reward my friends and attendants. I had already divided the túrkedí which I had received from Kúkawa among those nearest to me, except two or three, which I sold in the market in order to buy provisions. And of these tobes likewise I divided thirty among the people of Zérma, my own attendants, the Fáki Sámbo, Bú-Bakr, and my other friends. The poor Háj Ahmed, who sustained himself here with great difficulty, was very grateful for my present, and offered up fervent prayers for my safe arrival at home, although he would have liked better if I had accompanied him on his journey eastward through Wádáy and Dár-Fúr.

But, although on my first arrival in this country I had entertained the hope that it might be possible to accomplish such an undertaking, I had convinced myself that, not taking into account my entire want of proper means, it would be imprudent, under the present circumstances, to attempt such a thing; for the state of affairs in the country of Wáday was exceedingly unfavorable at the time, a destructive civil war having just raged, and matters not being yet settled. My own situation in this country, moreover, was too uncertain to allow me to have sufficient supplies sent after me to embark in such a grand enterprise; and besides, although I had become fully aware of the great interest which attaches to the empire of Wádáy, as well owing to the considerable extent of its political power as on account of the great variety of elements of which it is composed, and also on account of its lying on the water-parting between the basin of the Tsád and that of the Nile, I felt quite sure that the western part of Negroland, along the middle course of the so-called Niger, was a far nobler and more fruitful field for my exertions. However, there was one favorable circumstance for attempting at that time a journey into Wádáy, as the messengers of the sultan (or rather of Jérma or Zérma, one of the most powerful officers in that country, who has the inspection of this province) were at present here, in order to collect the tribute which Bagírmi, in its present reduced state, has to pay to its mightier neighbor.

As for my friend the Sherif Slímán, he behaved like a gen

CAUSE OF MY DETENTION EXPLAINED.

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tleman on this occasion, refusing my shirts, but begging for a little camphor and a pair of English scissors.

August 8th. After all the delay was overcome, I at length became aware what had been the cause of it; for in the afternoon of that day my noble companion Gréma 'Abdú, who had left me so unceremoniously before I reached the capital, and who altogether had been of so little use to me, came to inform me that all was now ready for our departure, he having received the five slaves whom he was to take to Kúkawa, partly for his own benefit, and partly for the benefit of his master Mestréma, who, as I have stated before, held a situation something like a consul of Bagírmi in the capital of Bórnu. Indeed, there were now unmistakable signs that I was at length to leave this place, for the following day I was treated with a large dish of rice and meat, swimming in a rich abundance of butter, from the sultan, and another dish from my niggardly host the zérma or kadamánge; and on the 10th of August I really left the capital of Bagírmi, where I had certainly staid much longer than I had desired, as I was not allowed to move freely about in the country, but where, nevertheless, I was enabled to collect a great deal of valuable information, of which that part relating to the history and general condition of the country I shall detail in the following chapter, in order to inspire the reader with a greater degree of interest in these little-known regions, while other matter will be given in the Appendix.

CHAPTER LI.

HISTORICAL SURVEY OF BAGÍRMI.—GENERAL CONDITION OF THE COUNTRY AND ITS INHABITANTS.

WITH regard to the history of the eastern part of Negroland we are still worse off than with regard to the western countries, however scanty the documents relating to the latter regions may be, although I may hope that, by my labors, a great deal

more light has been shed upon the history of these quarters than was even suspected to exist before. But while, for the kingdom of Sónghay, with its celebrated towns Gógó and Timbúktu, we have now obtained an almost continuous historical account by the tarikh of A'hmed Bábá, and while for Bórnu tolerably rich materials have likewise come to our hands by means of the chronicles of that empire and of the relation of Imám A ́hmed, for this eastern part of Negroland (which comprises the countries of Bagírmi, Wádáy, or Dár Suláy and Dár-Fúr) no such documents have as yet been found, and, besides the information to be gathered from the natives, only a few detached and obscure statements have been handed down to us by the Arab writers of the Middle Ages.

Those of the latter which relate in general to Kánem, and its capital Nijímí or Njímiye, I have already referred to in the historical sketch which I have given of the empire of Bórnu; and the only circumstances which these writers mention with regard to the more eastern regions are the general names of tribes, such as the Zogháwa and the Bájó,* mentioned by E'bn S'aíd, and, on his authority, by Abú 'l Fedá, as related tribes.†

The only author who distinctly speaks of these eastern regions is the Spanish Moor generally known under the name of Leo Africanus; for it is he who describes in this eastern quarter a large and powerful kingdom, which he calls Gaoga. This name, especially on account of its similarity to the name of the Sónghay capital, as the latter was generally written by the Arabs, has caused a great deal of confusion, and has given rise to

