Travels in the Interior of Africa — Volume 02 — John Shaqi
Travels in the Interior of Africa — Volume 02Park, Mungo
History
Travels in the Interior of Africa — Volume 02
Park, Mungo
Africa -- Discovery and exploration; Niger River
We passed, in the course of the day, a great many villages inhabited
chiefly by fishermen, and in the evening about five o’clock arrived at
Sansanding, a very large town, containing, as I was told, from eight to
ten thousand inhabitants. This place is much resorted to by the Moors,
who bring salt from Berroo, and beads and coral from the Mediterranean,
to exchange here for gold dust and cotton cloth. This cloth they sell to
great advantage in Berroo, and other Moorish countries, where, on account
of the want of rain, no cotton is cultivated.
I desired my guide to conduct me to the house in which we were to lodge
by the most private way possible. We accordingly rode along between the
town and the river, passing by a creek or harbour, in which I observed
twenty large canoes, most of them fully loaded, and covered with mats to
prevent the rain from injuring the goods. As we proceeded, three other
canoes arrived, two with passengers and one with goods. I was happy to
find that all the negro inhabitants took me for a Moor, under which
character I should probably have passed unmolested, had not a Moor, who
was sitting by the river-side, discovered the mistake, and, setting up a
loud exclamation, brought together a number of his countrymen.
When I arrived at the house of Counti Mamadi, the dooty of the town, I
was surrounded with hundreds of people speaking a variety of different
dialects, all equally unintelligible to me. At length, by the assistance
of my guide, who acted as interpreter, I understood that one of the
spectators pretended to have seen me at one place, and another at some
other place; and a Moorish woman absolutely swore that she had kept my
house three years at Gallam, on the river Senegal. It was plain that
they mistook me for some other person, and I desired two of the most
confident to point towards the place where they had seen me. They
pointed due south; hence I think it probable that they came from Cape
Coast, where they might have seen many white men. Their language was
different from any I had yet heard. The Moors now assembled in great
number, with their usual arrogance, compelling the negroes to stand at a
distance. They immediately began to question me concerning my religion,
but finding that I was not master of Arabic, they sent for two men, whom
they call _Ilhuidi_ (Jews), in hopes that they might be able to converse
with me. These Jews, in dress and appearance, very much resemble the
Arabs; but though they so far conform to the religion of Mohammed as to
recite in public prayers from the Koran, they are but little respected by
the negroes; and even the Moors themselves allowed that, though I was a
Christian, I was a better man than a Jew. They however insisted that,
like the Jews, I must conform so far as to repeat the Mohammedan prayers;
and when I attempted to waive the subject by telling them that I could
not speak Arabic, one of them, a shereef from Tuat, in the Great Desert,
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