I recollect, that when I was leaving the camp, I gave a pagne to a slave who had taken care to supply me with sangleh; my marabout, who was near, took the pagne from her, and gave her a severe scolding. I insisted that the pagne should be returned, but he would not hear of it, and he scolded me in my turn, and told me that a marabout ought never to give, but always to receive. At last he handed the pagne to my guide, and bade him put it with the rest of my goods. This trait conveys a good idea of their character.
If they are ungrateful, they are also inhuman. They treat their slaves with barbarity; calling them by insulting names, beating them, and requiring a great deal of service in return for very little food, and having no other garment than a sheep-skin. I sometimes protested against the cruelty with which these wretches were treated. “They are slaves, they are infidels,” was the reply; “you see that they never pray; they know neither God nor the prophet.” I have seen slaves however who prayed with the utmost regularity, and were no better treated for it; neither did it save them from the degrading appellation of slaves.
The office of the marabouts renders them more dissembling than the hassanes; they are less cruel, and more hospitable; but I have found repeatedly that they receive strangers unwillingly, rather from the fear of insult or pillage than from humanity.
A European traveller who should not make up his mind to dissemble, as I did, if he were to escape the fanatic fury of the hassanes, would probably not be murdered by the marabouts; but they would forbid him to enter their tents; and they would afford him no sustenance; or if they gave him a little milk to save him from dying of hunger, it would be in the hope of being well paid. If a christian were to fall into the hands of the hassanes or zenagues, there is no kind of torture to which he would not be exposed.
The marabouts wander less from the banks of the river, than the hassanes; they remove their camps less frequently, and never change their place except to seek pasturage.
The zenagues, or tributaries, are the most wretched of the Moors; they are the serfs of the hassanes, and every hassane has more or fewer under his command. They exact from them annual contributions, consisting in general of a mator (about a quarter of a barrel) of millet, a calabash of butter, a few sheep-skins, and a laize of stuff for a tent; or a cow and a calabash of butter from each. The tributaries pay with the utmost exactness; but their unjust and grasping lords always claim more than is due, and inflict the most horrible tortures to extort what they want. I have already mentioned how they drag them at the camel’s tail; but their cruelty goes still farther; if nothing can be got by torturing a poor zenague, his barbarous master not unfrequently stabs him. They are never safe from these tyrants, who pursue them even into their camps; where they sometimes take up their abode for days, and call for whatever they like.
The zenagues possess few oxen, but large flocks of sheep and goats, of whose milk they make butter, which they can exchange at the markets for Guinea cloth. They are allowed to keep a few slaves, who are employed in taking care of their flocks; but they must not send their slaves to collect gum, or the hassanes would take it all for them. They seldom go far from the river, and usually encamp in a thick wood, to avoid as much as possible the troublesome visitations of the hassanes and other travellers. They prefer marshy land, because it affords most food for their cattle. They have a great deal of milk, but its flavour is unpleasant, owing to the many rank herbs which the ewes and goats feed upon; it is so bad indeed, that the hassanes and marabouts who come amongst them will hardly drink it, and never if they can procure any other.
Immediately after the waters retire, the zenagues come down to the banks of the river to sow millet; they work in the fields themselves with their slaves. The women, laborious through necessity, spin and weave the hair of the sheep and camels, to form coverings for their tents; they also sew them together; tan leather, make the varrois and every thing else except iron-work. Their method of tanning is as follows: if it is an ox-hide, they cut it down the middle; they then make a pit in the ground and plaster it with cow-dung; after having moistened the hide, and rubbed it with ashes, they put it into the pit, and cover it carefully with ashes. Having thrown water upon the ashes so as to wet them thoroughly, they close up the pit with a layer of cow-dung. The hide is left in this state for six or eight days, at the end of which time they scrape it with a knife to take off the hair, and then wash it well to cleanse it from the ashes. When cleaned it is put into a large calabash with the bark of the boscia and the seed of the mimosa, (the same that is known in commerce by the name of babela, and on the Senegal by that of nem-nem,) taking care to rub and mix them well. Water is poured upon it to soak it thoroughly; in this state it is left for four days or more, then taken out again and scraped, to remove any hair that may have remained after the first operation. When thoroughly cleaned, it is again put into the calabash with an increased quantity of seed, reduced to powder and sufficiently moistened. Four days suffice to tan it completely. At the end of this time, it is well washed, and scraped with sharp-edged shells, which the Moors bring from the sea-shore. Sheep and goat skins are tanned in the same manner, only more quickly, from being thinner. The leather which is tanned by this process, is exactly of the same colour as ours, and very good. For common purposes it is used without further preparation, and a little butter is applied to grease it, when it is required to be particularly supple. The women also make soap of beef-tallow and ley; but the soap is very bad, washes ill and gives an unpleasant smell to the linen.
When a tributary is unusually oppressed by his master, he can choose another. He takes his flocks and all he possesses to him to whom he wishes to subject himself, and tries to cut off his ear, if he finds him asleep, or to kill his horse; from that moment he is tributary to this new master, who has immense power over him, while the former loses all his authority. If the fugitive should be taken again before he has cut off the ear or killed the horse, he is beaten, stripped of all he possesses, and driven away without mercy. He is then extremely wretched; few people will grant him hospitality; his life is only protracted suffering, and he frequently sinks under the weight of his misery, while none of his fellows deigns to bestow on him a look of pity. I saw one in the camp where I was, who came stark naked to beg alms and shelter; instead of awakening the least symptom of compassion, he was driven away with blows, and they even set the dogs at him. What would become of this unhappy creature? And what cause could there be for such cruelty? Had he lost the attributes of humanity because he wished to change his oppressor? With what pleasure would I have gone without my supper, to give it to him! but his relentless countrymen would not allow me this satisfaction.
I have been told that in times of scarcity the zenagues eat grasshoppers, drying them first in the sun; this, however, I suspect to be only a fiction to degrade the zenagues in my estimation; for, as they cultivate millet, and possess flocks, they are usually better provided with food than the other classes, and must suffer less in a scarcity than the less industrious orders. In the whole course of my peregrinations, though I have been among very needy tribes, I have never seen the Moors eat grasshoppers.