Part 38

_Rhinoceros horns;_ in Egyptian Arabic called Khartit (خرتيت). The rhinoceros is called in the Negroe countries Om Korn (ام قرن or, the mother (i. e. the owner) of the one horn; it is evidently from this animal that the imaginary unicorn has had its origin. The Arabs have often described to me the rhinoceros as an animal like a large cow, with thick legs, and a short tail, with one long horn[35] on its forehead, and having a skin like large scales, as hard as iron. Whenever I described the unicorn, and asked them whether such an animal, with a long horn existed, they never failed to point out the Om Korn, as the animal I meant. The rhinoceros inhabits the neighbourhood of Sennaar, but never the countries of the Nile to the north of that place. Its northern boundary, like that of the elephant, seems to be the mountain to the north of the village of Abou Heraze, two days journeys from Sennaar, which advances close to the river, and thus intercepts the passage along its banks. Neither of these animals is known at Shendy, or at Halfaya, which is two days to the south of the former place. The Khartit, or horn of the rhinoceros, is worked at Cairo into ornaments for the handles of swords and poniards, to be mounted in the Mamelouk fashion. It is dear; I have seen pieces about four inches long, and one inch thick, sold for four or five Spanish dollars each.

The _Musk_ of the civet-cat is not sold at Shendy; but the Souakin merchants who visit Sennaar bring with them small quantities of it, which they sell again at Djidda. The principal markets for this article are Massouah, and Mekka, during the Hadj. It is brought to Cairo by the Djidda merchants.

The _Whips_ above mentioned, called Korbadj, are imported from Sennaar only.

_Ebony_ is brought in small pieces; the largest I saw were about one foot in length. The wood is said to grow to the south of Sennaar; but, I suspect, at a great distance, as it is very dear. Knife handles, neatly worked in ebony, are brought from Sennaar; the knives, which are worn tied over the elbow by the Arabs of those countries, are afterwards fitted into them. The Djellabs, or slave merchants, do not carry any ebony into Egypt, Cairo being supplied with it from Djidda; but I understand that it grows in the deserts adjoining to Darfour on the west.

_Coffee-beans,_ in small quantity, the growth of Abyssinia and the Gala country. None of these are carried from Massouah to Djidda, as the coffee plant grows in the most western parts of Abyssinia only. Coffee is not commonly drank here; it is a luxury in which the chiefs alone indulge.

_Leather._ The best manufactories of leather, between Darfour and the Red Sea, are at Sennaar. The manufacturers exercise their skill chiefly in making camel saddles (قصعة Gassaat), leathern sacks, and sandals. The first are exported to Egypt for the dromedaries, or riding-camels, and are sold there as high as twenty dollars. They are ornamented with many pretty leathern tassels, and are of workmanship equally elegant and durable. The leathern sacks are bought up by the Souakin merchants, and sold by them to the inhabitants of Yemen, who use them for carrying provisions in travelling; they are extremely well sewed; some of them are secured with a padlock: great numbers of them were formerly sold at Mekka to the Wahabi by the Souakin people. The leather is of the best quality, much superior to that made in Egypt and Syria, and almost as good as the Russia leather. The Sennaar sandals are worn by all the well-dressed men and women throughout Nubia; a young woman had rather wear a torn shirt than ugly sandals. They are sown with a precision and nicety little to be expected from the rude Arabs. At Shendy the best sandals cost two dollars a pair. Every place in these countries has a peculiar fashion in the form of the sandals worn by its inhabitants; so that, with a little experience, the residence of every man may be ascertained by looking at his feet. The same custom prevails in Arabia; and I remember, that when I first arrived at Djidda, wearing a pair of sandals which I had bought at Souakin, many persons, who knew nothing of me, pointed to my sandals, and asked what business I had had at Souakin.

Small _water flasks_ (مطهَره Mattharah, or زَمزَميِّه Zamzamieh), made of leather, which are much esteemed in Egypt.

To the imports of Sennaar belong likewise the _Shields_ made of the skins of the rhinoceros and giraffa; they are made by the Bedouin Arabs, who sell them at Sennaar, and they are used all along the Nile, and across the mountains, as far as Kosseir and Kenne, in Upper Egypt.

