[41]The Sheikh speaks loosely and from report. The route from Bornou to Adagez (Aghadez) is first slightly north of west, as far as Zindar, and then turns north-north-west. Adagez is the capital of the kingdom of Aheir, the northern limits of which form, in fact, the southern limits of the Central Sahara.
[42]The Sheikh seems distressed lest the Jengueh should stifle themselves; but it is evident that, after having anointed their bodies, they simply roll in the ashes, and collect, as it were, in this way a peculiar kind of counterpane.
[43]The French traveller, Le Vaillant, gives, I remember, some still more curious facts of this nature. Among the tribes which he visited, advancing towards Central Africa from the south, he saw bulls which seemed, at first sight, to have four or even eight horns. He afterwards learned that the owners, as soon as the horns began to grow, used to split them carefully into two or four parts, and afterwards carefully bend and twist them into the shapes they desired.
[44]Assertions of this kind, so common among travellers, have generally been disproved by more careful research.
[45]In fact, they appear to mean only a single country, the capital of which is Kanou.
[46]News travels quicker than we are apt to think amongst the Easterns, especially if it concerns their faith. Probably Zaky was excited to begin his crusade by the news that came from Arabia.
[47]Niffy is situated on the easternmost bend of the Niger. It appears certain that the American slave-traders penetrate sometimes thus far with their schooners. Mr. Richardson heard, on the confines of Soudan, a very detailed account of white men who came up the great river to Niffy.
[48]“This,” says Mr. Perron, “refers probably to the foundation of Sakkatou, which name, however, was not given till 1805.”
[49]These bags are used to carry water. Two of them form a camel-load. The water-dealers fill from them the sheep-skin bags which they carry on their backs.
[50]It would be difficult to invent any more effective way of exciting a feeling of horror against this wretched institution of slavery, which still lags in the rear of the army of abuses that has been put to flight, than this cold-blooded statement.