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CHAPTER XC.-ZAHARA OR THE GREAT DESERT.

THIS extensive waste is bounded north by the Barbary States, east by Egypt and Nubia, south by Nigritia and Senegambia, and west by the Atlantic. It is 2,600 miles in length and 750 in breadth, and consists of a table land raised a little above the level of the sea, covered with moving sand, and here and there containing some rocky heights and valleys, where the water collects and nourishes some thorny shrubs, ferns and grass. Along the shore of the Atlantic are some mountains in detached peaks; towards the interior the heights lose themselves in a plain, covered with white and sharp pebbles. For a great part of the year the dry, heated air has an appearance of a reddish vapor, and the horizon looks like the fire of a series of volcanoes. Rain falls in some districts in the latter part of summer. An aromatic plant resembling thyme, acacias and other thorny shrubs, nettles and brambles, are the ordinary vegetation. A few groves of the date or other palm trees are met with here and there. On the southern border are forests of green trees. Some monkeys and gazelles support themselves on the scanty vegetation. Numerous flocks of ostriches are also found here. Lions, panthers and serpents, add to

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the horrors of these frightful solitudes. The animals live almost without drink. The flocks consist of camels, goats and sheep.

The coast contains some good harbors, as the Rio do Ouro, and the harbor of St Cyprian. Here is Cape Bojador, the terror of the navigators of the middle age, and down to the year 1553, the fatal limit of all voyages in this direction. Cape Blanco, a little farther south, is thought to be the southern limit of the Carthaginian discoveries.

The manner of travelling is with camels, and every traveller, or indeed every Arab is constantly armed, for the tribes generally live in that state of pillage and warfare that mark the descendants of Ishmael. The camel only of all domesticated animals, finds a support in the scanty vegetation of a few spots in the desert. A common camel can easily travel 100 miles in a day. The caravans from Morocco take 130 days to cross the Desert: 54 of which are travelling days, and the others spent at the different stations in rest.

The desert is a shifting sea of sand; there is no track, and there are few landmarks. Drought or clouds of sand often destroy travellers. In 1805, a caravan of 1800 camels, and 2,000 people, perished from drought, as there was no water at the usual wadeys.

Caravans of traders cross this immense desert from the Barbary States to

central Africa. The only animals capable of being employed in this service are camels, who from their ability to travel many days without water, are admirably fitted for these journeys. A few spots scattered here and there afford

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occasionally a pool or stream of water and a grove of palm trees. These are called wadeys, or watering places.

want.

No part of the earth's surface seems so unfit for the support of human life, as the great Desert of Zahara, yet it is inhabited by many roving tribes of Arabs. Existence here is a constant struggle with hardship and The inhabitants are composed of Arabs and their negro slaves. The Arabs are of a reddish copper color, and they are hardy enough to endure without murmuring, the frequent extremes of want to which their situation exposes them. They are lean but strong. Their eyes are black and piercing, their hair and beard black, their cheek bones prominent, and their noses aquiline. The old women are represented as ugly beyond all comparison, while the young are not deficient in beauty. They take great pains to make the eye teeth project beyond the others, and the lip is often held up by them. This gives to a sharp and wrinkled face, a ferocious expression.

The dress consists chiefly in a piece of coarse camel's hair cloth, or a goatskin tied round the middle, and there is no covering for the feet or head. The language is the Arabic.

The dwellings are moveable tents, covered with a coarse cloth of goat's hair or camel's hair, and there is no furniture but a few rude dishes, utensils, and mats to sleep on.

The common food is the milk and flesh of camels: a camel gives daily, more than a quart of very rich milk. The Arabs however suffer greatly from scarcity of food and water, and are often reduced to live on what will barely support life. In some parts dates, millet, maize, and gum, are general articles of food.

In an atmosphere perfectly dry, and with a manner of life so simple, there can be few diseases; and the Arabs who do not fall by the sword, generally die in extreme old age.

The Arabs are high-spirited, rapacious, perfidious, and revengeful; yet within certain limits hospitable, and compassionate; they have however, no compassion for a Christian, and it is chiefly from the unfortunate, ill-treated, shipwrecked mariner, that we are acquainted with them. They are quick and sagacious, above all other barbarians, and they have a great pride of independence; feeling contempt for any people, who submit to organized governments. The lot of a Christian cast in this inhospitable coast is deplorable. He is seized, stripped, and perhaps wounded, or killed by the cimitars of those

who light over him for his absolute possession. The master of the captive is uncommonly merciful, if he allows his slave a remnant of his own clothing. Generally the captives have to bear on their naked bodies, the burning force of the sun, and they have little shelter or covering in the cold dews of night. They are forced to run beside the camels, in the long and constant marches of the tribes, or if permitted to ride, it is hardly a desirable change. The Arabs have so little food themselves, that frequently nothing is given to the Christian slaves, who must die of famine, if they cannot support nature by a few snails and bitter herbs. Of late years shipwrecked mariners have generally been sold to persons who carry them for redemption to Mogadore. The negro slaves are treated well; eating of the same food, and sleeping on the same mat with their masters. Where life is a constant struggle with want, there is not much disposition for amusement, and there is little in the desert. Drafts and chess however are sometimes played.