*The difficulty with regard to the name Bájó is considerable; for no such name as the Bajó is known, while the Dajó are a well-known tribe, who dominated Dar-Fur in the tenth century of the Islam, and even at the present day are called "nas Far'aón." Nevertheless, we can not imagine that the name Bajo is a mere clerical error for Dájó, unless we would suppose those authors guilty of a very considerable mistake, as the Dajó seem to be of an entirely distinct origin from the Zoghawa, who belong to the great Teda stock, while the former appear to have originated in the mountainous district of Fazogló, and the Bájó are expressly stated by those authors to have been the kinsmen of the Zoghawa. The Bájó may be identical with the tribe of the Bédeyát. With regard to the Zagháy of Makrízi and the Soka of Masúdi, I have already offered an opinion on a former occasion. + E'bn S'aid, in Abú 'l Fedá, p. 158.

THE KINGDOM OF GAOGA.

#

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numerous gratuitous conjectures. But if we compare Leo's statements, which are certainly very vague, and written down from memory after a lapse of several years, but especially what he says about the political relations of Gaoga, with the empire of Bórnu, there can not be the least doubt that his Gaoga is identical with what the Bórnu people call the empire of Bulála. And the reason why he called it Gaoga is obvious; for the Bulála, who originally formed a branch of the princely family of Kánem, guided by Jíl (surnamed Shíkomémi, from his mother Shikoma), founded their empire in the territory of the tribe of the Kúka, who in former times were very powerful, occupying a great extent of country, from the eastern part of Bagírmi as far as the interior of Dár-Fúr, the place Shebína, on the shore of the Bat-há, being then the principal seat of their power, while their head-quarters at present are in the province of Fittrí.† Here, owing to their introducing Islám and a certain degree of civilization, together with the Arabic alphabet called "warash," the Bulála soon appear to have obtained the sovereign power, while they founded Y'awó‡ as their new residence. While viewing the relations of the countries on the east side of the Tsád in this light, we get rid of every difficulty which may seem to be implied in the statements relating to Gaoga; for, when Leo says that the language of that country was identical with the idiom of Bórnu, he evidently only speaks of the language then used by the dynasty and the ruling tribe of the country, with whom, on his visit to that kingdom, he came into contact, and who were of the same origin as the Bórnu people, while at present, having intermingled and intermarried with the indigenous population, the Bulála, who are still the ruling family in

*The Bagírmi people, even at the present day, connect the Bulála in the most intimate way with the Kanuri; for, while they give to the latter the name "Biyo," they call the former "Biyo-Bulala."

I will here mention that Fittrí is a word belonging to the language of the Kuka, and means nothing but "river," "lake," being quite identical with "Tsad," "Sari" or "Shary."

The name Y'awó is formed entirely in the same way as that of M'awó, the present capital of Kánem, and of G'aó or G'awó, also called Gógó, the capital of the Sónghay empire.

VOL. II.—M м

Fittrí, appear to have forgotten their own language, and have adopted that of the Kúka. At the time when Leo wrote his description of Africa, or, rather, at the period when he visited Negroland (for of the events which happened after he left the country he possessed only an imperfect knowledge), the Bulála were just in the zenith of their power, being masters of all Kánem, and (according to the information of Makrízi and A ́bu 'l Fedá) having in the latter half of the fourteenth century even subjected to their dominion the large tribe of the Zogháwa, may well have entered into the most intimate political relations with the rulers of Egypt, as already, a century previous to the time of Leo, Makrízi found ample opportunity in Egypt to collect all the latest news with regard to the dynasty of Kánem.

On the other hand, we can easily imagine how Leo could call the Prince of Gaoga a Mohammedan, while the learned men of the country positively affirm that the Islám in these regions dates no farther back than the eleventh century of the Hejra, the beginning of which exactly coincides with that of the seventeenth century of our era, and, consequently, about a century after Leo's visit to Africa; for Leo speaks only of the rulers themselves, whose religious creed, probably, had no influence upon the people of the country in general. Leo's statement entirely harmonizes with the information gleaned from Makrízi; for the princes of Kánem, in the time of the latter historian, were identical with the rulers of that very kingdom which Leo calls Gaoga, although in Makrízi's time they seem to have established the capital of their empire in Njímiye, which they had conquered from the Bórnu dynasty.*

Moreover, this apparent discrepancy receives further explanation from the fact that, soon after Leo visited these regions, the pagan nation of the Týnjur extended their empire from DárFúr to the very borders of Bagírmi, opposing a strong barrier to the propagation of Islám. Respecting the name 'Omár, by which Leo designates the King of the Bulála in his time, I have already given an opinion on a former occasion. The Týnjur, of

*With regard to their places of residence in the time of Edrís Alawóma, sec Appendix III.