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
Clapperton tells us that the people of Wow-wow are famous for their
cleanliness; they are cheerful, benevolent, and hospitable. No other
people whom he had met with had been so ready to give him information
about their country; and, more extraordinary still, did not meet with a
single beggar. The natives say they are not aborigines of Borghoo, but
that they are descendants of the natives of Houssa and Nyffe. They
speak a Yariba dialect, but the Wow-wow women are pretty, which those
of Yariba are not. The men are muscular and well-made, but have a
dissipated look. Their religion is a lax kind of Mahommedanism
tinctured with paganism.
Since leaving the coast Clapperton had met tribes of unconverted
Fellatahs speaking the same language, and resembling in feature and
complexion others who had adopted Mahommedanism. A significant fact
which points to their belonging to one race.
Boussa, which the traveller reached at last, is not a regular town, but
consists of groups of scattered houses on an island of the Quorra,
situated in lat. 10 degrees 14 minutes N., and long. 6 degrees 11
minutes E. The province of which it is the capital is the most densely
populated of Borghoo. The inhabitants are all Pagans, even the sultan,
although his name is Mahommed. They live upon monkeys, dogs, cats,
rats, beef, and mutton.
Breakfast was served to the sultan whilst he was giving audience to
Clapperton, whom he invited to join him. The meal consisted of a large
water-rat grilled without skinning, a dish of fine boiled rice, some
dried fish stewed in palm oil, fried alligators' eggs, washed down with
fresh water from the Quorra. Clapperton took some stewed fish and rice,
but was much laughed at because he would eat neither the rat nor the
alligators' eggs.
The sultan received him very courteously, and told him that the Sultan
of Yaourie had had boats ready to take him to that town for the last
seven days. Clapperton replied that as the war had prevented all exit
from Bornou and Yaourie, he should prefer going by way of Coulfo and
Nyffe. "You are right," answered the sultan; "you did well to come and
see me, and you can take which ever route you prefer."
At a later audience Clapperton made inquiries about the Englishmen who
had perished in the Quorra twenty years before. This subject evidently
made the sultan feel very ill at ease, and he evaded the questions put
to him, by saying he was too young at the time to remember what
happened.
Clapperton explained that he only wanted to recover their books and
papers, and to visit the scene of their death; and the sultan in reply
denied having anything belonging to them, adding a warning against his
guest's going to the place where they died, for it was a "very bad
place."
"But I understood," urged Clapperton, "that part of the boat they were
in could still be seen."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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