Part 11

On the 5th of August he entered into a region of swamp and morass, and he was glad when, to relieve the monotony of the landscape, he caught sight of the picturesque Souray villages and the fantastic outline of the chain of the Hombori mountains. The various forms of this singular range, none of the peaks of which rise more than eight hundred feet above the level of the plain, can hardly be imagined; they irresistibly attract the traveller’s eye. On a gentle slope, composed of masses of rock, is built a perpendicular wall, the terraced summit of which is inhabited by a native race who have ever maintained their independence. That these heroic hillmen sometimes descend from their fastnesses is shown by their flocks of sheep and crops of millet. Starting from this point, a twofold range of remarkable crests extends along the plain, with a curious similitude to the ruins of mediæval castles.

Refused admission at Boná, and afraid to enter Nuggera, well known to be a hot-bed of fanaticism, Dr. Barth solicited the hospitality of some Towaregs, who were encamped in the neighbourhood. Their chief, a man of agreeable physiognomy, with fine features and a fair complexion, placed one of his huts at the traveller’s disposal, and sent him some milk and a sheep ready cooked. Next day, his tents of canvas figured in the midst of those of his host, and he was besieged by a number of very stout ladies, all importunate for gifts. At Bambara, a considerable agricultural centre, surrounded by the canals and affluents of the Niger, he resided for several days. It is situated upon a backwater (mariyet) of the river, which, at the time of Barth’s visit, was almost dry. In the ordinary course of things, it ought, in three weeks, to be crowded with boats, going to Timbuktú by Oálázo and Saráyamó, and to Dirá by Kanima. The prosperity of the town depends, therefore, on the rains; and as these had not begun, the whole population, with the Emir at their head, implored the pretended Arab doctor, whom they chose to regard as a great magician, to exercise his powers to obtain from the skies a copious benediction. Dr. Barth eluded the request for a formal ceremony, but expressed a hope that Heaven would listen to wishes so very reasonable. As it happened, there was a slight fall of rain next day, which drew from the inhabitants the sincerest gratitude; but, for all that, Dr. Barth was very glad to put some distance between himself and Bambara.

On the 1st of September, at Saráyamó, Dr. Barth embarked on one of the branches of the Niger, and sailed towards Timbuktú. The stream was about a hundred yards wide, and so thick with aquatic plants that the voyagers seemed to be gliding over a prairie. Moreover, in its bed the asses and horses obtained the chief part of their sustenance. In about two miles and a half they entered open water, and the boatmen, whose songs had rung the praises of the Julius Cæsar of Negroland, the Sultan Mohammed ben Abubakr, carried them, from winding to winding, between banks clothed with cucifers, tamarinds, and rich grasses, on which sometimes cattle were feeding, and sometimes the gazelle. The presence of alligators was a sign that they approached a broader water, and the channel suddenly widened to two hundred yards; its banks alive with pelicans and other water-birds, while men and horses went to and fro. The curves and bends of the stream increased, and the banks assumed a more defined and regular formation; wider and wider became the water-way, until it reached three hundred and forty yards. Some fires shone out against the evening shadows. At the bottom of a little creek clustered a little village. In no part of the course could any current be discerned; it was a kind of lagoon which the voyagers were crossing, and sometimes the wave flowed in one direction, sometimes in another. After two centuries of war, its shores, once so animated, have sunk into silence; and Gakovia, Sanyara, and many other villages have ceased to be. There, on the edge of the bank, towered aloft a clump of graceful trees, the haunt of numerous bees; here, a patch of greensward brightened with the colours of many blossoms. The river now flowed from south-west to north-east, with a noble expanse of six hundred yards; its majestic flood rolling like a volume of silver in the moonlight, with the reflection of stars sparkling thickly on the crests of its waves.

After a pilgrimage of eight months’ duration, Dr. Barth arrived at Kabara, the river-port of Timbuktú; and was lodged in a house on the highest ground, which contained two large and several small rooms, and a first floor. The inner court was occupied by a numerous and varied assortment of sheep, ducks, pigeons, and poultry. At early dawn, on the day after his arrival, our traveller, almost suffocated, left his room; but he had scarcely begun his walk before a Towareg chief interrupted him, and demanded a present. Receiving a prompt refusal, he coolly announced that, in his quality as a bandit, he could do him a good deal of harm. Dr. Barth, in fact, was _hors la loi_, and the first wretch who suspected him of being a Christian might slay him with impunity. He succeeded, however, in getting rid of the Towareg. Meanwhile, the house was crowded with visitors from Timbuktú, some on foot, some on horseback, but all wearing blue robes, drawn close to the figure by a drapery, with short breeches and peaked straw hats. All carried lances, while some had swords and guns; they seated themselves in the courtyard, overflowed the chambers, staring at one another, and asking each other who this stranger might be. In the course of the day, Dr. Barth was “interviewed” by fully two hundred persons. In the evening, a messenger whom he had despatched to Timbuktú returned, accompanied by Sidi Alawat, one of the Sultan’s brothers. Dr. Barth confided to him the secret of his Christian profession, but added that he was under the special protection of the sovereign of Stamboul. Unfortunately, he had no other proof of his assertion than an old firman dating from his former residence in Egypt; the interview, however, passed off very agreeably.

