From this narrative we collect that the writer of it was born at Tumbuktú, about the year 1794; that his grandfather ’Omar was an al-káïd, or magistrate, in that city and in Jenneh on the Jálibá or Niger, and son of the king’s witness, one of the principal law-officers of the state. Kong, where his uncle Abdu-r-rahmán settled, is the place in the chain of mountains running parallel with the southern coast of Africa, the position of which was pointed out to Mungo Park. Its distance and bearing with respect to Jenneh, as far as Abú Bekr could give any notion of them, appear to agree nearly with the position assigned to it in Mr. J. Arrowsmith’s Map of Africa. Ghónah, the residence of Mahmúd, another of Abú Bekr’s uncles, is about eight days’ journey east or south-east of Kong. That place he believed to be mid-way between Jenneh and Ashantí. But as the distance between Ghónah and Ashantí is twelve days’ journey, that capital, the position of which is known, must be about twenty days’ journey distant from Kong, and forty from Jenneh. Abúr Bekr was two months on his way from Jenneh to Kong, but he thought the journey might be completed in fifteen days; twenty days, therefore, gives a fair mean, and confirms his supposition that Kong is just midway between the Jálibá and Ashantí.
When only two years old, his father removed to Jenneh from Tumbuktú, or, as Abú Bekr generally called it, Tumbuttú, or Tumbut;[201] of that place, therefore, he had no recollection. When only four years old he lost his father; and five years afterwards, when he was in the tenth year, he went to Ghónah to visit his father’s burial-place, stopping one year at Kong on the way. On the supposition, therefore, that he remained three years at Ghónah, he was in his fourteenth year when he fell into the hands of the Ashantís, and was sent as a slave to the West Indies either in 1807 or 1808. Amvíkoh, the place where he was seized by the people of Buntukkú, is fifteen or twenty miles to the south of Ghónah, and nine days’ journey south of Kumásí, the capital of Ashantí. Daghó, the place on the coast where he was put on board ship, is mentioned by Protten, the Danish missionary, as not far from Winnebá, one of the British forts. (Adelung, Mithrid., iii. 188.) From Daghó, or rather Cape Coast, Abú Bekr was carried to Jamaica, in which island he passed about twenty-seven years of his life, first as the slave of a stone-mason named Donellan, subsequently on the estate of Mr. Haynes, and finally as the property of Mr. Anderson. Donellan was a very kind master, and when he told his slaves, about a year after Abú Bekr was purchased by him, that, as his mother wished to see him, he must return to England, after selling his property in Jamaica, they all shed tears. Mr. Haynes, it appears, was not himself resident on the island; and it was by his order that Abú Bekr, and the rest of the slaves on his estate, were baptised. In what manner they were prepared for baptism, it was difficult to ascertain; certain it is, as we learn from Dr. Madden, that the Mohammedans still retained their faith in the divine mission of Mahomet. It was at his baptism that Abú Bekr was named Edward Donellan. Mr. Haynes’s benevolent intentions cannot be doubted; but, as is too often the case where the planters are not residing on their property, his overseers and agents did not faithfully execute his orders, for “it was then,” says Abú Bekr, in a paper written on his voyage home, “that I tasted all the bitterness of slavery.” On the 6th of September, 1823, Mr. Haynes’s property was sold, and Abú Bekr was purchased by Mr. Anderson, who, having discovered his steadiness and honesty, employed him to take an account of all that came or was issued from his slave yard. He put down everything in negro English and in the Arabic character, (for he never had an opportunity of learning to read or write English,) and read it off to the overseer in the evening. His cyphers they perhaps could read themselves, and therefore prove his sums; but as he is well acquainted with the first rules of arithmetic, and very careful, they were probably satisfied with the sum total that he gave in. After his liberation he continued in the same employment, but his condition could hardly be said to be improved, as his employer merely gave him his board, and appears to have withdrawn most of the former indulgences, without substituting wages in their stead. Nor, but for the kind and determined assistance of Capt. Oldrey, would he have been suffered to come to this country, or indeed to leave Jamaica.