Education is confined to reading the Koran, and the schools are generally kept by the talbes or priests. The religion is so strictly Mohammedan in spirit and practice, that there is no human sympathy for any suffering of a Christian or Jew.

Hospitality however is the virtue of the desert; and one Arab who throws himself in a village, upon the protection of the tribe, is certain of security and entertainment, though his hosts might have robbed him had they met him in their excursions. The government is that of sheiks or chiefs, who are elected, or assume the power that superior courage or sagacity confers.

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1. BOUNDARIES AND EXTENT. Nigritia or Negroland, is the name given by geographers to a wide extent of country in central Africa, the various parts of which have no political connexion. It is bounded north by the Desert of Zahara, east by Darfoor, south by Guinea and unknown regions, and west by Senegambia.

2. RIVERS. The Niger, which traverses a great part of this country, has been for a great number of years an object of uncommon interest, and speculative and practical research. Its origin and a part of its course have been known to the world for many centuries, but its termination remained undiscovered, and the researches of travellers combined with the theories and conjectures of geographers, only established the fact that a great river of central Africa, rising in the mountains of Western Guinea, flowed eastward into unknown regions. The most elaborate hypotheses were framed to account for its termination. By some it was supposed to be swallowed up in the sands of the Desert. By others it was imagined to flow into vast lakes having no outlet, where its waters were dissipated by evaporation. Other theories connected it with the Nile of Egypt, the Zaire of Congo, and the streams flowing into the Bight of Benin. The celebrated Mungo Park lost his life in the attempt to travel along the stream to its termination, and various other expeditions, despatched for a similar purpose, failed of their object. The great question seemed to be shrouded in impenetrable mystery, when in 1830 the discovery was effected by Richard and John Lander, the former of whom had been the attendant of Captain Clapperton upon the journey in which he died. These two travellers proceeded by land from the coast, to Boossa on the Niger, and following the course of the stream downwards, reached the Atlantic Ocean in November, 1830, through the channel of the river Nun, flowing into the Bight of Benin.

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This channel is one of the numerous mouths of the Niger which intersect the country, forming a delta 240 miles in extent along the coast.*

3. LAKES. The discoveries of late English travellers have made known to the world a large lake of fresh water called the Tchad, in the eastern part of Nigritia. It lies in about 14° N. lat. and 15° E. lon. and was first seen by Doctor Oudeney and his companions. It was visited by Major Denham, who travelled along a great part of its borders, but was obliged to leave 140 miles of it unexplored. He was informed that it had no outlet. His approach to it is thus described. By sunrise I was on the borders of the lake, armed for the destruction of the multitude of birds who, all unconscious of my purpose, seemed as it were, to welcome our arrival. Flocks of geese and wild ducks

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*We subjoin a few passages from the London Quarterly Review, containing extracts from Lander's Journal.

“This morning I visited the far-famed Niger or Quorra, which flows at the foot of the city of Boossà, about a mile from our residence; and I was greatly surprised at its reduced breadth. Black rugged rocks rose abruptly from the centre of the stream, and its surface was agitated by whirlpools. At this place, in its widest part, (the end of the dry season,) it was not more than a stone's throw across. The rock on which I sat overlooks the spot where Mr Park and his associates met their unhappy fate."

From Boossa to Yáoori they proceeded up the river by a canoe; it was divided into many channels by rocks, sand banks, and low islands, covered with tall rank grass, and some of the channels were so shallow, that their canoe was constantly grounding. They were told at Yáoori, however, that above that place and below Boossa, the navigation was not interrupted by either rocks or sand-banks; and that, after the malca or wet season (setting. in with fourteen days of incessant rain,) canoes of all kinds pass to and fro between Yáoori, Nyffe, Boossà, and Funda.

"It is immediately after the malca, also, that the river, by the depth and velocity of its current, sweeps off the rank grass which springs up annually on its borders. Every rock and every low island are then completely covered, and may be passed over in canoes without difficulty, or even apprehension of danger.

