Chapter 12

Here trades are specialised. Conformably with, and contrary to, Arab usage, it is the men who weave the textiles, and not the women. The latter do the spinning and the dyeing. Masonry is man's work--in negro countries it is the women who build the houses--and in the blacksmith's and other trades the craft descends from father to son.

_IV.--Timbuctoo, Queen of the Sudan_

The day of my departure from Jenne was occupied in receiving farewell visits from scores of friends, who first believed me a harmless lunatic as "the man with the questions," and then received me with affection. From Jenne to Timbuctoo we journeyed by boat for 311 miles in a labyrinth of meandering tributaries, creeks, and channels along the course of the Niger, and reached at last the Pool of Dai, whose waters appear under the walls of Timbuctoo itself; and then, a few miles further on, we arrived at Kabara, the landing-place and port of Timbuctoo.

Two things arrest attention on disembarking--the sand and the Touaregs. The sand, because you have no sooner set your foot on shore than you flounder about in it as if it were a mire; and it pursues you everywhere--in the country, in the streets, and in the houses. The Touaregs are impressed on you because, though you never see them, everything recalls them. The town is in ruins, but its wretchedness is overpowered by life and movement. The quays are astir with lively bustle, and encumbered with bales, jars, and sacks in the process of unloading. To travel from Kabara to Timbuctoo, only five miles distant, there is a daily convoy--medley of people, donkeys and camels, attended by twenty _tirailleurs_ with rifles on their shoulders.

An immense and vivid sky, and an immense and brilliant stretch of land, with the grand outlines of a town uniting the two. A dark silhouette, large and long, an image of grandness in immensity--thus appeared the Queen of the Sudan. She is indeed the city of imagination, the Timbuctoo of legends. Her sandy approaches are strewn with bones and carcasses that have been disinterred by wild beasts, the remains of the camels and other animals that have fallen and died in the last stages of the journey.

The illusion of walls, produced by the distinctness with which the town stands out from the white sand, disappears, and three towers at regular intervals dominate the mass. The terraces of square houses are now distinguishable, renewing the first impression of grandeur in immensity. We enter the town, and behold! all the grandeur has suddenly disappeared, though the scene is equally impressive on account of its tragic character rather than its beauty. And this is the great Timbuctoo, the metropolis of the Sudan and the Sahara, with its boasted wealth and commerce! This is Timbuctoo the holy, the learned, that life of the Niger, of which it was written, "We shall one day correct the texts of our Greek and Latin classics by the manuscripts which are preserved there." These ruins, this rubbish, this wreck of a town, is this the secret of Timbuctoo the Mysterious? It is a city of deliquescence.

Jenne had the vein of Egyptian civilisation; the origin of Timbuctoo has to be sought in a different direction, for her past is connected with the Arabian civilisation of Northern Africa--the world of the Berbers and all those white people whom we have known under the name of Touaregs in the Sahara, Kabyles in Algeria, Moors in Morocco and Senegal, and Foulbes in their infiltrations into the Sudan, who had been crowded back into the interior by the invasions of Phoenician and Roman colonists. So also, when the Moors were driven out of Spain back to Morocco, to find their ancient patrimony in the hands of Arabs, they were forced to prolong their exodus into the south, and became nomads about the great lakes on the left bank of the Niger, in the neighbourhood of Oualata and Timbuctoo, carrying with them the name of Andalusians, which they bear to the present day.

Touareg is a generic name for a large number of tribes descended from the Berbers. Being driven into the desert, to the terrible glare of which they were not accustomed, nor their lungs to its sandstorms, they adopted the head-dress of two veils. Being perpetually kept on the march, every social and political organisation disappeared, and they gradually lost all notion of law and order. Like the Jews, and all other people thrown out of their natural paths, their souls and brains became steeped in vice. Their nomadic life reduced them to the level of vagabonds, thieves, and brigands, and the only law they recognised was the right of the strongest. Travellers and merchants were their principal victims, and when these failed, they robbed and killed each other.

