little reading and writing, in five or six schools scattered over the town; for it is not every boy who is sent to school, but only those belonging to families in easy circumstances, and they are all about the same age, from eight to ten years old.
With regard to the names of the quarters of the town, which are interesting from an historical point of view, I was not able to learn exactly the application of each of the names; and I am sure very few even of the inhabitants themselves can now tell the limits of the quarters, on account of the desolate state of many of them. The principal names which can be laid down with certainty in the plan are Masráta, Gobetáren, Gáwa-Ngírsu, Dígi or Dégi, Katánga, Terjemán, and Arrafía, which comprise the south-western quarter of the town. The names of the other quarters, which I attempted to lay down on the plan sent to Government together with my report, I now deem it prudent to withdraw, as I afterwards found that there was some uncertainty about them. I therefore collect here, for the information of future travellers, the names of the other quarters of the place, besides those mentioned above and marked in the plan—Lárelóg, Churúd, Hásena, Amaréwuël, Imurdán (which name, I was assured afterwards, has nothing in common with the name of the tribe of the Imghád), Tafimáta (the quarter where the tribe of the same name lived), Yobímme (“yobu-mé” meaning the mouth of the market), Dégi-n-béne, or the Upper Dégi, and Bosenrára. Kachíyu (not Kachín) seems to have been originally the name of a pool, as I was assured that, besides the three ponds still visible, there were formerly seven others, namely Kudúru, Kachíyu, Chikinéwan, Lángusúgázará, Kurungúsu, and Rabafáda, this latter in the square of the palace.
The whole ground upon which the town is built (being the edge of a tableland which coincides with the transition from granite to sandstone) seems to be greatly impregnated with salt at a certain depth, of which not only the ponds, but even the wells bear evidence, two of the three wells still in use having saltish water, and only that of Shedwánka being, as to taste, free from salt, though it is still regarded as unwholesome, and all the water used for drinking is brought from the wells outside the walls. Formerly, it is said, there were nine wells inside the town.
From what I have said above, it may be concluded that the commerce of Ágades is now inconsiderable. Its characteristic feature is that no kind of money whatever is current in the market—neither gold, nor silver, nor kurdí, nor shells; while strips of cotton, or gábagá (the Kanúri, and not the Háusa term being employed in this case, because the small quantity of this stuff which is current is imported from the north-western province of Bórnu), are very rare, and indeed form almost as merely nominal a standard as the mithkál. Nevertheless the value of the mithkál is divided into ten rijáls, or érjel, which measure means eight drʿa, or cubits, of gábagá. The real standard of the market, I must repeat, is millet or dukhn (“géro” in Háusa, “éneli” in Temáshight, Pennisetum typhoïdeum), durra, or Holcus sorghum, being scarcely ever brought to market. And it is very remarkable, that with this article a man may buy everything at a much cheaper rate than with merchandise, which in general fetches a low price in the place; at least it did so during my stay, when the market had been well stocked with everything in demand, by the people who had come along with us. English calico of very good quality was sold by me at 20 per cent. less than it had been bought for at Múrzuk. Senna in former times formed an article of export of some importance; but the price which it fetches on the coast has so decreased that it scarcely pays the carriage, the distance from the coast being so very great; and it scarcely formed at all an article in request here, nor did we meet on our whole journey a single camel laden with it, though it grows in considerable quantities in the valleys hereabouts.