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
We received here the positive news that the body of Wadáy horsemen who
had come to the assistance of the Woghda, and had caused the Arabs so
much fear and anxiety the day before, had returned to Mʿawó; and a very
curious story was told with regard to them, which at once shows how
highly these horsemen of Wadáy are respected by the Arabs, and the
esteem which they themselves entertain for the latter. Thirty Wadáy
horsemen were said to have arrived with the Woghda in consequence of
their entreaties, and to have followed with them the traces of our
friends, the Woghda representing to them that many of the latter had
been killed. Thus they arrived in the morning when we had just left the
camp at Áláli, and the dust raised by our host was plainly visible in
the distance; but when the Woghda instigated the Wadáy people to go and
attack that host, they wanted to assure themselves how many of the Arabs
had fallen in the last battle, in which thirty-four of the Woghda were
said to have been slain, and when they found only two tombs, the latter
told them that in each there were ten bodies; but the Wadáy people,
being anxious to make sure of the valour of their friends, had the tombs
dug up, and found only two buried in each. Whereupon they stigmatized
the Woghda as liars, and felt little inclined to follow the valiant
robbers who had killed so many of the enemy, while they had lost so few
of their own. But this story may have been adorned by our friends the
Welád Slimán, who could not even deny that, besides a great deal of
other booty from their own camp, which the enemy had succeeded in
carrying away, the chief of the Woghda could pride himself on the red
bernús which we had given as a present to Sheikh Ghét; nay, he could
even boast of four horses taken from the Arabs.
[Sidenote: Sunday, October 26th.]
This and the following day the Arabs were all busy in writing, or
getting letters written, to Kúkawa, as a courier was to leave. I myself
was almost the only person who did not get a note ready; for I could not
muster sufficient energy to write a letter. Had I been strong enough, I
should have had sufficient leisure to make up the whole journal of my
excursion to the eastern parts of Kánem; but I was quite unable, and the
consequence was, that this part of my diary always remained in a very
rough state. Sheikh Ghét, who thought that we were greatly indebted to
him for having seen so much of the country, sent for a variety of
things; but we were only able to comply with very few of his wishes. On
our telling him that we were not at all satisfied with what we had seen,
and that, in order not to waste more time, we had the strongest wish to
return to Kúkawa as soon as possible, he wanted to persuade us that he
himself was to leave for the capital of Bórnu in five or six days. But
we prudently chose to provide for ourselves, and not rely upon his
promise.
[Sidenote: Monday, October 27th.]
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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