The _fruit of the Nebek_, the fleshy part of which is separated from the stone, and dried in the sun; it is put up in small leathern bags and carried as far as Souakin; it affords a very agreeable provision during a journey.

The most important articles of the Sennaar trade at Shendy are camels and Dhourra, without the continual importation of which Shendy would soon be in danger of famine. The Dhourra caravans usually perform the journey by themselves, the merchants seldom joining them, but forming caravans of their own. They are more wealthy people than the Egyptian traders; and it is not rare to see a man possessing ten camel loads of Dammour, and a whole party of slaves. I was told the name of a Sennaar merchant who bought at Shendy the entire loads of an Egyptian caravan, consisting of thirty camels.

_Honey,_ in considerable quantity, is also imported from Sennaar. As far as I could understand, the Arabs about Sennaar collect wild honey in great quantity, but do not trouble themselves with keeping beehives near their own houses.

I did not learn that any passage duties, or customs, are exacted at Sennaar; the only obstacle thrown in the way of trade is that the king always forces his own merchandize upon the buyer, before the private adventurers can enter into any bargains. The Sennaar merchants take in return from the Egyptian traders Sembil and Mehleb, in large quantities, sugar, soap, and almost every article of the Egyptian and Souakin markets. Since the interruption of the direct communication between Sennaar and Kordofan, the inhabitants of the former place have been known to buy at Shendy Negro slaves brought from Kordofan, which they can obtain here at lower prices than their own Nouba slaves at Sennaar. During my residence at Shendy, the route along the Nile to Sennaar was rendered dangerous, from the disputes that had arisen between the Meks of Halfaya and Herbadjy; the caravans therefore preferred taking the desert route, which lies parallel with the river, at about one day’s journey inland, as far as Abou Heraze, where they again join the river; a single well is met with in this route, at about three days from Shendy, and this even is sometimes not taken into the road, on account of the visits of the Bedouins Shukorye, of whom the Sennaar people entertain great fears.

The arrival of the Kordofan caravans at Shendy is quite uncertain, and depends upon the caprice of the governor of Kordofan, who often prevents the departure of merchants, in order to increase his own commercial profits. Three months sometimes elapse without any arrival, after which they come in rapid succession. The road from Obeydh (اُبيّض) (not Ibeit, as Browne writes it), the capital of Kordofan, to Shendy, is quite safe; it is performed in about fourteen days, of which the five last are through a desert without water. With the Kordofan caravans arrive also merchants from Darfour; and the intercourse between Kobé, the capital of Darfour, and Obeydh, is said to be at present very brisk, and quite safe. Kordofan has no other slaves than those brought from Darfour; its own people, it seems, do not traffic with the southern Negro countries; but since the arrival of the Mamelouks in Dóngola, a direct trade has been opened between that country and Kordofan, the northern limits of which are said to be only six days distance from the frontiers of Dóngola.

