After we had been kept waiting about half an hour his highness made his appearance, the courtiers and slaves throwing dust on their heads, prostrating themselves on the ground before him, crying, "God give you victory over your enemies!" Whilst the Sultan took his seat upon the raised mud-bench, the slaves held up two wrappers or barracans, to shield his highness from public view whilst he took his seat. All the floor of the apartment was covered with a dense mass of people, and amongst the number several Tuaricks, including the Sheikh Lousou, and Haj Abdoua, another distinguished Tuarick. Lousou is a tall thin man, of light complexion, with European features—a perfect Targhee. His manners were very mild, and indeed all this tribe are gentle enough here in a foreign country. The Sheikh shook me cordially by the hands. I then commenced business as showman to the prince and this mass of people. At first his highness was timid, and would not look through the glasses of the peepshows, but when the people began he followed, and acquired the knack of looking through in a very short time. My compass and watch and keys were then all examined, and produced great amusement. What pleased him much was the screw by which the compass was stopped. I was dreadfully frightened lest the watch should be broken as well as the compass, and indeed the former has received some damage: such machines should not be handled by these negro grandees.
Whilst this examination was going on, his highness, as if he had little time to lose, continued to administer justice. Several cases were settled whilst the worthy Sultan was looking through the peepshow and kaleidoscope. Among others, a man came forward in great agitation, and cried, "O Sultan! my wife will not live with me, and has run away to her father. I will give you three bullocks if you will fetch her back and make her live with me!" The Sultan smiled, and observed only, "Hem, your wife won't live with you! Well, what can I do?" Another man came forward and cried, "O Sultan! I am a thief, but you must pardon me. I stole this mat because I was a poor man" (holding up the mat). "I restore the mat." His highness observed, "Leave it; I will see what can be done." A collection of stolen articles was restored also by another person. Then came a man more bold, and brought a present from a neighbouring village, consisting of two large bowls of ghaseb and a bundle of wood. The man made a great clamour, holding up the present. His highness looked at him, and said, "Good, good; put them down."
I am told his highness is much feared by all the people of the provinces. He has the character of being impartial. But the way in which he carries out capital punishment is truly terrible, and beyond conception barbarous. He neither hangs nor beheads. This mode of punishment is too mild for him. No; he actually cuts open the chest, and rips out the heart! or else hangs up people by the heels, and so inflicts upon them a lingering death. I am astonished that the Sheikh of Bornou permits such barbarity, but imagine that the Sheikh is still afraid of his vassal, and shrinks from endeavouring to deprive him of this awful power. Here, then, we have a specimen of the negro character, with all its contradictions; soft and effeminate in its ordinary moods; cheerful, and pleasant, and simple, to appearance; but capable of acting, as it were without transition, the most terrible deeds of atrocity. Say what you will of the barbarism of the Tuaricks, such a mode of inflicting capital punishment is unknown amongst them. I took leave of his highness, promising to come again another day and bring other things.
This evening we were disturbed by the cries of the hyæna; a large one had come down upon the calves belonging to a drove of bullocks, and carried off one as big as itself. The brute seizes its prey by the throat, and so prevents the animal from giving intelligence to its pursuers. The place of execution is near my house, and when the Sultan executes any criminal the body is left unburied. At such times, troops of hyænas, old and young, come down in the night, from the rocks and open country, and devour the body in a few minutes. The jackal does not visit this place, but is found in the open country. There are also many lions on the road between this and Kuka.
A very simple mode of salutation is prevalent here in Zinder, said to be the custom of Wadaï—that of merely clapping the palms of the hand together; the hand being held forward flat, not edge-ways.
Gurasu is an interesting Tuarick territory, three days' journey north-east from Zinder, and two days from Minyo. This country consists of a number of small villages, scattered upon the rocks, or mountains. The inhabitants are especially those banditti who, from time to time, plunder the caravans on the route from Bornou to Mourzuk. Gurasu is seven days from Kanem, and Kanem is three days from the Bornou route. Kanem is mostly a desert country, and has now only a few inhabitants.
Gurasu and Damerghou are the only Tuarick countries adjoining the provinces of the Sheikh of Bornou, and Gurasu is the last country east in this part of Africa. There is but very slight communication between it and Zinder; and little is known of the people, except that they are Tuaricks.
19th.—I again entertained visitors, who are still numerous, of all classes; and also paid a visit to the Shereef, and took with me the kaleidoscope, as he expressed a wish to see its revolving glowing beauties.
Zinder is full of half-crazy fighis, who can just write the Arabic alphabet. They go about the streets begging piteously, with a calabash inkstand and reed-pen in their hands. I have been pestered with two or three every day since I came here. They also wander through the country parts of Damerghou. Bornou is the nursery of these silly pedagogues, in whom learning and madness are most cordially united; but, as I have already mentioned, it sends out a few instructed ones to redeem the reputation of these ignoramuses.
In the afternoon I went to see the place of execution, and found it covered with human bones, the leavings of the hyænas, whose dens are close by. Proceeding a little further I came to the Tree of Death! a lonely tree springing out of the rocks, some forty or fifty feet in height, and of the species called here kanisa. My guide would not approach it very near, for he assured me that if any person went under its boughs, there must instantly come an order from the Sultan to put him to death, or hang him heels upwards upon its branches. "Don't you see the place is swept clean underneath its boughs? This is done every day, and by the executioner alone: no other person dare go there, for if he do he must die!" I certainly began to feel sick myself at the recital of various horrors perpetrated at this place by the executioner, and don't know whether, if any one had offered me some great reward, I would have ventured to place my feet upon this accursed spot of mother earth. Never in my life did I feel so sick at heart—so revolted at man's crimes and cruelties. The tree itself was a true picture of death—a tree of dark, impenetrable foliage, with a great head, or upper part larger than the lower one, and this head crowned with fifty filthy vultures, the ministers of the executioner, which eat the bodies of the criminals! The number of executions here performed is very great—some two or three hundred in a year. Since we have been here a man has been butchered in the night, scarcely a hundred yards from my house; so that I am in a pleasant neighbourhood, what with the executions and what with the hyænas. The people pretend that for a small offence the Sultan inflicts capital punishments: for example, merely speaking bad language.