In continuing our journey it now behoved us to proceed with more circumspection. We had reached the southern confines of Gandu, the western half of the great Fillani (Fulah) Empire. At this time Maliké, Emir of Nupé, held a complete monopoly of the trade between the Company and the rest of Gandu. We were only too well aware that any attempt to break through this monopoly would be strenuously resisted by him, and that therefore if he scented the object of our expedition to his liege lord at Gandu, we might bid adieu to all hopes of advancing inland. As our presence could not be kept secret from him, we thought it well to send him a letter merely to intimate that we were passing.
On the 28th we left Lokoja and pushed on to Rabba, at work now in dead earnest, making up loads in the small hold of the launch, where we were nearly roasted alive. At various stations porters were shipped secretly and stowed away in barges, everything being made ready for a surprise-march the moment we landed.
On the 8th April we reached Rabba, from which our land march was to commence. Maliké was still expecting a visit from us at Bida, when we were actually landing a hundred miles to the west with a hundred and twenty men, two educated negro traders, one Arab interpreter, and two Europeans besides myself. So completely had all our plans been laid that we started on the following day, leaving the chiefs and headmen dumfounded and perplexed, not knowing what to do without instructions from the capital.
Our first feelings of joy on leaving Rabba behind were speedily damped when one of my European companions got his leg broken, and had to be promptly returned to the launch. Soon a shoal of troubles and worries descended on us. The headmen of the various districts began to throw every possible obstacle in our way, refusing us guides, porters, and food. The men, unaccustomed to scanty fare and the steady grind of a caravan march, mutinied, and tried to force us to turn back. They threatened to murder us, and more than once presented their rifles at us by way of intimidation. One man tried to stab me, and was only secured after a terrific struggle, the porters passively looking on. Yet it was a matter of life and death to us that we should press forward in spite of all opposition—a few days might mean ruin to the expedition, by giving the emir’s messenger time to come up with us. The thought inspired us to redouble our exertions. We fought like men at bay, though we were but two against a hundred and twenty; and happily by dint of machiavellian strategy and diplomacy, with not a little determined flourishing of revolvers, we came out of the battle triumphant—safe beyond the clutches of Maliké, and complete masters of the situation.
HAUSSA HUT.
It is quite beyond the scope of this chapter to tell how we continued our way through Nupé to Kontakora, and thence by way of Yauri, the Niger, and Gulbi-n-Gindi to Jega, Sokoto, and Wurnu, where the Sultan of Sokoto had established his court.
Here we were in a region teeming with varied interest, having reached the religious, political, and commercial centre of the Western and Central Sudan. We could hardly believe our senses, and realise that we were in the heart of Africa, among a people popularly called negroes. Rather did it seem to us as if, worn out by the tiresome miles and the monotonous jogging of our horses, we had fallen asleep, and in a dream imagined ourselves in some part of Moorish Africa. A blazing sun beat down with terrific effect upon a parched land, in which here and there appeared green oases of acacia, baobab and doum palm, in which nestled villages and towns half hid by the grateful shadow of the foliage.
On all hands, as we pushed along, we were reminded of Mohammedan customs, of eastern amplitude of dress, if not of gorgeousness of colour. Everything bore the impress of Moorish ideas and North African civilisation. In the early dewy mornings, in the sultry heats of noontide, at the close of the tropic day, we could hear the sacred call to prayer. By the wayside, far from mosque and town, were to be seen spots marked off by stones, which with silent eloquence invited the dusty and footsore traveller to stay his weary march and wean his thoughts for a moment from his worldly affairs.
The types of men, the fashions in dress, were of the most varied character.