The arrival of every Kordofan caravan at Shendy fills the market with slaves, who constitute the principal import from thence. The Kordofan merchants bring likewise gum arabic, of the best quality known in the Negro countries;[36] Erdeyb, or Tamarinds; the gum Leban; Natron from Darfour; Sheshme, the seed used in Egypt for diseases of the eye; Shooshe, a small pea of Kordofan and Darfour growth; the latter are of a fine pink colour, with a small black spot at one end, and are worn in strings as necklaces. They sell also ropes of leather. The inhabitants of the countries on the Nile make their ropes and cords of the fibrous inner bark of the palm date-tree, called Lif (ليف), or of reeds which grow on the banks of river; but all the western nations, where no date-trees grow, use for their packages twisted leathern thongs, which are of great solidity and strength, a very important advantage in travelling through the deserts with heavily loaded camels. These ropes are sold to the Egyptian and Souakin merchants, as are likewise large leathern sacks made of very thick ox-leather in Kordofan and Darfour. These sacks are used for the transport of Dhourra meal through the desert for the food of the slaves. Large water-skins (Rey رَيّ) made of ox-hides, in which traders who have many slaves transport water through the desert: two of these Reys make a camel’s load; they keep the water much better than the smaller goats skins, and the thickness of the leather prevents it from evaporating so readily. Reys are a considerable article of commerce between Darfour and Egypt; they are used in all the towns of Egypt, and particularly at Cairo, to transport the water from the river to the town, for the daily use of the inhabitants. The Kordofan merchants bring likewise water-skins made of sheep-skins, in the manufacture of which great skill is shown, because the skins are preserved entire. The animals are killed by cutting off the head; and those who slaughter them possess an art, unknown to the Arabian Bedouins, of taking off the skin without cutting it, by introducing the hand at the aperture in the throat, armed with a small knife, and thus separating it entirely from the carcase. A Kordofan water-skin has thus no seams but where the legs are cut off, while the common ones are sewed up on three sides. Another import from Kordofan are large wooden dishes, or bowls, carved, as it is said, out of the root of some tree; they are rubbed with butter, and then held over the fire, to give them a black colour. These bowls often supply the place of the China ware, vessels, dishes, cups, &c. which in the more polite parts of the East are placed upon shelves along the walls of the sitting-room, as ornaments. Some of these bowls are large enough to contain sufficient food for twelve persons; they are very nicely worked; not the smallest trace of the instruments with which they are formed can be observed.

Ostrich feathers brought by the Kordofan merchants are also in great request. These merchants are people of moderate property; the greater part of them have wives at Shendy and at Darfour, as well as at Obeydh; they buy up slaves at Darfour, remain awhile with their families at Obeydh, and then bring their slaves to Shendy. They have a better character for honesty than the people of Sennaar, but the favourable opinion entertained of them does not induce any one to trust them with goods upon credit. They take in return from Shendy, a little Sembil and Mehleb, some antimony and beads, a good deal of spices, especially cloves, which are in great demand all over the western countries; a little hardware; Dammour from Sennaar; Egyptian linen; Indian cotton stuffs imported from Souakin; a few silk and cloth dresses from the Hedjaz, which are worn by the chiefs, who seem to be extremely fond of gaudy showy dresses, as a mark of distinction; some coffee-beans; but above all, Reysh, or Indian agate beads. The common currency of Kordofan, besides Dhourra, is said to be small pieces of iron, with which milk, flesh, and Dhoken bread, are bought in the market. These pieces of iron are collected and worked into axes and spear-heads. Cows are likewise taken as a medium of exchange. Slaves are often bought for so many cows; wild herbage for their food is so abundant, that nobody objects to keeping large numbers of those animals in their court-yards.

The most substantial of all the traders who at present frequent the Shendy market are the people from Souakin, or as they are more commonly called in this part of Africa, the Hadharebe, or Hadharame, that is, people of Hadremaut, in South Arabia, from whence they draw their origin. Some of these traders are always found at Shendy: during my stay there two caravans took their departure for Souakin, and one large party arrived; and no month passes without some arrivals from that quarter. The Hadhareb also visit the Sennaar market; their caravans to that place either take the road by Shendy, or the nearer one by Goz Radjeb, on the Atbara, from whence they proceed straight across the desert to Sennaar. Some of the Hadharebe also frequent Obeydh in Kordofan, but not in sufficient numbers to form a caravan of their own, and they therefore join the native traders. Their caravans are hailed at Shendy by the Sennaar and Kordofan people, as the promptest purchasers of their goods; but they create great jealousy among the Egyptians, whose rivals they are in various articles of import. The Souakin trade supplies Shendy principally with India goods. Different sorts of cambric (بفت Baft, and another sort called بنوه Benoueh) from Madras and Surat; and coarse muslins from Bengal are partly wanted for the use of the Shendy and Sennaar inhabitants themselves; but the greater part is given in exchange to the Kordofan merchants for slaves. They bring also spices, especially cloves, ginger (Zandjebil زنجبيل), India sugar, Mokha beads, as they are called, though none are made at Mokha; sandal wood, which is an article of consequence, and finds its way from hence to the countries west of Darfour, as far as Bagermé; and all the articles of hardware imported by the Egyptians, in which, however, the latter can afford to undersell them. They also bring the Dhofer, which is taken by the Sennaar and Darfour merchants. It is the shell of an animal found in the Red Sea, cut into small pieces, and used as a perfume, emitting a pleasant odour when held over the fire. The pieces of the Dhofer, cut like beads, are much esteemed in the Hedjaz and Egypt, where the ladies wear them as necklaces; they are of a black, or dark blue colour, with veins of a lighter hue. The people of Souakin export them likewise to Djidda.