They adopted a vague form of Islamism which they reduced to a belief in talismans, and the Sudanese bestowed upon them three epithets which epitomise their psychology--"Thieves, Hyenas, and the Abandoned of God." Yet it was to these people that Timbuctoo owed its origin, for it was there that they established a permanent camp. It was under the dominion of Askia the Great, who drove the Touaregs out of the city, that Timbuctoo became the great and learned city whose fame spread even to Europe, and its apogee was reached in 1494-1591.

The decadence of the city began with the Moorish conquest in the latter year, and it became the scene of repeated incursions by various tribes--Touaregs, Foulbes, Roumas. Under the hands of a thousand tyrants the inhabitants were robbed, ill-treated, and killed on the least provocation. To avoid being pillaged in the open street, and seeing their houses despoiled, they adopted a new manner of living. They transformed their garments and dwellings, and ceasing to be Timbuctoo the Great, they became Timbuctoo the Mysterious. By these means the town acquired a tumble-down and battered appearance. Timbuctoo is the meeting place, says an old Sudanese chronicle, of all who travel by camel or canoe. The camel represents the commerce of Sahara and the whole of Northern Africa, while the canoe represents the trade of the Sudan and Nigeria.

A great part of the trade is in rock-salt, derived from the mines of Taoudenni, near Timbuctoo. Large caravans from Morocco, Algeria, Tunis, and Tripoli, numbering from 600 to 1,000 camels, and from three to five hundred men, arrive from December to January, and from July to August. Their freight represents from six hundred thousand to a million francs' worth of goods. Smaller caravans of sixty or a hundred camels arrive all the year round, and between fifty and sixty thousand camels encamp annually in the caravan suburb before the northern walls of the city. The city is simply a temporary depot, and the permanent population are merely brokers and contractors, or landlords of houses which are let to travelling merchants. The chief manufacturing industry of the city is exquisite embroidered robes, which cost from three to four thousand francs each, and are principally exported to Morocco.

An ancient Sudanese proverb says, "Salt comes from the north, gold from the south, and silver from the country of the white men, but the word of God and the treasures of wisdom are only to be found in Timbuctoo." It would be an exaggeration to put the university in the mosque of Sankoré on a level with those of Egypt, Morocco, or Syria, but it was the great intellectual nucleus of the Sudan, and also one of the great scientific centres of Islam itself. Her collection of ancient manuscripts leaves us in no doubt upon the point. There is an entire class of the population devoted to the study of letters. They are called Marabuts, or Sheikhs, and from them doctors, priests, schoolmasters, and jurists are drawn.

_V.--The Romance of the Modern Conquest_

The prosperity of the French Sudan is so closely connected with that of its principal market that if the general anarchy had been prolonged in Timbuctoo all the sacrifices of human life and money France had made on her threshold would have remained sterile. The French Government decided that the sooner an end was put to the ruinous dominion of the Touaregs the better it would be. Up to the last moment England endeavoured to put her hand upon the commerce of Timbuctoo. Failing in her efforts from Tripoli and the Niger's mouth, she attempted to secure a footing by way of Morocco, and was installed towards 1890 at Cape Juby. It was then too late. French columns and posts had been slowly advanced by the Senegal route, and in 1893 Jenne was captured.

In the following year a flotilla of gunboats was dispatched while two columns of troops followed up to anticipate any concentration of nomad Touaregs, which might prevent the occupation of the Mysterious City. From the flotilla a detachment of nineteen men was landed. Of these only seven were Europeans, the remainder being Senegalese negroes. They had two machine guns with them, and, under the command of a naval lieutenant, Boiteux by name, they marched to the walls of Timbuctoo, and demanded that the rulers of the city should surrender it, and that they should sign a treaty of peace placing the country under the protectorate of France. The city was occupied, temporary fortlets were run up, and the nineteen mariners held them till January 10, 1894, when the first of the two of the French columns entered the town. Twenty-five days later the second column arrived.