Of the kindness of his present master he speaks in terms of the warmest gratitude; and Mr. Davidson, on his part, fully appreciates his merits. Should that enterprising traveller be so fortunate as to reach Tumbuktú in safety, he will find—independently of the rank which, it seems, Abú Bekr’s relations there hold—that so faithful, affectionate, and intelligent an interpreter is a treasure, the value of which cannot be too highly estimated.
As the veracity of Abú Bekr’s narrative has received an unexpected corroboration from the testimony of persons whom Mr. Davidson saw in Morocco, it may appear superfluous to enlarge upon the circumstances which justify our reliance on the truth of his statements; but a brief mention of a few will perhaps be considered as an appropriate conclusion to this paper.
We may say, then, that his general good character, his years as indicated by his face, and the cessation of the slave-trade in March, 1808, are all so many evidences in favour of his statements respecting the age at which he was carried to the West Indies. His knowledge of the Arabic language is another very cogent proof of the truth of his statements. Though far from being able to write it with strict grammatical accuracy, or possessing the command of an abundant stock of words and phrases, his power of expressing himself in that copious and difficult tongue, and the clearness and facility with which he writes its characters, are truly surprising when his peculiar circumstances are taken into account. He could scarcely have completed his fifteenth year when taken away from Africa; was two years in the West Indies before he could obtain the use of pen, ink, and paper; and, with the exception of two or three negroes,—one fortunately on board the slaver which carried him off,—had no means of reviving his remembrance of what he had learned, till a very late period.
Some time before he left Jamaica, a benevolent stranger, who found that he could read Arabic, sent him, from England, a copy of the New Testament in that language; and he had also read parts of the Old Testament with attention, as is evident from some texts quoted in the narrative written on his voyage from New York to England. On seeing the plates in Mr. Bowdich’s Travels, he immediately recognised a street in Kumásí, and the magical ceremonies of the Ashantí soothsayers; in Mr. Dupuis’s book also the passage of the Basomprá. He mentioned many of the names of king’s and chiefs, of whom those writers speak. At the British Museum, instantly he recognized many old acquaintances; particularly the hippopotamus, who, he said, always came out of the water at certain hours, and did a great deal of mischief. With the plants and seeds he seemed equally well acquainted; particularly the nittah, a species of acacia, and the palms,—most of which he could never have seen in the West Indies. His acquaintance with the Korán was no less remarkable. “What became of that wicked king, Fróna?” said he, to one of his friends from whom he had already received some information.—“I never heard of Fróna,” said his friend.—“Oh, yes,” replied Abú Bekr, “you know him,—he is spoken of in the Bible; he was King of Misr,—he is mentioned in many places in the Kóran.”—“Write down his name, then,” returned his friend; and he wrote “Fir’aum,” i.e. Pharaoh, very correctly spelt. It was too late to look for the Korán that night; but the next morning, he in a few minutes found out almost all the places where Pharaoh is mentioned—scattered, as need hardly be said, all over the book. In the summer, he chaunted the call to prayer—given by the Muedhdhins from the minarets of the mosque—with the exact pronunciation, intonation, and rhythm, that is used from Cairo to Constantinople, and from Belgrade to Dehlí.
The Kóran he must have known almost by heart, as he declared he had never seen a copy of it from the time he left Ghónah till one was put into his hand by the writer of this paper. He was not old enough, he said, when captured, to enter on a course of logic and rhetoric, or to study the commentaries on the Korán; but he knew the names of the most celebrated commentators. This is a plain proof of the superior civilization of the negroes in the interior over those near the coast; and, however incredible at first sight, it is confirmed by Burckhardt’s account of the Shaïkìyah Arabs in Meroë, and the well-written Arabic despatches from Bello’s court, now in the records of the Foreign Office.
In justice to Mr. E. Drummond Hay, the British Consul at Tangiers, to whom Mr. Davidson once felt disposed to attribute the difficulties thrown in his way and his protracted stay at Gibraltar, it has been thought fit to put in the Appendix the letters following:—
“Gibraltar, Sept. 16, 1835.