Celebrated Travels and Travellers, Part 3.: The Great Explorers of the Nineteenth CenturyVerne, Jules
History
Celebrated Travels and Travellers, Part 3.: The Great Explorers of the Nineteenth Century
Verne, Jules
Discoveries in geography; Explorers; Voyages and travels
The houses of the king and those of his wives are situated in two large
parks. The doors and the pillars of the verandahs are adorned with
fairly well executed carvings, representing such scenes as a boa
killing an antelope, or a pig, or a group of warriors and drummers.
According to Clapperton the people of Yariba have fewer of the
characteristics of the negro race than any natives of Africa with whom
he was brought in contact. Their lips are not so thick and their noses
are of a more aquiline shape. The men are well made, and carry
themselves with an ease which cannot fail to be remarked. The women are
less refined-looking than the men, the result, probably, of exposure to
the sun and the fatigue they endure, compelled as they are to do all
the work of the fields.
Soon after leaving Katunga, Clapperton crossed the Mousa, a tributary
of the Quorra and entered Kiama, one of the halting-places of the
caravans trading between Houssa and Borghoo, and Gandja, on the
frontiers of Ashantee. Kiama contains no less than 13,000 inhabitants,
who are considered the greatest thieves in Africa. To say a man is from
Borghoo is to brand him as a blackguard at once.
Outside Kiama the traveller met the Houssa caravan. Some thousands of
men and women, oxen, asses, and horses, marching in single file, formed
an interminable line presenting a singular and grotesque appearance. A
motley assemblage truly: naked girls alternating with men bending
beneath their loads, or with Gandja merchants in the most outlandish
and ridiculous costumes, mounted on bony steeds which stumbled at every
step.
Clapperton now made for Boussa on the Niger, where Mungo Park was
drowned. Before reaching it he had to cross the Oli, a tributary of the
Quorra, and to pass through Wow-wow, a district of Borghoo, the capital
of which, also called Wow-wow, contained some 18,000 inhabitants. It
was one of the cleanest and best built towns the traveller had entered
since he left Badagry. The streets are wide and well kept, and the
houses are round, with conical thatched roofs. Drunkenness is a
prevalent vice in Wow-wow: governor, priests, laymen, men and women,
indulge to excess in palm wine, in rum brought from the coast, and in
"bouza." The latter beverage is a mixture made of dhurra, honey,
cayenne pepper, and the root of a coarse grass eaten by cattle, with
the addition of a certain quantity of water.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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