The French occupation of Timbuctoo the Mysterious was complete, and Cape Juby was evacuated by England. Two large forts have now replaced the improvised fortifications, and their guns command every side of the town. Under their protection the inhabitants are reviving. The long nightmare of the Touaregs is being slowly dispelled. Houses are being repaired and rebuilt; the occupants leave their doors ajar, and resume their beautifully embroidered robes; and one can picture the city becoming a centre of European civilisation and science as it was formerly of Mussulman culture.

RICHARD HAKLUYT

The Principall Navigations

_I.--Of the Book and Why it was Made_

Richard Hakluyt, born about 1552 in Herefordshire, England, was educated at Westminster and Christ Church, Oxford, and became in 1590 rector of Wetheringsett, in Suffolk, where he compiled and arranged "The Principall Navigations, Voyages, Traffikes, and Discoveries of the English Nation to the Remote Quarters of the Earth at any Time within the Compass of these 1600 Years." He grew to manhood in the midst of the most stirring period of travel and discovery that England has known. Under Elizabeth, English sailors and English travellers were penetrating beyond the dim borders of the known world, and almost every returning ship brought back fresh news of strange lands. "Richard Hakluyt, Preacher," tells how his interest was attracted towards this subject of travel and exploration which he made his own. He published other records of travel, but it is through the "Principall Navigations" that his name has been perpetuated. Hakluyt died on November 23, 1616.

I do remember that being a youth, and one of her Majestie's scholars at Westminster, that fruitfull nurserie, it was my happe to visit the chamber of Master Richard Hakluyt, my cousin, a gentleman of the Middle Temple, at a time when I found lying open upon his borde certeine bookes of cosmographie, with an universall mappe; he seeing me somewhat curious in the view thereof, began to instruct my ignorance, by showing me the division of the earth into three parts, after the old account, and then, according to the latter and better distribution, into more. He pointed out with his wand to all the known seas, gulfs, bayes, streights, capes, rivers, empires, kingdoms, dukedoms, and territories of each part, with declaration also of their speciall commodities, and particular wants, which by the benefit of traffike, and intercourse of merchants, are plentifully supplied.

From the mappe he brought me to the Bible, and turning to the 107th Psalme, directed me to the 23rd and 24th verses, where I read that "they which go downe to the sea in ships, and occupy by the great waters, they see the works of the Lord, and his wonders in the deepe," etc.

Which words of the prophet together with my cousin's discourse (things of high and rare delight to my young nature), tooke in me so deepe an impression that I constantly resolved, if ever I were preferred to the university, where better time, and more convenient place might be ministered for these studies, I would, by God's assistance, prosecute that knowledge and kinde of literature, the doores whereof were so happily opened before me.

According to which my resolution when, not long after, I was removed to Christ Church in Oxford, my exercises of duty first performed, I fell to my intended course, and by degrees read over whatsoever printed or written discoveries and voyages I found extant, either in the Greeke, Latine, Italian, Spanish, Portugall, French, or English languages. In continuance of time I grew familiarly acquainted with the chiefest captaines at sea, the gretest merchants, and the best mariners of our nation, by which means having gotten somewhat more than common knowledge.

I passed at length the narrow seas into France. There I both heard in speech and read in books other nations miraculously extolled for their discoveries and notable enterprises by sea, but the English, of all others, for their sluggish security and continuall neglect of the like attempts, either ignominiously reported or exceedingly condemned. Thus, both hearing and reading the obluquie of our nation, and finding few or none of our owne men able to replie heerin, and further, not seeing any man to have care to recommend to the world the industrious labors and painefull travels of our countrymen, myselfe returned from France, determined to undertake the burden of that worke, wherein all others pretended either ignorance or lacke of leasure, whereas the huge toile, and the small profit to insue, were the chiefe causes of the refusall.