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"After leaving Layaba, we ran down the stream for twelve or fourteen miles, the Quorra, during the whole distance, rolling grandly along- a noble river, neither obstructed by islands, nor deformed with rocks and stones. Its width varied from one to three miles, the country on each side very flat, and a few mean, dirty looking villages scattered on the water's edge. Just below the town of Bajiebo the river is divided by an island. At this town, which we left on the 5th of October, for the first time, we met with very large canoes having a hut in the middle, which contained merchants and their whole families. At the island of Madjie, where we were obliged to stop for canoe-men, we found trees of hungry growth and stunted shrubs, whose foliage seemed for the most part dull and withering; they shoot out of the hollows and interstices of rocks, and hang over immense precipices, whose jagged summits they partly conceal; they are only accessible to wild beasts and birds of prey. The river below Madjie takes a turn to the east by the side of another range of hills, and afterwards flows for a number of miles a little to the southward of east. On leaving the island, we journeyed very rapidly down the current for a few minutes, when, having passed another, we came suddenly in sight of an elevated rocky hill, called Mount Kesey by the natives. This small island, apparently not less than three hundred feet in height and very steep, is an object of superstitious veneration among the natives."

At Rabba, a large, populous, and flourishing town, with a great slave-market, the river turns off to the eastward. A little below they passed the mouth of a river of considerable size, which entered the Quorra from the northeast. Lower down is Egga, a town of two miles in length, populous, and the people clothed with Benin and Portuguese stuffs, from whence it is inferred that they have a communication with the sea-coast- the more probable, as their canoes are large, and have a shed in the middle, under which the owners and their families live. The river now took a southerly direction, and at the distance of three or four days' navigation, was joined by another river nearly as large as itself, falling in from the northeastward. This stream was also in a state of inundation, and from two to three miles in width. It was called the Tshadda.

Below the junction of the Tshadda the Quorra passes through the mountains, which appear to increase in height towards the southeast quarter, and probably terminate in those lofty peaks which are seen from the Bight of Benin, and have been found by trigonometrical measurement to be from twelve to thirteen thousand feet high. Having cleared the mountain pass, the voyagers arrive at a town called Kirree, at which place the great delta of the Quorra may be considered to commence, extending southwesterly to the mouth of the river Beein, and south southeast to that of Old Calabar, the distance between these two mouths being about two hundred and forty miles, and that from Kirree to the mouth of the river Nun, about the same. This great delta is intersected with numerous branches of the Quor ra, the banks generally overflown, and the mangrove trees growing in the water; the whole surface low, flat, and swampy, abounding with creeks.

of a most beautiful plumage were quietly feeding within half pistol shot of where I stood, and not being a very keen or inhuman sportsman, for the terms appear to me to be synonymous, my purpose of deadly warfare was almost shaken. As I moved towards them they only changed their places a little to the right or left, and appeared to have no idea of the hostility of my

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intentions. All this was really so new, that I hesitated to abuse the confidence with which they regarded me, and very quietly sat down to contemplate the scene before me. Pelicans, cranes four or five feet in height, gray, variegated and white, were scarcely so many yards from my side, aud a bird between a snipe and a woodcock, resembling both, and larger than either; immense spoonbills of a snowy whiteness, widgeon, teal, yellow legged plover, and a hundred species of, to me at least unknown water fowl, were sporting around me, and it was long before I could disturb the tranquillity of the dwellers on these waters by firing a gun. The soil near the edge of the lake was a firm, dark sand; and as a proof of the great overflowings and recedings of the waters, even in this advanced dry season, the stalks of the gussub of the preceding year were standing in the lake more than 40 yards from the shore. The water is sweet and pleasant and abounds with fish. It is about 200 miles in length and 150 in breadth, and receives a large river from the west called the Yeou, and another from the South called the Shary.

4. CLIMATE. This country being comprised between the parallels of S and 17 N. lat. must necessarily have a very warm climate. The more elevated parts, however, are temperate. The rainy season which begins in June, is ushered in by tornadoes; it continues till November, and ceases also with

tornadoes.

5. MINERALS. Many parts of this country are productive in gold: but it does not appear that any mines have been wrought by the negroes. After the annual inundations have subsided, great numbers of people are employed in collecting the mud brought down by the streams from the mountains. By an operation somewhat tedious, the small particles of gold generally called gold dust are separated from the mud and sand; this is done by repeated washings, the labor of which is performed by women.

6. NATURAL PRODUCTIONS. Nigritia, like all tropical countries, abounds in fruits, but it seems to be deficient in several of the species which are found in America in the same latitude. Park did not observe here, either the sugarcane, the coffee, or the cocoa. The pine-apple was likewise unknown. The few orange and banana trees near the coast were supposed to have been introduced by the Portuguese. The most remarkable productions of this country are the lotus, which furnishes the negroes with a sweet liquor and a sort of bread; the shea, a tree like an oak, the fruit of which, dried in the sun and

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