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. They expressed great surprise at the Europeans being able to add
numbers together without fingering. Though very fond of poetry, they
are incapable of composing it. The Arabs, however, invent a few
little songs, which the natives have much pleasure in learning, and
the women sing some of the negro airs very prettily, while grinding
their corn.
The songs of the kadankas (singing girls), who answer to the Egyptian
almehs, is Soudanic. Their musical instrument is called rhababe, or
erhab. It is an excavated hemisphere, made from the shell of a gourd
lime, and covered with leather; to this a long handle is fixed, on
which is stretched a string of horse hairs, longitudinally closed,
and compact as one cord, about the thickness of a quill. This is
played upon with a bow. Captain Lyon says, the women really produced
a very pleasing, though a wild melody; their songs were pretty and
plaintive, and generally in the Soudan language, which is very
musical. What is rather singular, he heard the same song sung by the
same woman that Horneman mentions, and she recollected having seen
that traveller at the castle.
The lower classes and the slaves, who, in point of colour and
appearance, are the same, labour together. The freeman has, however,
only one inducement to work, which is hunger; he has no notion of
laying by any thing for the advantage of his family, or as a reserve
for himself in his old age; but if by any chance he obtains money, he
remains idle until it is expended, and then returns unwillingly to
work. The females here are allowed greater liberty than those of
Tripoli, and are more kindly treated. Though so much better used than
those of Barbary, their life is still a state of slavery. A man never
ventures to speak of his women; is reproached, if he spends much time
in their company, never eats with them; but is waited upon at his
meals, and fanned by them while he sleeps. Yet these poor beings,
never having known the sweets of liberty, are, in spite of their
humiliation, comparatively happy.
The authority of parents over their children is very great; some
fathers of the better class do not allow their sons even to eat or
sit down in their presence, until they become men; the poorer orders
are less strict.
There are no written records of events amongst the Fezzaners, and
their traditions are so disfigured, and so strangely mingled with
religious and superstitious falsehoods, that no confidence can be
placed in them. Yet the natives themselves look with particular
respect on a man capable of talking of the people of the olden time.
Several scriptural traditions are selected and believed. The Psalms
of David, the Pentateuch, the Books of Solomon, and many extracts
from the inspired writers, are universally known, and most
reverentially considered. The New Testament, translated into the
Arabic, which Captain Lyon took with him, was eagerly read, and no
exception was made to it, but that of our Saviour being designated as
the son of God. St. Paul, or Baulus, bears all the blame of Mahomet's
name not being inserted in it, as they believe that his coming was
foretold by Christ, but that Paul erased it; he is therefore called a
kaffir, and his name is not used with much reverence.
Captain Lyon had not been more than ten days at Mourzouk, before he
was attacked with severe dysentery, which confined him to his bed
during twenty-two days, and reduced him to the last extremity. His
unadorned narrative conveys an affecting account of the sufferings to
which the party were exposed from the insalubrity of the climate; the
inadequate arrangements which had been made for their comfort, or
even subsistence, and the sordid and treacherous conduct of the
sultan. "Our little party," he says, "was at this time miserably
poor; for we had money only sufficient for the purchase of corn to
keep us alive, and never tasted meat, unless fortunate enough to kill
a pigeon in the gardens. My illness was the first break up in our
little community, and from that time, it rarely happened that one or
two of us were not confined to our beds.
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