I calle the worke a burden, in consideration that these voyages lay so dispersed and hidden in severall hucksters' hands that I now wonder at myselfe to see how I was able to endure the delays, curiosity, and backwardnesse of many from whom I was to receive my originals. And thus, friendly reader, thou seest the briefe summe and scope of my labours for the commonwealth's sake, and thy sake, bestowed upon this work, which may, I pray, bring thee no little profit.

_II.--The Victories of King Arthur in Foreign Lands_

Arthur, which was sometimes the most renowned king of the Britaines, was a mightie and valiant man, and a famous warriour. This kingdome was too little for him, and his minde was not contented with it. He therefore valiantly subdued all Scantia, which is now called Norway, and islands beyond Norway, to wit, Island and Greenland, Sweueland, Ireland, Gotland, Denmarke, and all the other lands and islands of the East Sea, even into Russia, and many others islands beyond Norway, even under the North Pole, which are appendances of Scantia, now called Norway. These people were wild and savage, and held not in them the love of God nor of their neighbours, because all evill cometh from the North; yet there were among them certeine Christians living in secret. But King Arthur was an exceeding good Christian, and caused them to be baptised and thorowout all Norway to worship one God, and to receive and keepe inviolably for ever faith in Christ onely.

At that time, all the noble men of Norway tooke wives of the noble nation of the Britaines, whereupon the Norses say that they are descended of the race and blood of this kingdome. The aforesaid King Arthur obteined also, in those days of the Pope and court of Rome, that Norway should be for ever annexed to the crown of Britaine for the inlargement of this kingdome, and he called it the chamber of Britaine. For this cause the Norses say that they ought to dwell with us in this kingdome--to wit, that they belong to the crowne of Britaine; for they had rather dwell here than in their owne native countrey, which is drie and full of mountaines, and barren, and no graine growing there, but in certain places. But this countrey of Britaine is fruitfull, wherein corne and all other good things do grow and increase, for which cause many cruell battles have been often-times fought betwixt the Englishmen and the people of Norway, and infinite numbers of people have been slaine, and the Norses have possessed many lands and islands of this Empire, which unto this day they doe possess, neither could they ever afterwards be fully expelled.

_III.--How Martin Frobisher Sought a Passage to Cathaya by the North-West_

It appeareth that not onely the middle zone but also the zones about the Poles are habitable. Which thing, being well considered, and familiarly knowen to our generall, Captaine Frobisher, as well for that he is thorowly furnished of the knowledge of the sphere and all other skilles appertaining to the arte of navigation, as also for the confirmation he hath of the same by many yeares experience, both by sea and land, and being persuaded of a new and nerer passage to Cathaya than by Capo di Buona Sperança; he began first with himself to devise, and then with his friends to conferre, and declared unto them that that voyage was not onely possible by the North-west, but he could prove easie to be performed.

And, further, he determined and resolved with himselfe to go make full proofe thereof, and to accomplish or bring true certificate of the truth, or else never to return againe, knowing this to be the onely thing of the world that was left yet undone, whereby a notable minde might be made famous and fortunate. But, although his will were great to performe this notable voyage, yet he wanted altogether meanes and ability to set forward, and performe the same. He layed open to many great estates and learned men the plot and summe of his device. And so, by litle and litle, with no small expense and paine, he brought his cause to some perfection, and had drawen together so many adventurers and such summes of money as might well defray a reasonable charge to furnish himselfe to sea withall.

