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
At present I still think that I was not far wrong in estimating the
number of the inhabited houses at from six hundred to seven hundred, and
the population at about seven thousand, though it must be borne in mind
that, as the inhabitants have still preserved their trading character,
a great many of the male inhabitants are always absent from home, a
circumstance which reduces the armed force of the place to about six
hundred. A numerical element, capable of controlling the estimated amount
of the population, is offered by the number of from two hundred and
fifty to three hundred well-bred boys, who at the time of my visit were
learning a little reading and writing, in five or six schools scattered
over the town; for it is not every boy who is sent to school, but only
those belonging to families in easy circumstances, and they are all about
the same age, from eight to ten years old.
With regard to the names of the quarters of the town, which are
interesting from an historical point of view, I was not able to learn
exactly the application of each of the names; and I am sure very few even
of the inhabitants themselves can now tell the limits of the quarters,
on account of the desolate state of many of them. The principal names
which can be laid down with certainty in the plan are Masráta, Gobetáren,
Gáwa-Ngírsu, Dígi or Dégi, Katánga, Terjemán, and Arrafía, which comprise
the south-western quarter of the town. The names of the other quarters,
which I attempted to lay down on the plan sent to Government together
with my report, I now deem it prudent to withdraw, as I afterwards found
that there was some uncertainty about them. I therefore collect here, for
the information of future travellers, the names of the other quarters of
the place, besides those mentioned above and marked in the plan—Lárelóg,
Churúd, Hásena, Amaréwuël, Imurdán (which name, I was assured afterwards,
has nothing in common with the name of the tribe of the Imghád), Tafimáta
(the quarter where the tribe of the same name lived), Yobímme (“yobu-mé”
meaning the mouth of the market), Dégi-n-béne, or the Upper Dégi, and
Bosenrára. Kachíy_u_ (not Kachí_n_) seems to have been originally the
name of a pool, as I was assured that, besides the three ponds still
visible, there were formerly seven others, namely Kudúru, Kachíyu,
Chikinéwan, Lángusúgázará, Kurungúsu, and Rabafáda, this latter in the
square of the palace.
The whole ground upon which the town is built (being the edge of a
tableland which coincides with the transition from granite to sandstone)
seems to be greatly impregnated with salt at a certain depth, of which
not only the ponds, but even the wells bear evidence, two of the three
wells still in use having saltish water, and only that of Shedwánka
being, as to taste, free from salt, though it is still regarded as
unwholesome, and all the water used for drinking is brought from the
wells outside the walls. Formerly, it is said, there were nine wells
inside the town.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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