The Hadharebe take in return gold, slaves (Abyssinians in preference), and all the other articles of the Negro trade, except gum arabic; though they sometimes take this article also, and sell it at Mokha, to English and American traders. Every Souakin caravan purchases at Shendy a number of horses of the Dóngola breed, which they sell to great advantage in Yemen, at Hodeyda, Loheya, and as far south as Mokha. The cavalry of the Sherif Hamoud, the present chief of Yemen, are mounted almost entirely upon horses from Dóngola, for the good breed of native Arab horses is very scarce in Yemen.

The Souakin caravans, that go as far as Sennaar, bring from thence a large quantity of tobacco, which they sell in the Yemen. These merchants enjoy more credit at Shendy than any others, because they are the richest and most numerous, all free Arabs themselves, not peasants, like those of Upper Egypt, or Blacks, like those of Kordofan; but composed chiefly of the best families of Souakin, and who are prompt to revenge an insult offered to any individual amongst them. They are always treated very politely by the Mek, to whom they make larger presents than any other traders. But I shall recur to this subject hereafter, under the head of Souakin, which at present is, next to Massouah and Cairo, the most important slave-trading place in north-eastern Africa, beyond the limits of Soudan.

The Dóngola trade is of little consequence at Shendy. The Dongoláwy bring dates, which they buy up in Mahass, and tobacco, the growth of their own country. Dates are sent to Sennaar and to Kordofan as presents to the chiefs, and are there considered, next to sugar, the most exquisite dainty they have.

The female slaves who have served an apprenticeship in the houses at Dóngola are eagerly sought for by all traders, as expert cooks, and good servants.[37]

From the concurrence of all these traders, Shendy has become the first commercial town in the Black countries for the Egyptian and Arabian slave trade. These two trades, and the Abyssinian, are closely allied to each other, and merchants of all the three countries occasionally meet each other upon the most distant limits of their respective trades: and the imports into Africa from the north and east are much the same. The farthest limit of the trade appears to be Dar Saley, or perhaps Bagermé, to the west and north-west of Darfour. Although the countries, to a considerable distance beyond those provinces, keep up an intercourse with Darfour, for the purpose of receiving Arabian and Egyptian merchandize, they are not accessible to commercial enterprize; and merchants, with goods of any value, would in vain attempt to pass through the hostile tribes of Arabs and Bedouins who people the Bahr el Ghazal, and the idolatrous African nations between Bagermé and Afnou. Beyond Bahr el Ghazal, towards the frontiers of Bournou, the Fezzan, or _Zeyla_ trade, as it is here termed, begins to exercise its influence, and spreads from thence far westward across Soudan. Notwithstanding my repeated questions on this head (and such questions may be put to the Black traders without fear of exciting jealousy or suspicion), I never could trace any regular intercourse, by means of caravans, between eastern and western Soudan; nor have I ever seen any merchants who came from the countries beyond Bagermé. Those persons who wish to engage in that direction join the Fezzan caravans at Bornou. The few Bornou people who come by the direct route through Bahr el Ghazal to Darfour are pilgrims who live by charity. The greater part of the slaves met with at Shendy are from the idolatrous countries in the vicinity of Darfour, Borgho, and Dar Saley. Those from Bornou, who are easily distinguished by their tattooed skin, never find their way to Shendy; such of them as are seen in Egypt, came by the way of Fezzan. Few foreign traders, except Egyptians, visit Shendy. A few Yembawy, or Arabians from Yembo, arrive occasionally by the Souakin caravans, and there are others of the same people, who accompany the Egyptian caravans, for there are considerable settlements of Yembawy at Kenne and Gous, in Upper Egypt. When I was at Shendy, there were at Kordofan, two Yembawy and one Turk from Mohil; the latter had gone thither with a small adventure from Egypt, but had spent his money in debauchery, and could not raise enough to carry him back to the northern countries. Turkish[38] merchants going from Egypt to Darfour, and Sherifs from the Hedjaz, whose object it is to importune the chiefs for presents, occasionally come this way. While I was at Shendy an Arabian came from Souakin, who was of the tribe of Refaay (رفاعي), which is related to the great tribe of Djeheyne (جهينه),[39] near Yembo; he told me that he had heard that there were descendants of his own tribe of Refaay settled to the south of Sennaar, and that he intended to visit them, in the hope of obtaining some presents from them, as they had always manifested kindness to their relatives in the Hedjaz, especially to such as had undertaken the journey for the purpose of saluting them. He knew the name, and the place of residence of one of the chiefs of these Refaay on the river, about six days above Sennaar, and he left Shendy with the Sennaar caravan, on his way thither.

