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
They have each a separate name, the westernmost being called from
the Masráta, who have given their name to the whole western quarter, as
well as to a small gate still in existence; the next, southwards from
the kófa-n-Alkáli, is called (in Emgedesíye) “Masráta-hogú-me,” for the
three languages—the Temáshight or Tarkíye, the Góber or Háusa language,
and the Sónghay- or Sonrhay-kini—are very curiously mixed together in
the topography of this town, the natural consequence of the mixture of
these three different national elements. This mixture of languages was
well calculated to make the office of interpreter in this place very
important, and the class of such men a very numerous one.
In the Masráta pool, which is the largest of the three, two horses
were swimming, while women were busy washing clothes. The water has
a strong taste of salt, which is also the case with two of the three
wells still in use within the town. Keeping from the easternmost pool
(which is called, like the whole quarter around, Terjemáne, from the
interpreters whose dwellings were chiefly hereabout) a little more to
the south-east, I was greatly pleased at finding among the ruins in the
south-eastern quarter, between the quarters Akáfan árina and Imurdán,
some very well-built and neatly polished houses, the walls of which were
of so excellent workmanship that even after having been deprived of their
roofs, for many years, perhaps, they had sustained scarcely any injury.
One of them was furnished with ornamented niches, and by the remains of
pipes, and the whole arrangement bore evident traces of warm baths. Music
and song diverted us in the evening, while we rested on our mats in the
different corners of our courtyard.
_Sunday, October 13._—My Kél-owí companions regaled me with a string of
dates from Fáshi, the westernmost oasis of the Tébu, or, as the Tuarek
call them, Berauni. But instead of indulging myself in this luxury, I
laid it carefully aside as a treat for my visitors, to whom I had (so
small were my means at present) neither coffee nor sugar to offer. I
then accompanied my friends once more to the Alkáli; but the litigation
which was going on being tedious, I left them, and returned quite alone
through the town, sitting down a moment with the Tawatíye, who generally
met at the house of the Emgédesi Ídder, a sort of Tawáti agent and an
intelligent man.
[Illustration]
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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