Travels and discoveries in North and Central Africa, Vol. 5 (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. 5 (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 good treatment of the people of Ázemay made my companions rather
unwilling to leave this place so soon, and a further delay was caused by
their bartering. When at length we set out on our march, we had to make
a considerable detour, in order to avoid the lower course of a rivulet,
which is here not passable. Our path lay through corn-fields till we
reached the village of Kasánni, consisting of two groups, one of which
was surrounded by a keffi, or stockade, and inhabited by Fúlbe; the
other was merely a slave hamlet. Rich corn-fields, shaded by fine trees
and broken by projecting rocks, extended on all sides. Close beyond this
hamlet, we crossed a little rivulet called Téderimt by the Tawárek,
which in this spot, although only twenty-one feet wide and a foot in
depth, caused us a short delay, owing to its banks rising to the height
of about ten feet. But inconsiderable as was the size of the river, it
became important to me, as in crossing it my ear was greeted for the
first time by the usual Háusa salute, which I had not heard for so long
a time, and which transported me once more into a region for which I had
contracted a great predilection, and which among all the tracts that I
had visited in Negroland, I had found the most agreeable for a foreigner
to reside in.
We then continued our march through the district of Góte, which is
chiefly adorned with the monkey-bread tree, till we reached a small
village called Bóse, which is inhabited by the tribe of the Koi-zé or
Koizáten (who came originally from Damgót). It consisted entirely of the
kind of huts which are usual in Háusa, and manifested that we had left
the Songhay architecture behind us. But although it possesses a small
mosque, most of the inhabitants, together with the head man himself, are
idolaters. Here we were hospitably treated with a bowl of ghussub-water,
while I had to give the people my blessing in return. Two miles and a
half beyond Bóse lies the village of Hendóbo, on a small branch of the
river. We encamped a short distance from it, in the shade of a luxuriant
duwé, on a ground rising slightly from the swampy plain opposite the
island Barma-gúngu, which is situated a little further in the midst of
the river, which here, from N. 20° W. to S. 20° E., changes its course
to a direction from N. 20° E. to S. 20° W.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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