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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It
Consists Of A Fine Plain, Bordered On The South By An Immense And
Almost Interminable Range Of Mountains.
The eminences directly in
front were not quite so lofty as the hills of Cumberland, but bold,
rocky, and precipitous, and distant summits appeared towering much
higher, and shooting up a line of sharp pinnacles, resembling the
Needles of Mont Blanc.
It was reported that two months were required
to cross their greatest breadth, and reach the other side, where they
rose ten times higher, and were called large moon mountains. They
there overlooked the plain of Adamowa, through which a great river,
that has erroneously been supposed to be the Quorra or Niger, was
said to flow from the westward. The hills immediately in view were
thickly clustered with villages perched on their sides, and even on
their tops, and were distinctly seen from the plain of Mandara. They
were occupied by half-savage tribes, whom the ferocious bigotry of
the nations in the low country branded as pagans, and whom they
claimed a right to plunder, seize, and drive in crowds for sale to
the markets of Fezzan and Bornou. The fires, which were visible, in
the different nests of these unfortunate beings, threw a glare upon
the bold rocks and blunt promontories of granite by which they were
surrounded, and produced a picturesque and somewhat awful appearance.
A baleful joy beamed on the visage of the Arabs, as they eyed these
abodes of their future victims, whom they already fancied themselves
driving in bands across the desert.
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