Travels and discoveries in North and Central Africa : $b Including accounts of Tripoli, the Sahara, the remarkable kingdom of Bornu, and the countries around Lake ChadBarth, Heinrich
History
Travels and discoveries in North and Central Africa : $b Including accounts of Tripoli, the Sahara, the remarkable kingdom of Bornu, and the countries around Lake Chad
Barth, Heinrich
Africa, Central -- Description and travel; Africa, North -- Description and travel
Having waited a long time for Utaeti, we at length started without him,
passing on our right a beautiful palm-grove, with as many as ten thousand
trees, while our left was bordered by scattered gardens, where the
people were busy, in the cool of the morning, irrigating the corn and
vegetables, with the assistance of Sudán oxen. They came out to see us
pass by, but without expressing any feeling, hostile or otherwise. After
a mile and a half the plantation ceased, at the bed of a torrent which
contained a pond of rain-water collected from the higher rocky ground,
which here terminates. Further on we passed another small channel,
overgrown with bushes, and remarkable for nothing but its name, which
seems plainly to indicate that this country originally belonged to the
Góber or Háusa nation, for it is still called Korámma, a word which in
the Háusa language denotes the bed of a torrent. To this watercourse
particularly the general designation was most probably assigned, because
in its further progress it widens very considerably, and in some degree
appears as the head of the green bottom of the Valley of Ghát.
But a more luxuriant valley, from three to four miles broad, begins
further on, rich in herbage, and full of ethel-trees, all crowning the
tops of small mounds. Here we encamped, near a pond of dirty rain-water,
frequented by great flocks of doves and waterfowl, and a well called
Ízayen, in order to wait for Utaeti. The well was only about three feet
deep, but the water brackish and disagreeable. Our friend came at length,
and it was then decided to march during the night, in order to reach the
Kél-owí; we therefore left our pleasant camping-ground about half-past
nine in the evening, favoured by splendid moonlight. So interesting was
the scene that, absorbed in my thoughts, I got considerably in advance
of the caravan, and, not observing a small path which turned off on the
right, I followed the larger one till I became conscious of my solitary
situation, and, dismounting, lay down in order to await my companions.
Our caravan, however, had taken the other path, and my fellow-travellers
grew rather anxious about me; but my camel, which was evidently aware of
the caravan ahead of us, would not give up this direction, which proved
to be the right one, and after I had joined the caravan we were obliged
to return to my former path.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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