Travels in the Interior of Africa — Volume 01 — John Shaqi
Travels in the Interior of Africa — Volume 01Park, Mungo
History
Travels in the Interior of Africa — Volume 01
Park, Mungo
Africa -- Discovery and exploration; Niger River
The cattle are milked in the mornings and evenings: the milk is
excellent; but the quantity obtained from any one cow is by no means so
great as in Europe. The Foulahs use the milk chiefly as an article of
diet, and that not until it is quite sour. The cream which it affords is
very thick, and is converted into butter by stirring it violently in a
large calabash. This butter, when melted over a gentle fire, and freed
from impurities, is preserved in small earthen pots, and forms a part in
most of their dishes; it serves likewise to anoint their heads, and is
bestowed very liberally on their faces and arms.
But although milk is plentiful, it is somewhat remarkable that the
Foulahs, and indeed all the inhabitants of this part of Africa, are
totally unacquainted with the art of making cheese. A firm attachment to
the customs of their ancestors makes them view with an eye of prejudice
everything that looks like innovation. The heat of the climate and the
great scarcity of salt are held forth as unanswerable objections; and the
whole process appears to them too long and troublesome to be attended
with any solid advantage.
Besides the cattle, which constitute the chief wealth of the Foulahs,
they possess some excellent horses, the breed of which seems to be a
mixture of the Arabian with the original African.
CHAPTER V.
FROM KAJAAGA TO KASSON.
THE kingdom of Kajaaga, in which I was now arrived, is called by the
French Gallam, but the name that I have adopted is universally used by
the natives. This country is bounded on the south-east and south by
Bambouk, on the west by Bondou and Foota-Torra, and on the north by the
river Senegal.
The air and climate are, I believe, more pure and salubrious than at any
of the settlements towards the coast; the face of the country is
everywhere interspersed with a pleasing variety of hills and valleys; and
the windings of the Senegal river, which descends from the rocky hills of
the interior, make the scenery on its banks very picturesque and
beautiful.
The inhabitants are called Serawoollies, or (as the French write it)
_Seracolets_. Their complexion is a jet black: they are not to be
distinguished in this respect from the Jaloffs.
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