René Caillié

“ I have seen the negroes tilling the field from which a crop had just been gathered in, to sow it afresh with another grain. The women were occupied in clearing away the grass, and in weeding the beautiful fields of rice with which the country is covered. The people are industrious; they do not travel, but devote themselves to the labours of the field, and I was astonished to find agriculture in such a state of advancement in the interior of Africa: their land is as carefully cultivated as ours, whether under the plough or not, according as the position of the soil permits inundation. ”

“ These good negroes came to see me every day; they sat by me and looked at me with curiosity; they were all very dirty and covered with rags, but there was great sweetness in their countenances. They were not annoying like the Mandingoes, but contented themselves with staring at me, and saying to one another: “He is a white! what a good, looking man he is!” One of them, the head of a family, made me a present of a sheep, and in the course of the day, of a large calabash of new milk, in which he had put some dégué, and which I thought delicious. ”

“ I have seen poor little girls crying and rolling on the ground, and even throwing up the milk which they had just drank; neither their cries nor their sufferings making any impression upon the cruel slave, who beat them, pinched them till they bled, and tormented them in a thousand ways, to force them to take the quantity of milk which she thought proper. If their food were heavier, such a system would have fatal consequences; but it is so far from hurting their constitutions, that they grow visibly stronger and fatter. ”

“ A most delightful country presented itself to our view. I saw many fields of cotton, which the negroes cultivate with success; indigo grows there without culture; there is but little millet in the environs of the village.
We sat down under a great tree, where travellers usually rest themselves till some one comes to offer them hospitality; on that day there was a great number of them, who took me for a Moor, because I wore the Moorish dress; but, being undeceived by my guides, who told them that I was about to become a convert to Islamism, they congratulated me upon my intention. ”

“ An hassane who possesses a horse, a gun, and coussabe, thinks himself the happiest of mortals. Filthiness they seem to consider as a virtue. The men swarm with vermin, of which they take no pains to rid themselves. The women are disgusting; lying always upon their couches, with their heads besmeared with butter, which, being melted by the heat, runs down their faces and their whole bodies: they exhale in consequence a perfume which to Europeans is any thing but agreeable. ”

“ The christians are rich; they have abundance of every thing; they eat a great deal, they drink wine, and spirituous liquors; they will not acknowledge the prophet: they will go to hell; this world is their paradise. As for us, we have nothing but oxen and sheep; we eat nothing but a little sangleh and drink nothing but milk and water; but we pray to God who will reward us in heaven. Nothing is to be compared with the bliss which is there enjoyed; it is renewed every hour, every minute; you have only to wish in order to obtain in abundance whatever you desire. ”

“ Whole families sometimes fight to settle their own quarrels, or even those of their ancestors. They are armed with poniards, and defend themselves very skilfully against the blows of their adversaries with large shields made of elephant’s hide. I have been assured that they are not accustomed to make slaves, but kill their prisoners without mercy.
The Bagos have no king; each village is governed by the oldest of the inhabitants, who settles their disputes, though they have, like the Landamas, a Simo, who performs the functions of chief magistrate upon important occasions. ”

“ At night they meet again at the master’s tent to repeat their lesson. Whilst he is hearing his class, the master walks round the fire, singing himself to give the note to his scholars, and holding in his hand a long stick, with which he lays about him, when he sees any one inattentive. When a pupil is perfect in his lesson, he goes all round the camp repeating it, and obtains great applause.
The Moors have a profound reverence for the Koran; they never lay it on the ground, not even on a mat, without putting a pagne under it. ”

“ Women attended the festival, but they kept at a respectful distance from the men. They likewise joined in prayer. As soon as the ceremony was over, the paschal lamb was slaughtered, and the people regaled themselves during the rest of the day: feasting is indeed the greatest enjoyment of the negroes. Lamfia attended the festival arrayed in my woollen wrapper, and, being determined on making a grand display, he held my umbrella over his head the whole time, under the pretence of shading himself from the sun. ”

“ They are not all faithful to their husbands; but when a man suspects that one of his wives is false he compels her by the fear of the Simo to confess who has been the partner of her guilt. The woman seldom holds out long against his questions and threats; the fear of being subjected to the ordeal of the magistrate of the woods forces her to confess her fault and to discover her paramour. From that moment the latter becomes the slave of the husband, who sells him without pity to the negro merchants, or to any other negroes of the country. ”

