The committee is enabled to add further reasons for confidence to the preceding. During the earlier part of his travels, that is, while advancing eastward across the mountains of Fouta-Dhialon, he passed between the towns of Timbo and Labey, and consequently must have intersected the route followed in 1818 by our colleague M. Mollien. Now, such is his description of the mountains, the villages, the aspect of the country, and all the localities, that M. Mollien perfectly recognised them in the picture drawn of them by M. Caillié. These two travellers then mutually confirm each other; and the result, by the way, is not unimportant to geography.
Our countryman has with so much attention and perseverance recorded his routes, their direction, and the hours of march, that one of our associates has found it easy to form, from his journal, a continued and complete itinerary from Kakondy to the port of Rabat, in the states of Morocco, in which the nature and various accidents of the soil are indicated, such as the mountains, plains, ravines, and forests, the villages and all inhabited places, the rivulets, lakes, and morasses, the torrents, cataracts, fords, wells, and every thing relating both to the running and stagnant waters. Such minute details complete our confidence in the genuineness of this narrative.
We will add that, having interrogated him as to the manner in which he made himself understood by the inhabitants, he told us it was principally through the medium of the Moorish-Arabic, spoken in Senegal, and which he had enjoyed the opportunity of learning in that country ever since 1816. And he replied in fact in this dialect to the questions proposed to him by the committee; he moreover pronounced several words in Mandingo, in a manner conformable to the existing vocabularies.
We were sensible, gentlemen, that it was our duty to lay before you all these consideration, and to insist upon them. It now remains for us to make known some of the results obtained, in order that the Society may appreciate the acquisitions that have accrued to science. We are not at liberty here to enter into minute detail; that would be anticipating the publication. A general retrospect is all that the committee consider themselves called upon to offer at present to the public curiosity.
The travels of M. Caillié are connected, in a manner the most useful for perfecting and confirming our geographical knowledge, with those of Watt and Winterbottom to Timbo, in 1794; of Major Laing in the countries of Kouranko and Soulimana, in 1822; of M. Mollien in Fouta-Dhialon, in 1818; of Mungo Park to the Dhioliba, in 1795 and 1805, of Dochard to Yamina and Bamakou, in 1819; and lastly with the itineraries of the caravans, travelling from Timbuctoo to Tafilet.
No doubts can now remain of the very elevated sources of the Bafing, the principal tributary of the Senegal. Setting out on the 19th of April 1827 from Kakondy, the tomb of Majors Peddie and Campbell, M. Caillié crossed this river at Bafila; he crossed also the main stream of the Dhioliba at a point which very naturally connects itself with the situation assigned by Major Laing to its source. Thence he proceeded to Kankan, a large town in the district so named, enriched by the gold mines of Bourré, and after some residence there, he continued his journey two hundred miles farther east, beyond Soulimana, to the village of Timé, where he arrived on the 3rd of August. He had till then accompanied a caravan of Mandingo merchants, travelling on foot. In this village, he was detained by sickness for five whole months, and attacked by a scorbutic affection, which for a long time endangered his life, and which was induced by the intemperance of the climate and by the violent fatigue he had undergone in traversing the steep mountains of Fouta-Dhialon. This great chain appears to be composed of several stages, and full of torrents and precipices. In this interesting portion of his route, he carefully collected intelligence of the situation of Bamakou, and of its intercourse with the Senegambia, which, it is hoped, will not prove unprofitable.
At Timé commenced another journey northwards; this is the second part of the travels. M. Caillié wished to return to the Dhioliba; he set out on the 9th of January, 1829, and after having seen or passed through more than a hundred villages, and acquainted himself pretty accurately with the situation of Sego, he again saw the river on the 10th of March, at Galia, flowing from the west, and crossed an arm of it to repair to Djenné. All this part is entirely new, as well as the route from the environs of Timbo to Timé.
The third part of the travels is on the great river; M. Caillié embarked on it on the 23rd of March, after a residence of thirteen days at Jenné. He ascended it in a large boat, forming part of a flotilla of merchant vessels.
It was the season of low water: in some places the river is a mile in width, and in others much narrower; its depth and rapidity are variable. He noted and described, as he went along, the branches and islands, and especially lake Debo (the same which is known and designed upon the maps under the name of Dibbie, but misplaced), and he furnishes particulars, as certain as they are new, concerning the whole course of the stream.
At length he arrived at Cabra, the port of Timbuctoo, on the 19th of April, and the next day entered the town. After he had taken sketches of the dwellings and other edifices of this city, remarked every thing worthy of observation, and acquainted himself with the course of the neighbouring waters, he joined a caravan setting out for Morocco. On the 4th of May he commenced his journey, with eight hundred camels, loaded with all sorts of merchandise from the interior, and in six days arrived at el-Araouan: there the caravan was increased by six hundred camels, and in eight days more it reached the wells of Télig. All the wells, whether of sweet or brackish water, and all the stations, are carefully noted by M. Caillié, in this journey across the great desert. The season of the burning east winds aggravated the toils and privations of this painful journey. On the 19th of May he left el-Araouan, and it was not till the 29th of June that he reached el-Harib, where the caravan split into several divisions, and on the 23rd of July he entered Tafilet. He rested at length, on the 12th of August, in the very spot where, in the fourteenth century, Ben-Batouta cast away the pilgrim’s staff, in the city of Fez; he afterwards continued his route with a guide, reached the sea, and on the 17th of the same month, September, arrived at Tangier, where the Consul of France received him, provided for his safety, and succeeded in preserving him from the dangers which he would have incurred, had he been recognized through his disguise.