Travels Of Richard And John Lander Into The Interior Of Africa For The Discovery Of The Course And Termination Of The Niger By Robert Huish
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We Have Seen This State Of Things Existing In Ludamar, To The West Of
Timbuctoo, Where A Negro Population Is
Subjected to the tyranny of
the Arab chieftain Ali, between whom and his southern neighbours of
Bambarra and Kaarta we
Find a continual struggle of aggression and
self-defence; and the well-known character of the Arabs would lead us
to expect a similar state of things along the whole frontier of the
negro population. In the pauses of such a warfare, we should expect
to find no intermission of the animosity or precautions of the
antagonist parties. The Arab victorious would be ferocious and
intolerant, even beyond his usual violence, and the Koran or the
halter would probably be the alternatives, which he would offer to
his negro guest; whilst the milder nature of the negro would be
content with such measures of precaution and self-defence, as might
appear sufficient to secure him from the return of the enemy, whom he
had expelled, without excluding the peaceful trader; and, under the
re-established power of the latter, we might expect to find at
Timbuctoo precisely the same state of things as Adams describes to
have existed in 1811.
The reserve, with which we have seen grounds for receiving the
testimony of the natives of Africa, may reasonably accompany us in
our further comparative examination of their accounts and those of
Adams, respecting the population and external appearance of the city
of Timbuctoo. We cannot give such latitude to our credulity as to
confide in the statements of Sidi Hamet; nor do we place much
reliance on the account of Caillie, who was the last European who may
be said to have entered its walls. Notwithstanding, therefore, the
alleged splendour of its court, the polish of its inhabitants, its
civilized institutions, and other symptoms of refinement, which some
modern accounts or speculations, founded on native reports, have
taught us to look for, we are disposed to receive the humbler
descriptions of Adams, as approaching with much greater probability
to the truth. Let us, however, not be understood as rating too highly
the value of a sailor's reports. They must of necessity be defective
in a variety of ways. Many of the subjects upon which Adams was
questioned, were evidently beyond the competency of such an
individual fully to comprehend or satisfactorily to describe; and we
must be content to reserve our final estimates of the morals,
religion, civil polity, and learning, if the term may be allowed us,
of the negroes of Timbuctoo, until we obtain more conclusive
information than could possibly have been derived from so illiterate
a man as Adams. A sufficiency, however, may be gathered from his
story, to prepare us for a disappointment of the extravagant
expectations, which have been indulged respecting this boasted city.
And here we may remark, that the relative rank of Timbuctoo amongst
the cities of central Africa, and its present importance with
reference to European objects, appear to us to be considerably
overrated.
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