Travels and discoveries in North and Central Africa, Vol. 3 (of 5) : $b being a journal of an expedition undertaken under the auspices of H.B.M.'s Government, in the years 1849-1855Barth, Heinrich
History
Travels and discoveries in North and Central Africa, Vol. 3 (of 5) : $b being a journal of an expedition undertaken under the auspices of H.B.M.'s Government, in the years 1849-1855
Barth, Heinrich
Africa, Central -- Description and travel; Africa, North -- Description and travel
The village we had just reached was named Kákalá, and is one of the most
considerable places in the Músgu country. A large number of slaves had
been caught this day; and in the course of the evening, after some
skirmishing, in which three Bórnu horsemen were killed, a great many
more were brought in: altogether they were said to have taken one
thousand, and there were certainly not less than five hundred. To our
utmost horror, not less than one hundred and seventy full-grown men were
mercilessly slaughtered in cold blood, the greater part of them being
allowed to bleed to death, a leg having been severed from the body. Most
of them were tall men, with not very pleasing features. Their forehead,
instead of shelving backwards, was generally very high, and the line of
the face straight; but their thick eyelashes, wide, open nostrils, thick
lips, high cheekbones, and coarse bushy hair, gave them a very wild
appearance. The proportions of the legs, with the knee-bone bent inward,
were particularly ugly; and on the whole they were more bony than the
Marghí. They were all of a dirty black colour, very far from that glossy
lustre which is observed in other tribes. Most of them wore a short
beard. The ears of several were adorned with small copper rings, while
almost all of them wore round their necks a thick rope made of the dúm-
bush or ngílle, coarsely twisted, as a sort of ornament.
[Sidenote: Monday, December 29th.]
Soon after setting out from the place of encampment, we had to cross the
ngáljam, which here also was thickly overgrown with rank grass, and the
passage of which was very difficult, owing to the countless holes caused
by the footprints of the elephant. We then entered a dense forest, where
I saw again, for the first time, my old Háusa acquaintance, the kókia, a
middle-sized tree with large leaves and with a fruit of the size of an
apple, which at present was green, but even when ripe is not edible.
This tree, in the course of the expedition, I found to be very common in
the wilds of this country.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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