Persons from the Hedjaz and from Egypt sometimes pass by Shendy on their way to Sennaar, in search of young monkeys, which they teach to perform the tricks so amusing to the populace in the towns of Arabia, Syria, and Egypt. I was repeatedly asked whether I had not come in search of monkeys, for that my equipments appeared too shabby for those of a merchant. These monkey-hunters are held in great contempt, because, as the Negroes say, they pass their whole lives in making others laugh at them.

I have extended my remarks upon commerce to so great a length because it is the very life of society in these countries. There is not a single family which is not connected, more or less, with some branch of traffic, either wholesale or retail, and the people of Berber and Shendy appear to be a nation of traders in the strictest sense of the word. I have a few remarks to add upon the most important branch of their commerce, the slave-trade.

I calculate the number of slaves sold annually in the market of Shendy at about five thousand, of whom about two thousand five hundred are carried off by the Souakin merchants, and fifteen hundred by those of Egypt; the remainder go to Dóngola, and to the Bedouins who live to the east of Shendy, towards the Atbara and the Red Sea. I have already made some mention of the places from whence these slaves come. Those brought from Kordofan to Darfour, are, for the greater part, from the idolatrous countries of Benda, Baadja, Fetigo, and Fertit, to the south and south-west of Darfour, from twenty to forty days from Kobbe; each of these countries speaks a separate language. The Darfour merchants trade with Fertit, which lies about twenty days distant from Kobbe, in a southerly direction: the country is mountainous, and its inhabitants are wholly ignorant of agriculture; but they have tasted the luxury of Dhourra and Dokhen; and are said, in cases of a dearth of these grains, to sell even their own children to procure them.

Far the largest proportion of the slaves imported into Shendy are below the age of fifteen. All of them, both male and female, are divided by the traders, with reference to age, into three classes: namely, Khomasy (خماسي), comprising those apparently below ten or eleven years; Sedasy (سَداسي), those above eleven and below fourteen or fifteen; and Balegh (بالغ), or grown up, those of fifteen and upwards. The Sedasy are the most esteemed; when I was at Shendy a male of this class was worth fifteen or sixteen dollars, provided he bore the marks of the small pox, without which a boy is not worth more than two-thirds of that price; a female was worth from twenty to twenty-five Spanish dollars. The price of the male Khomasy was twelve, of the female fifteen dollars. The male Balegh seldom sells for more than eight or ten dollars; and there is but a small proportion of this class, because it is thought both in Egypt and Arabia, that no great dependance can be placed upon any slave, who has not been brought up in the owner’s family from an early age. Hence there is a great reluctance to the purchasing of grown up slaves for domestic purposes, or even for labourers. The Baleghs are chiefly bought by the Bedouins, who employ them as shepherds. The Bisharein have many of them in all their encampments. Grown up female slaves, although past the age of beauty, sometimes sell for as much as thirty dollars, if they are known to be skilful in working, sewing, cooking, &c. In Syria few slaves are kept; those which I have seen there are, for the greater part, imported by the caravans from Bagdad, and come from Souahel on the Mozambik coast.