On the following day, they crossed the sand-hills in the rear of Kabara; the yellow barrenness of the country contrasting vividly with the fertility of the verdurous borders of the river. It is, indeed, a desert, infested by roving bands of murderous Towaregs. Such is the well-known insecurity of the route, that a thicket, situated midway, bears the significant name of “It does not hear”—that is, it is deaf to the cries of a victim. To the left stands the tree of Wely-Salah, a mimosa which the natives have covered with rags in the hope that the saint will replace them by new clothes. As they drew near Timbuktú, the sky clouded over, the atmosphere was full of sand, and the city could scarcely be seen through the rubbish surrounding it. A deputation of the inhabitants met Dr. Barth, and bade him welcome. One of them addressed him in Turkish. He had almost forgotten the language, which, of course, in his character of a Syrian, he ought to have known; but he recalled a few words with which to frame a reply, and then avoided awkward questions by spurring his horse and entering the city. The streets were so narrow, that not more than two horsemen could ride abreast; Dr. Barth was astonished, however, by the two-storied houses, with their ornamented façades. Turning to the west, and passing in front of the Sultan’s palace, he arrived at the house which had been allotted for his accommodation.

He had attained the goal of his wishes; he had reached Timbuktú; but the anxieties and fatigue of his journey had exhausted him, and he was seized with an attack of fever. Yet never had he had greater need of his energy and coolness. A rumour had already got abroad that a Christian had obtained admission into the city. The Sultan was absent; and his brother, who had promised his support, was sulking because he had not received presents enough. On the following day, however, the fever having left him, Barth received the visits of some courteous people, and took the air on the terrace of his lodging, which commanded a view of the city. To the north could be seen the massive outlines of the great mosque of Sankora; to the east, the tawny surface of the desert; to the south, the habitations of the Ghadami merchants; while the picture gained variety from the presence of straw-roofed huts among houses built of clay, long rows of narrow winding streets, and a busy market-place on the slope of the sand-hills.

A day or two later, there were rumours of a meditated attack upon his residence, but his calm and intrepid aspect baffled hostile designs. The sheikh’s brother made an attempt to convert him, and defied him to demonstrate the superiority of his religious principles. With the help of his pupils, he carried on an animated discussion; but Dr. Barth confuted him, and by his candour and good sense secured the esteem of the more intelligent inhabitants. A fresh attack of fever supervened on the 17th; his weakness increased daily; when, at three o’clock in the morning of the 26th, a blare of instruments and a din of voices announced the arrival of the sheikh, El Bakay, and his warm welcome to the stranger dispelled his pains and filled him with a new vigour. He strongly censured his brother’s ungracious conduct; sent provisions to Barth, with a recommendation to partake of nothing that did not come from his palace; and offered him his choice between the various routes that led to the sea-coast. Could he have foreseen that he was fated to languish eight months at Timbuktú, Dr. Barth thinks that he could not have supported the idea; but, happily, man never knows the intensity or duration of the struggle in which he engages, and marches courageously through the shadows which hide from him the future.

Ahmed El Bakay was tall of stature and well proportioned, with an open countenance, an intelligent air, and the bearing and physiognomy of a European. His complexion was almost black. His costume consisted of a short black tunic, black pantaloons, and a shawl bound negligently round his head. Between him and Dr. Barth a cordial understanding was quickly formed and loyally maintained. He spoke frequently of Major Laing, the only Christian whom he had ever seen; for, thanks to the disguise assumed by the French traveller, Caillé, no one at Timbuktú was aware that he had at one time resided in their city.