“ We cut off a few branches of trees, to make a sort of hut to shelter us for the rest of the night; the rain had no sooner ceased, than we were beset by swarms of mosquitoes, which gave us no rest. Two of our companions, armed with poniards and lances, went in search of water, with a vessel which we had brought for that purpose; when our fire was lighted, we cooked upon the embers four yams and a few pistachios for supper, and, after this frugal repast, we stretched ourselves on wet leaves round the fire. ”

“ As commerce attracts to this spot a vast number of dealers and visiters; there is a perpetual bustle. While the trade lasts, the port is like a tumultuous fair; on one side are the camels and oxen of the caravans, driven out to graze or to the river to water; on another a flock of sheep, which a zenague is endeavouring to sell; here a caravan just arrived from the desert, with dealers besetting it and quarrelling with one another; laptots [35] fighting, and women squabbling ”

“ I spent the day in visiting the environs of the village, which is charmingly situated, amidst an immense plain, fertilized by the rains of the tropic. The inhabitants grow in abundance all that is requisite for their wants: accustomed to lead a very temperate life, they frequently have a surplus, which they carry for sale to St. Louis, bringing back in exchange fire-arms for their defence, and amber, coral, and glass trinkets to adorn their wives. This village is reputed to be the wealthiest in the neighbourhood of St. Louis. Its population may be estimated at two thousand, all marabouts. ”

“ Those who have no slaves, are obliged to cultivate their own fields, but in that case they labour so inefficiently, that their harvest does not maintain them during the whole year. They, therefore, purchase from the Bambara negroes, who sell their surplus grain to procure salt.
The slaves, being regarded by the Mandingoes as their principal wealth, are not ill-treated; their food is the same as that of their masters, though sometimes it is not quite so abundant; they are dressed in a coarse pagne, which they wear to the last rag: they go naked until they are eighteen, or sometimes older. ”

“ I have already observed that the Moorish women have great influence over their husbands; I repeat it here, to correct an error into which M. Durand has fallen, and which he may have communicated to his readers. The husband has no authority over his wife but what a superior understanding gives him; I should even say that the Mooresses possess more influence over their husbands than our French women. They rarely wait upon them; and only for want of slaves; even then I have always seen that in this case a neighbour would lend a woman to pound the millet and make the sangleh. ”

“ On the 30th of July, a caravan of saracolet merchants arrived at Sambatikila, on their way to Foulou to purchase slaves, whom they sell again in Foulou or Kankan. All the goods which are sold at the European settlements on the coast are destined for this infamous traffic: the slaves are not exported, it is true, but they are no better off than if they were. Slavery may perhaps be abolished in civilized Europe, but the wild and covetous African will long continue the barbarous custom of selling his fellow-creatures. ”

“ I walked about in the neighbourhood of our habitation, and was delighted with the good cultivation; the natives raise little mounds of earth, in which they plant their pistachios and yams; and these mounds are arranged with some taste, all of the same height and in rows. Rice and millet are sown in trenches; as soon as the rainy season commences they put in their seed around their habitations, and when the maize is in flower they plant cotton between the rows. The maize is ripe very early and they then pull it up to make room for the other crop. ”

“ The Foulahs came in great numbers to see us; I showed them my umbrella, which they thought little less than miraculous, not understanding how it was possible that I could open and shut it at pleasure. Our fore-court was not clear all the evening, and many of them even came late at night, with wisps of lighted straw, which amused me extremely; they all exclaimed, with a smile when they saw me, “How white he is!” and then they repeated the compliments I had received over-night, adding, “We never yet saw so white a man.” They inquired of my guide, whether the colour of my skin was natural ”

“ When the girl to be married is neither of a distinguished family nor handsome, then only two slaves are given. Throughout the whole of this country I met with no instance of a young woman living in a state of Celibacy; pretty, or plain, they all get married. These wives are, however, only so many servants, whom the men secure to themselves, and of whose running away they have no reason to be afraid. The bridegroom must deliver his slaves before he obtains possession of his bride, to whom he also makes some little presents, besides sending her every day large calabashes full of rice. ”

“ The Brakna marabouts are as idle as the hassanes; they take no other exercise than walking to the mosque; and their only diversion is reading the Koran. They sometimes converse together as they lie on the sand, and go to sleep while talking over religion and politics.
Of all the classes of Moors the marabouts give the least and require the most; their quality of priests causing them to be considered as the dispensers of favours, they are never refused any thing, especially as the Moors are persuaded that they shall gain heaven by liberality. It is not to the hassanes alone that they apply ”

