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
- Page 25 of 587 - First - Home
After Encountering
Many Difficulties, He Was Obliged To Relinquish The Farther Ascent Of
The River, Nor Did He Even Reach
The point where the previous
discoveries of Thompson terminated, which may be considered as the
utmost boundary of the discoveries
Of that period; indeed many years
elapsed before any travellers passed the limits at which Thompson or
Jobson had arrived. The latter gives a strange report, which,
however, was in some degree partially circulated before him, of a
silent traffic being carried on in the interior between the moors and
a negro nation, who would not allow themselves to be seen. "The
reason," he adds, "why these negroes conceal themselves, is, that
they have lips of an unnatural size, hanging down halfway over their
breasts, and which they are obliged to rub with salt continually, to
keep them from putrefaction." Thus even the great salt trade of the
interior of Africa is not wholly untinged with fable.
The stream became at last so shallow, that Jobson could not ascend
any farther, and he began his voyage downwards on the 10th February,
intending to return at the season when the periodical rains filled
the channel. He was, however, never able to execute this purpose, as
he and the company became involved in a quarrel with the merchants,
whom he visits with his highest displeasure, representing them as
persons alive only to their own immediate interests, and utterly
regardless of any of those honourable motives with which all
commercial dealings ought to be characterised.
Jobson may be said to have been the first Englishman, who enjoyed the
opportunity of observing the manners and superstitions peculiar to
the interior of Africa, but that must be taken as only within the
narrow limits to which the discoveries at that period extended. He
found that the chiefs of the different nations were attended by bands
of musicians, to whom he gives the appellation of juddies or
fiddlers, and compares them to the Irish rhymsters, or, as we should
now compare them, to the Italian improvisatori. By some other authors
they are called jelle, or jillemen; the instruments on which they
perform being rudely made of wood, having a sonorous sound, on
account of its extreme hardness, and in some instances they exhibit
the knowledge of the power of an extended string, by fastening a
piece of the gut of an animal across a plane of wood, and beating on
it with a stick. Like the majority of the musicians of the ruder
tribes, the excellence of their music depends on the noise which is
made, and if it be so obstreperous, as almost to deafen the auditors,
the greater is the pleasure which is shown.
These wandering minstrels are frequently attended by the Greegree
men, or sorcerers, who, on account of the fantastic dress which they
wear, form a most motley group; the Greegree men, trying to outvie
each other in the hideous and fantastic style of their dress, and the
more frightful they make themselves appear, the greater they believe
is the effect of their sorcery.
Enter page number
PreviousNext
Page 25 of 587
Words from 12564 to 13075
of 309561