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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Their Moral Character Is On A Par With That Of The
Tripolines, Though, If Any Thing, They Are Rather Less Insincere.
Falsehood Is Not Considered Odious, Unless When Detected; And When
Employed In Trading, They Affirm That It Is Allowed By The Koran, For
The Good Of Merchants.
However this may be, Captain Lyon asserts,
that he never could find any one able to point out the passage
authorizing these commercial falsehoods.
The lower classes work neatly in leather; they weave a few coarse
barracans, and make iron-work in a solid, though clumsy manner. One
or two work in gold and silver with much skill, considering the
badness of their tools, and every man is capable of acting as a
carpenter or mason; the wood being that of the date tree, and the
houses being built of mud, very little elegance or skill is
necessary. Much deference is paid to the artists in leather or
metals, who are called, par excellence, sta, or master, as
leather-master, iron-master, &c.
From the constant communication with Bornou and Soudan, the languages
of both these countries are generally spoken, and many of their words
are introduced into the Arabic. The family slaves and their children
by their masters, constantly speak the language of the country,
whence they originally come. Their writing is in the Mogrebyn
character, which is used, as is supposed by Captain Lyon, universally
in western Africa, and differs much from that of the east. The
pronunciation is also very different, the kaf being pronounced as a
G, and only marked with one nunnation, and F is pointed below; they
have no idea of arithmetic, but reckon every thing by dots on the
sand, ten in a line; many can hardly tell how much two and two amount
to.
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