When I returned to the camp, I asked the marabout’s son, who was about eighteen years of age, to repeat some verses of the Koran, which I wanted to write down, that I might learn them by heart. At the second line, however, he stopped and refused to proceed, telling me that it was unlawful to write the words of God with a profane hand; he afterwards consulted one of the marabouts on this point, who was wiser and bade him to continue.
Walking about in the camp, I remarked some heavy black stones lying loose on the soil; one of these I broke; and found that it contained a great deal of iron; a specimen of these stones I have sent to the governor. The Moors smelt this ore, and make locks, fetters, and other things, of the iron. To smelt it, they dig a hole in the ground, a foot and a half deep, over which they build a furnace in the shape of a pyramid five feet high, leaving at the bottom four holes for the bellows. They fill the furnace with ore broken into small pieces, and heat it with sheep’s dung, which when dry makes a very strong fire. Four men, placed at the apertures of the furnace, blow the fire, till the iron is melted, after which they leave it to cool without giving it any form, which renders it very difficult to work, so that they prefer what they buy of us.
On the 15th of October, the pasture being exhausted, we broke up the camp, and removed four miles to the S.W. ¼ W. to a peninsula formed by the bed of a rivulet, and called by the Moors Guigué; it was then covered with pasturage, which is inundated in the rainy season, and the trees are finer there than elsewhere.
On the 21st, I suffered much from the colic. One of my marabout’s sons repeated prayers, and then spat on my stomach, assuring me that it was an excellent remedy; he did the same to the milk which I was to drink, and I let him have his own way, disgusting as it was, rather than contradict his opinions.
In the evening, a caravan on its way to Fouta, to exchange salt for millet, stopped at our camp, and took up its quarters in the midst of us; mats were brought to serve as beds for the travellers. At ten o’clock at night, milk was brought to the marabout, from all sides, and calabashes full of sangleh and milk, which were distributed among the ziafis, or travellers.
When a caravan is small, only a part of the camp contributes to the supply of its wants, and the inhabitants take their turns to do so: if it is large, every body furnishes his quota. If it arrives in the day time, the chief of the camp, when he goes to the mosque to prayer, makes a collection for the ziafis, and each person sends a measure or two of grain according to the number of the strangers. A slave is appointed to pound the corn and prepare the sangleh. When a traveller arrives alone, he goes to any tent he pleases, and the owner supplies him without having recourse to his neighbours. As strangers always prefer the best-looking tents, the same tent is often visited five or six days in succession. Travellers frequently stay some time in the camp; for the first three days they are fed as a matter of right, after which the master of the tent is at liberty to refuse them provisions. The hassanes when they travel are always unwelcome guests, on account of the arbitrary manner in which they exact what they want. If they are not waited upon as quickly as they expect, they clamour and threaten, and call their host an infidel—the most opprobrious epithet that can be bestowed on a marabout. If a stranger arrives amongst them, he is ill-treated, and ill-fed; hence their camps are always avoided, and the burden of entertaining travellers devolves in consequence upon the marabouts.
The Moors, as has just been observed, afford one another hospitality, but they do not deserve to be called hospitable, for nothing annoys them so much as the sight of strangers. They receive them not out of humanity but from fear, particularly when they happen to be hassanes, who would not fail to plunder, if they were not treated as they liked. They seldom afford assistance to travelling negroes; if any such pass through a camp, they beg morning and night when the cows are milked for a draught, going about with a jotala in their hand, and receiving so little, that they are obliged to traverse two or three camps before they obtain sufficient for a meal.
Many negroes from Fouta-Toro come amongst the Moors to study the Koran; they often remain five or six months, and have no other means of subsistence but alms. Though Musulmans, they are in bad repute, and very generally despised amongst the Moors, who say they are fit for nothing but slaves. The negroes take nothing with them, because they would be sure to be stripped by the hassanes; they always travel on foot, and carry at their backs a small board, on which they write passages of the Koran.
There are amongst the Moors a sort of vagabonds called Wadats; these are the very poorest hassanes, who have often neither tents to lodge in, nor cattle to feed them; and being too idle to work, which indeed they consider as a disgrace, they like better to run from tent to tent and beg for a living. The insolence of these troublesome parasites is without bounds; when they arrive at a camp they throw it into confusion: nothing is heard on all sides but the disputes which they cause by their importunities. Impudent as they are, they get whatever they ask for; because, if they were to complain to their tribes that they had been ill received in a camp, the hassanes would carry off the herds belonging to that camp while feeding in the woods, and the marabouts would be obliged to give many head of cattle to redeem them. The parties of Wadats are chiefly composed of women and children; there are seldom any men amongst them: they travel on foot or mounted on asses, and always apply to the chief of the camp, who is obliged to find them provisions. To get rid of them, it is common to give them food enough for three or four days, and send them off; they then go to another camp, where they beg again, and as they know that they shall always obtain as much as they want to eat, they sell what they can spare for Guinea cloths, often to the very people who afford them hospitality. If they have no beasts to carry what has been given to them, they borrow some to go as far as the next camp. They visit only the marabouts, for the hassanes and zenagues refuse to receive them.
At the time when the gum is collected, these vagabonds beset the marabouts, and follow them into the woods, requiring to be fed, and worrying them till they can get a good share of gum, which they carry to the markets. The marabouts dare not refuse them, for the Wadats would join together if they did, beat them, and steal their gum. Such is the life of these people. It is worthy of remark, that when they are with the marabouts they are very exact in performing the salam; but they trouble themselves no further about it when they are out of their sight.