He prepared two small barks of twenty and five and twenty tunne apiece, wherein he intended to accomplish his pretended voyage. Wherefore, being furnished with the aforesayd two barks, and one small pinnesse of ten tun burthen, having therein victuals and other necessaries for twelve months provision, he departed upon the sayd voyage from Blacke-wall the fifteenth of June, _Anno Domini_, 1576. One of the barks wherein he went was named the Gabriel, and the other the Michael, and, sailing northwest from England upon the eleventh of July he had sight of an high and ragged land which he judged to be Frisland, but durst not approch the same, by reason of the great store of ice that lay alongst the coast, and the great mists that troubled them not a litle. Not farre from thence he lost company of his small pinnesse, which by meanes of a great storme he supposed to be swallowed up of the sea, wherein he lost onely foure men. Also the other barke, named the Michael, mistrusting the matter, conveyed themselves privily away from him, and returned home, with great report that he was cast away.

The worthy captaine, notwithstanding these discomforts, although his mast was sprung, and his toppe mast blowen overboord with extreame foul weather, continued his course towards the north-west, knowing that the sea at length must needs have an ending, and that some land should have a beginning that way; and determined, therefore, at the least to bring true proofe what land and sea the same might be so farre to the north-westwards, beyond any man that had heretofore discovered. And the twentieth of July he had sight of an high land which he called Queen Elizabeth's Forland, after her majestie's name, and sailing more northerly alongst that coast, he descried another forland with a great gut, baye, or passage, divided as it were two maine lands or continents asunder.

He determined to make proofe of this place, to see how farre that gut had continuance, and whether he might carry himself thorow the same into some open sea on the backe side, whereof he conceived no small hope, and so entered the same the one and twentieth of July, and passed above fifty leagues therein as he reported, having upon either hand a great maine, or continent. And that land upon his right hand as he sailed westward he judged to be the continent of Asia, and there to be divided from the firme of America, which lieth upon the left hand over against the same. This place he named after his name, Frobisher's Streights.

After our captaine, Martin Frobisher, had passed sixty leagues into this foresayed streight, he went ashore, and found signes where fire had bene made.

He saw mighty deere that seemed to be mankinde, which ranne at him, and hardly he escaped with his life in a narrow way where he was faine to use defence and policy to save his life. In this place he saw and perceived sundry tokens of the peoples resorting thither. And, being ashore upon the top of a hill, he perceived a number of small things fleeting in the sea afarre off, which he supposed to be porposes or seales, or some kinde of strange fish; but, coming neerer, he discovered them to be men in small boats made of leather. And, before he could descend downe from the hill, certeine of those people had almost cut off his boat from him, having stolen secretly behinde the rocks for that purpose, when he speedily hasted to his boat, and bent himselfe to his halberd, and narrowly escaped the danger, and saved his boat.

Afterwards, he had sundry conferences with them, and they came aboord his ship, and brought him salmon and raw flesh and fish, and greedily devoured the same before our men's faces.

After great courtesie, and many meetings, our mariners, contrary to their captaine's direction, began more easily to trust them, and five of our men, going ashore, were by them intercepted with their boat, and were never since heard of to this day againe, so that the captaine, being destitute of boat, barke, and all company, had scarsely sufficient number to conduct back his barke againe. He could not now convey himselfe ashore to rescue his men--if he had been able--for want of a boat; and againe the subtile traitours were so wary, as they would after that never come within our men's danger.

The captaine notwithstanding, desirous to bring some token from thence of his being there, was greatly discontented that he had not before apprehended some of them; and, therefore, to deceive the deceivers he wrought a prety policy, for, knowing wel how they greatly delited in our toyes, and specially in belles, he rang a pretty lowbel, making signes that he would give him the same that would come and fetch it. And to make them more greedy of the matter he rang a louder bel, so that in the end one of them came nere the ship side to receive the bel; which when he thought to take at the captaine's hand he was thereby taken himselfe; for the captaine, being readily provided, let the bel fall and caught the man fast, and plucked him with main force, boat and all, into his barke out of the sea. Whereupon, when he found himself in captivity, for very choler and disdaine he bit his tongue in twain within his mouth; notwithstanding, he died not thereof, but lived until he came in England, and then he died of cold.