“ It is so pleasant to live in idleness, and to enjoy the fruit of the labours of others, that every negro does all in his power to become a slave owner; their ambition is limited to the posession of twelve or fifteen slaves, whom they employ entirely in agricultural labour. ”

“ They are idolaters. All whom I saw were tall, well made men, and of a warlike appearance. They are as black as the Mandingoes, whom, however, they do not resemble in features. Their faces are rather round, their noses short, though not flat, and their lips thin. I never saw any women of that nation, but I presume that their dress is neither more elegant nor cleaner than that of the men, consisting, I suppose, of a piece of their own cotton cloth fastened round their waists. These people have woolly hair, and wear it platted. ”

“ When a zenague joins the slaves, he applies to the marabout, who gives him a cow and what else is needful, and at the end of the gum-harvest he receives half of what he has collected. The zenagues are only permitted to gather upon this condition; if they were to attempt it on their own account they would be plundered by the hassanes. Every detachment is provided with a pulley and cord to be used at the wells, and a leather bag which is to serve as a bucket for drawing up water. I have been assured that those wells are very deep, and the ropes which I saw were thirty or forty fathoms long. ”

“ Every prince has one of these men in his retinue, and Hamet-Dou’s guéhué follows him wherever he goes. When they are seated together in the tent, he sings the king’s praise, and loads him with such outrageous panegyric, that none but an African monarch could hear it without blushing; the king’s wife and children usually join and repeat in chorus all the absurdities he can invent. These parasites have contrived to make themselves as much feared as despised by the Moors; they understand the art of persuasion in perfection ”

“ We were lodged in a very large hut where I saw, not without astonishment, two seats resembling sofas, each made out of the trunk of a tree. I regarded them as curiosities among a people who have no carpenter’s tools. The legs, the arms, and the back, were all made out of one piece of wood, which was of a red colour and very hard. These sofas were really executed with some taste; they must have been a work of considerable time, but in those countries time is not so valuable as with us. The people have no other tools than small hatchets and poniards. ”

“ In the evening I saw many women chopping mice to make sauce for their suppers. I observed that they gut the animals, and, without taking the trouble of skinning them, merely draw them across the fire to singe off the hair: thus prepared, they lay them in a corner of the hut, and it is not unusual to keep them there for seven or eight days before they are cooked. The mice, which make their way into the jars of millet, are caught by the women and children without the aid of traps.
Though there is abundance of poultry at Cacoron, yet the negroes eat it only on holidays. ”

“ In this village all the heads of families have huts or cabins built of earth, like that which the chief of Sananso allotted to me. The women’s huts are of straw. We procured a little millet for our supper, for which we paid in colat-nuts. The wells are at a little distance from the village, and, if I may judge from the rope used for drawing up the water, they are not above twelve, or fifteen feet deep. ”

“ The Moors are naturally filthy; and they seem to chuse the dirtiest slave on purpose, to make the butter and apportion the cheni. I have seen the women making the balls of butter with their hands wipe their fingers on their hair, and then plunge them again into the calabash containing the butter and milk. They disgusted me to such a degree by their uncleanly ways, that I have often suffered hunger, rather than accept a drink which they had prepared so filthily.
If the slaves are ill treated by the hassanes, those who belong to the marabouts fare still worse. ”

“ The market is kept in very good order. The dealers, who were ranged in two rows, were neatly dressed, and behaved with great civility to those who bought their commodities, which consisted of the produce of the country. Their shops were filled with cotton, raw and manufactured, salt, millet, allspice, long pepper, pistachios, zambalas, the fruit of the baobab, and the dried leaves of that tree, which are used in cookery. I also exhibited my ware, and sold some glass ornaments and pieces of coloured calico, which strongly excited the admiration of the negroes. ”

“ My guide related the manner in which I had been taken by Europeans, and assured them that I was a real Arab, a sherif of Mecca; for these people had never heard of Alexandria, my pretended country. Lamfia informed them that I had crossed the Fouta in safety, that all the inhabitants had received me well, and even made me presents; that I read the Koran, a thing which a christian would never do. “Besides,” added he, “the christians never travel alone and on foot. They only go by rivers in vessels.” ”