Afnou, a country beyond Bornou to the Westward, is said to produce such abundance of silver, that the natives construct defensive armour of that metal. The coats of mail are jointed, and represented as very beautiful. Of the same material, it is reported, are made pieces to protect the head and breast of their horses, the former having the chaffron, or horn, known in our days of chivalry.
Among the Southern countries, whither the Jelabs of Bergoo and Fûr sometimes journey to procure slaves, is Dar Kulla. The chief article they carry to Kulla is salt, twelve pounds of which are estimated as the price of a male slave, sedasé, about twelve or fourteen years of age. A female brings three pounds more, whimsically computed by the natives, as, a pound for the girl’s eyes, another for her nose, and a third for her ears. If copper be the medium, two rotals are esteemed equal to four of salt. Hoddûr, a large sort of Venetian glass beads, and tin, are in great esteem. Of the latter they make rings and other ornaments.
The natives of Kulla are represented as partly negroes, partly of a red or copper colour. Their language is nasal, but very simple and easy. It is said they worship idols. They are very cleanly, to which the abundance of water in their country contributes: and they are remarkable for honesty, and even punctilious in their transactions with the Jelabs.
They have ferry-boats on the river, which are impelled partly by poles, partly by a double oar, like our canoes. Slaves are obtained in Dar Kulla either by violence, Selatéa, or by the following method. In that country the smallest trespass on the property of another, is punished by enslaving the children or young relations of the trespasser. If even a man’s footstep be observed among the corn of another, the circumstance is attended by calling witnesses, and application to a magistrate, and the certain consequence of proof is the forfeiture of his son, daughter, nephew, or niece, to the person trespassed on. These accidents are continually happening, and produce a great number of slaves. A commission to purchase any thing in a distant market, not exactly fulfilled, is attended with a like forfeiture. But above all, if a person of note die, the family have no idea of death as a necessary event, but say that it is effected by witchcraft. To discover the perpetrator, the poorer natives, far and near, are obliged to undergo expurgation by drinking a liquor which is called in Dar-Fûr Kilingi, or something that resembles it; and the person on whom the supposed signs of guilt appear, may either be put to death, or sold as a slave.
The people of Kulla are strangers to venereal complaints, but are subject to the small-pox. In that part of the country which is visited by the Jelabs there is a king; the rest is occupied by small tribes, each of which is ruled by the chief who happens to have most influence at the time. The Kumba, or Pimento tree, is found there in such plenty, that a rotal or pound of salt will purchase four or five mid, each mid about a peck.
The trees are so large, from the quantity of water and deep clay, that canoes are hollowed out of them sufficiently capacious to contain ten persons.
It was related to me by Jelabs who have visited that country, that the inhabitants of Dar Bergoo make war by sudden incursions, traversing and laying waste a large space in a short time. They leave their women behind, and are thus better adapted to military operations than the Fûrians, who follow an opposite practice, never marching without a host of attendant females. The people of Bergoo seldom make Selatéa.
Some of the idolatrous nations, dependent on Bergoo, are represented as making war in a very formidable manner. The combatants never retreat; and the women behind light a fire, in which they heat the heads of the spears, and exchange them for such as are cooled in the combat. They also use poisoned weapons.
There is a remote part of the pagan country, from which slaves are brought, which the Arabs distinguish by the term Gnum Gnum, (a sobriquet,) whose inhabitants eat the flesh of the prisoners they take in war. I have conversed with slaves who came thence, and they admit the fact. These people are also in the habit of stripping off the skin of the hands and faces of their slaughtered foes, which afterwards undergo some preparation, and are worn as a mark of triumph. Their arms, a spear or javelin, are of iron, wrought by themselves. After having heated them to redness, they stick the point into the trunk of a particular tree, and there leave the weapon till the juice has dried on. In this manner it acquires, as is reported, a most deadly poison.
A few of the more common vocabula in the language of Dar-Run̄ga.