Timbuktú is situated about six miles from the Niger, in lat. 18° N. Its shape is that of a triangle, the apex of which is turned towards the desert. Its circuit at the present time is about three miles and a half; but of old it extended over a much larger area. It is by no means the wealthy, powerful, and splendid city which was dreamed of in the fond imaginations of the early travellers. Its streets are unpaved, and most of them narrow. There are a thousand houses clay-built, and, in the northern and north-western suburbs, some two hundred huts of reeds. No traces exist of the ancient palace, nor of the Kasba; but the town has three large and three small mosques, and a chapel. It is divided into seven quarters, inhabited by a permanent population of thirty thousand souls, which is increased to thirty-five or forty thousand from November to January, the epoch of the caravans. Founded early in the twelfth century by the Towaregs, on one of their old pasture-grounds, Timbuktú belonged to the Souray in the first half of the fourteenth. Recovered, a century later, by its founders, it was snatched from them by Sami Ali, who sacked it, then rebuilt it, and drew thither the merchants of Ghadami. As early as 1373 it is marked upon the Spanish charts, not only as the entrepôt of the trade in salt and gold, but as the scientific and religious centre of the Western Soudan; and exciting the cupidity of Mulay Ahmed, it fell, in 1592, with the empire of the Askias, under the sway of Marocco. Down to 1826 it remained in the hands of the Ramas, or Maroccan soldiers settled in the country. Next came the Fulbi; then the Towaregs, who drove out the Fulbi in 1844. But this victory, by isolating Timbuktú on the border of the river, led to a famine. Through the intervention of El Bakay, however, a compromise was effected in 1848; the Towaregs recognized the nominal supremacy of the Fulbi, on condition that they should keep no garrison in the city; the taxes were to be collected by two cadis, a Souray and a Fulbi; and the administration, or rather the police, was entrusted to two Souray magistrates, controlled simultaneously by the Fulbi and the Towaregs, between whom was divided the religious authority, represented by the sheikh, a Rama by origin.

Dr. Barth’s residence in Timbuktú was a source of intense dissatisfaction to some of the ruling spirits. Even in the sheikh’s own family it led to grave dissensions; and many demanded that he should be expelled. El Bakay remained firm in his support, and, to protect the life of his visitor, moved him to Kabara. Dr. Barth speaks in high terms of this liberal and enlightened man, and of the happiness of his domestic circle. Europe itself could not produce a more affectionate father or husband; indeed, Dr. Barth hints that he yielded too much to the wishes of his august partner.

Week after week, the storms of war and civil discord raged more and more furious; the traveller’s position became increasingly painful. His bitterest enemies were the Fulbi. They endeavoured to drag him from the sheikh’s protection by force, and when this failed, had recourse to an artifice to get him into their power. The Welád Shinan, who assassinated Major Laing, swore they would kill him. On the 27th of February, 1854, the chief of the Fulbi again intimated to the sheikh his request that Barth should be driven from the country. The sheikh peremptorily refused. Then came a fresh demand, and a fresh refusal; a prolonged and angry struggle; a situation more and more intolerable; while commerce suffered and the people were disquieted by the quarrels of their rulers. So it came to pass that, on the night of the 17th of March, Sidi Mohammed, eldest brother of El Bakay, beat the drum, mounted his horse, and bade Dr. Barth follow him with two of his servants, while the Towaregs, who supported them, clashed their bucklers together, and shouted their shrill war-cry. He found the sheikh at the head of a numerous body of Arabs and Sourays, with some Fulbi, who were devoted to him. As might be expected, Dr. Barth begged that he might not be the cause of any bloodshed; and the sheikh promised the malcontents that he would conduct the obnoxious Christian beyond the town. He encamped on the frontier of the Oberay, where everybody suffered terribly from bad food and insects.

At length, after a residence of thirty-three days on the creek of Bosábango, it was decided that the march should be begun on the 19th of April. On the 25th, after having passed through various encampments of Towaregs, they followed the windings of the Niger, having on their left a well-wooded country, intersected by marshes, and enlivened by numerous pintados. Then they fell in with the valiant Wughduga, a sincere friend of El Bakay, and a magnificent Towareg warrior, nearly seven feet high, of prodigious strength, and the hero of deeds of prowess worthy of the most famous knight of the Table Round. Under his escort Dr. Barth reached Gogo—in the fifteenth century the flourishing and famous capital of the Souray empire, now a small and straggling town with a few hundred huts. Here he took leave of his kind and generous protector; and, with an escort of about twenty persons, recrossed to the right bank of the river, and descended it as far as Say, where he had passed it the year before. In this journey of one hundred and fifty leagues, he had seen everywhere the evidence of great fertility, and a peaceable population, in whose midst a European might travel in security; speaking to the people, as he did, of the sources and termination of their great fostering river—questions which interest those good negroes as much, perhaps, as they have perplexed the scientific societies of Europe, but of which they do not possess the most rudimentary knowledge.

Arriving at Sokotó and Vurno in the midst of the rainy season, Dr. Barth was warmly welcomed by the Emir; but, with strength exhausted and health broken, he could not profit by his kindness.

On the 17th of October he arrived at Kanó, where he had been long expected; but neither money nor despatches had been forwarded for him—no news from Europe had been received. Yet at Kanó he had arranged to pay his servants, discharge his debts, and renew his credits, long since exhausted. He pledged the little property remaining to him, including his revolver, until he could obtain the cutlery and four hundred dollars left at Zindu; but, alas! these had disappeared during recent intestine commotions. Kanó must always be unhealthy for Europeans; and Dr. Barth, in his enfeebled condition, acutely felt the ill effects of its climatic conditions. His horses and camels fell ill, and he lost, among others, the noble animal which for three years had shared all his fatigues.

