Proceedings of the Association for Promoting the Discovery of the Interior Parts of Africa [1790]Association for Promoting the Discovery of the Interior Parts of Africa
History
Proceedings of the Association for Promoting the Discovery of the Interior Parts of Africa [1790]
Association for Promoting the Discovery of the Interior Parts of Africa
Africa -- Description and travel
_Rout from Mourzouk to Grand Cairo, according to Hadgee Abdalah
Benmileitan, the present Governor of Mesurata._
* * * * *
Placed in a situation which affords an easy intercourse with the
Mediterranean, and therefore with the States of Europe, on the
one hand, and on the other with the extensive Empires of Bornou
and Cashna, the dominions of Tombuctou, and the various nations of
Negros to the South of the Niger, the Merchants of Fezzan are happily
possessed of the farther advantage of communicating by a safe and
comparatively commodious passage with the Cities of Grand Cairo and of
Mecca. A pilgrimage to the latter, the object, from time immemorial,
of veneration in Arabia, is prescribed to every Musselman; and though
the greatest part of the believers in Mahomet, deterred by distance,
or restrained by the avocations of business and the feelings of
domestic attachment, content themselves with imperfect resolutions
of performing at some future period this arduous journey, yet there
are persons, even from the innermost recesses of Africa, who think,
that a positive injunction of their faith is too solemn for excuses,
and too momentous for delay. Prompted by this urgent consideration,
or allured by the honourable distinction which attends upon the
title of Hadgee, the envied appellation of those who have visited the
sacred Temple, a number of the faithful from the Empires of Bornou
and Cashna, from the extensive kingdom of Caffaba, and from several
of the Negro States, resort to Fezzan, and proceed from thence,
with the caravan, which in the Autumn of every second or third year
takes its departure for Mecca. The caravan, which seldom consists
of less than one hundred, or of more than three hundred Travellers,
assembles at Mourzouk, and begins its journey in the last week of
October, or in the first of the succeeding month.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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