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 Is
Smaller Than Sockna, But Is Built And Walled In The Same Manner.
It
has three gates, three mosques, and a large building, which is
dignified with the name of a castle, but it does not appear to have
even a loop-hole for musketry.
The palm groves and gardens come up
close to the walls of the town, and completely conceal it. The soil
is sand, but is fertilized by being constantly refreshed by little
channels, from wells of brackish water. The inhabitants, who are of
the tribe Fateima, bear a good character.
The town of Wadan is between twelve and thirteen miles east by north
of Hoon. It appeared much inferior to either of the other two in
point of neatness, comfort, and convenience; although its aspect is
much more pleasing; it is built on a conical hill, on the top of
which are some enclosed houses, called the castle. Here is a well of
great depth, cut through the solid rock, evidently not the work of
the Arabs. The tombs and mosques, both here and at Hoon, were
ornamented with numbers of ostrich eggs. The inhabitants of Wadan are
sheerefs, who are the pretended descendants of the prophet, and form
the bulk of the resident population, and Arabs of the tribe Moajer,
who spend the greater part of the year with their flocks in the
Syrtis. A few miles eastward of the town, there is a chain of
mountains, which, as well as the town itself, derives its name from a
species of buffalo called wadan, immense herds of which are found
there. The wadan is of the size of an ass, having a very large head
and horns, a short reddish hide, and large bunches of hair hanging
from each shoulder, to the length of eighteen inches or two feet;
they are very fierce. There are two other specimens found here, the
bogra el weish, evidently the bekker el wash of Shaw, a red
buffalo, slow in its motions, having large horns, and of the size of
a cow; and the white buffalo, of a lighter and more active make, very
shy and swift, and not easily procured. The wadan seems best to
answer to the oryx.
There are great numbers of ostriches in these mountains, by hunting
of which, many of the natives subsist. At all the three towns,
Sockna, Hoon, and Wadan, it is the practice to keep tame ostriches in
a stable, and in two years to take three cullings of the feathers.
Captain Lyon supposes that all the fine white ostrich feathers sent
to Europe are from tame birds, the wild ones being in general so
ragged and torn, that not above half a dozen perfect ones can be
found. The black, being shorter and more flexible, are generally
good. All the Arabs agree in stating, that the ostrich does not leave
its eggs to be hatched by the heat of the sun. The parent bird forms
a rough nest, in which she covers from fourteen to eighteen eggs, and
regularly sits on them, in the same manner as the common fowl does on
her chickens, the male occasionally relieving the female.[Footnote]
It is during the breeding season that the greatest numbers are
procured, the Arabs shooting the old ones on their nests.
[Footnote: There is one peculiarity attending the ostrich, which is,
that although the female lays from about twenty-five to thirty eggs,
yet she only sits upon about fifteen, throwing the remainder outside
the nest, where they remain until the young ones are hatched, and
these eggs form the first food of the young birds. - EDITOR.]
On the 22d April, Captain Lyon and his companions left Sockna, in
company with Sultan Mukni, for Mourzouk, which they entered upon the
4th May. The whole way is an almost uninterrupted succession of stony
plains and gloomy wadys, with no water but that of wells, generally
muddy, brackish, or bitter, and at fearful intervals. On the first
evening, the place of encampment was a small plain, with no other
vegetation than a few prickly talk bushes, encircled by high
mountains of basalt, which gave it the appearance of a volcanic
crater. Here, at a well of tolerably good water, called Gatfa, the
camels were loaded with water for five days. The next day, the horse
and foot men passed over a very steep mountain called Nufdai, by a
most difficult path of large irregular masses of basalt; the camels
were four hours in winding round the foot of this mountain, which was
crossed in one hour. From the wady at its foot, called Zgar, the
route ascended to a flat covered with broken basalt, called Dahr
t'Moumen (the believer's back): it then led through several gloomy
wadys, till, having cleared the mountainous part of the Soudah (Jebel
Assoud), it issued in the plain called El Maitba Soudah, from its
being covered in like manner with small pieces of basalt. Three
quarters of an hour further, they reached El Maitba Barda, a plain
covered with a very small white gravel, without the slightest trace
of basalt.
"We did not see any where," says Captain Lyon, "the least appearance
of vegetation, but we observed many skeletons of animals, which had
died of fatigue in the desert, and occasionally the grave of some
human being. All their bodies were so dried by the extreme heat of
the sun, that putrifaction did not appear to have taken place after
death. In recently dead animals, I could not perceive the slightest
offensive smell; and in those long dead, the skin, with the hair on
it, remained unbroken and perfect, although so brittle as to break
with a slight blow. The sand-winds never cause these carcases to
change their places, as in a short time, a slight mound is formed
round them, and they become stationary."
Afterwards, passing between low, table-topped hills, called El Gaaf,
the coffle encamped on the third evening in a desert, called Sbir ben
Afeen, where the plain presented on all sides so perfect a horizon,
that an astronomical observation might have been taken as well as at
sea.
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