Over every difficulty, every obstacle, that splendid energy which had carried the great explorer to the Niger and Timbuktú ultimately prevailed; and on the 24th of November he set out for Kúkáwa. In his absence it had been the theatre of a revolution. A new ruler held the reins of government, and Dr. Barth was doomed to encounter fresh embarrassments. It was not until after a delay of four months that he was able to resume the journey through the Fezzan. He followed this time the direct route, by Bilma—the route formerly taken by the travellers, Denham and Clapperton.

At the end of August he entered Tripoli, where he spent only four days. By way of Malta he proceeded to Marseilles; and thence to Paris; arriving in London on the 6th of September, 1855.

It may be doubted whether the English public have fully appreciated the labours of this persevering explorer. To us it seems that he occupies a high place in the very front rank of African travellers, in virtue not only of the work he did, but of the courage, perseverance, skill, and energy which he displayed. He failed in nothing that he undertook, though his resources were very limited, and the difficulties in his path of the gravest character. He explored Bornú, A’damáwa, and Bagirmi, where no European had ever before penetrated. He surveyed, over an area of six hundred miles, the region which lies between Katséna and Timbuktú, though even to the Arabs it is the least known portion of the Soudan. He formed friendly relations with the powerful princes on the banks of the Niger, from Sokotó to the famous city which shuts its gates upon the Christian. Five of his best years he dedicated to this astonishing enterprise, enduring the gravest privations, and braving the most pestilential climates, as well as the most implacable fanaticism. All this he did, without friends, without companions, without money. Of the five brave men who undertook this adventurous expedition, he alone returned; and returned loaded with treasure, with precious materials of all kinds for the use of the man of science or the merchant—with maps, drawings, chronologies, vocabularies, historical and ethnological notes, itineraries, botanical and geological data, and meteorological tables. Nothing escaped his attention; he was not only a traveller and an observer, but a scientific pioneer. Let us give due honour to a Livingstone, but let us not forget the debt we owe to a Barth. {156}

MR. THOMAS WITLAM ATKINSON, AND HIS ADVENTURES IN SIBERIA AND CENTRAL ASIA.

A.D. 1849–55.

I.

MR. THOMAS WITLAM ATKINSON among recent travellers is not one of the least distinguished. He ventured into what may be called “virgin country”—a region scarcely known to Europeans; carrying his life in his hand; animated by the desire of knowledge rather than the hope of fame; quick to observe, accurate in his observations, and intelligent in combining them into a distinct and satisfactory whole. For some years he lived among the wild races who inhabit Siberia and Mongolia, the Kirghiz steppes, Chinese Tartary, and the wilder districts of Central Asia; and he collected a vast amount of curious information in reference not only to their manners and customs and mode of life, but to the lands which they call their own. The broad and irresistible wave of Western civilization has reached the confines of their vast territories, before long will pour in upon them, and already is slowly, but surely, undermining many an ancient landmark. In the course of another fifty years its advance will have largely modified their characteristics, and swept away much that is now the most clearly and picturesquely defined. We need, therefore, to be grateful to Mr. Atkinson for the record he has supplied of their present condition; a record which to us is one of romantic interest, as to the future historian it will be one of authentic value.

In introducing that record to the reader, he says:—“Mine has been a tolerably wide field, extending from Kokhand on the west to the eastern end of the Baikal, and as far south as the Chinese town of Tchin-si; including that immense chain Syan-shan, never before seen by any European; as well as a large portion of the western part of the Gobi, over which Gonghiz Khan marched his wild hordes; comprising a distance traversed of about 32,000 versts in carriages, 7100 in boats, and 20,300 on horseback—in all, 59,400 versts (about 39,500 miles), in the course of seven years.” Neither the old Venetian, Marco Polo, nor the Jesuit priests, could have visited these regions, their travels having been far to the south; even the recent travellers, Hue and Gobet, who visited “the land of grass” (the plains to the south of the great Desert of Gobi), did not penetrate into the country of the Kalkas. It is unnecessary to premise that in such a journey, prolonged over so many years, extended into so many countries, he suffered much both from hunger and thirst, was exposed to numerous tests of his courage and fortitude, and on several occasions placed in most critical situations with the tribes of Central Asia; that he more than once was called upon to confront an apparently inevitable death. Within the limits to which we are confined, it will be impossible for us to attempt a detailed narrative of his labours, but we shall hope to select those passages and incidents which will afford a fair idea of their value and enterprise.

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