A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels — Volume 02: Arranged in Systematic Order: Forming a Complete History of the Origin and Progress of Navigation, Discovery, and Commerce, by Sea and Land, from the Earliest Ages to the Present TimeKerr, Robert
History
A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels — Volume 02: Arranged in Systematic Order: Forming a Complete History of the Origin and Progress of Navigation, Discovery, and Commerce, by Sea and Land, from the Earliest Ages to the Present Time
Kerr, Robert
Voyages and travels
[1] The text seems corrupted in giving so large a distance between the
Senegal river and this country of king Budomel, as 800 miles to the
south, or rather S. S. E. would carry us to what is called the _grain_,
or windward coast of Guinea, in lat. 6° N. and, from the sequel, Cada
Mosto does not appear to have passed Cape Verd till after quitting the
country of Budomel. According to Brue, as quoted by Clarke, the king
of Kayor or Kayhor was styled Damel. Kayor or Cayor appears on our
maps above an hundred miles up the Senegal, and on its north side,
which therefore can have no reference to the place in the text. I am
disposed to believe, that the distance in the text ought only to have
been 80 miles, and that the territory of Budomel was in the country of
the Jalofs, between the Senegal and Cape Verd, at the mouth of a small
river, on which our charts place two towns, Masaye and Enibaul, in lat.
15° 20' N.--E.
[2] The grosso, or Venetian groat, is worth about three farthings.--Astl.
SECTION VI.
_Account of the Country of Budomel continued_.
On account of the great heats in the kingdom of Senegal, and all the
other countries of the Negroes on the coast, no wheat, rye, barley, or
spelt, can grow, neither are vines cultivated, as we knew experimentally
from a trial made with seeds from our ship: For wheat, and these other
articles of culture, require a temperate climate and frequent showers,
both of which are wanting here, where they have no rains during nine
months of the year, from October to June both included. But they have
large and small millet, beans, and the largest and finest kidney beans in
the world, as large as hazle nuts, longer than those of the Venetian
territory, and beautifully speckled with various colours as if painted.
Their beans are large, flat, and of a lively red colour, and they have
likewise white beans. They sow in July, at the beginning of the rains,
and reap in September, when they cease; thus they prepare the soil, sow
the seed, and get in the harvest, all in three months; but they are bad
husbandmen, and so exceedingly averse to labour, that they sow no more
than is barely sufficient to last them throughout the year, and never lay
up any store for sale. In cultivating the ground, four or five of them go
into a field with spades, with which they turn up the soil about four
inches deep; yet such is the fertility of the soil, that it makes ample
returns for this slight culture, without any farther trouble.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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