HISTORICAL SKETCH OF WA'DAY.

645 consisting not only of fine clothes, and merján or coral, but even of silver, of which 'Abd el Kerim is said by trustworthy persons to have carried away with him five camel-loads, being equal to about fifteen hundred pounds' weight. It was also during his reign, as I have stated before, that Bagirmi became forever a tributary province of Waday. Having then founded a powerful kingdom, it formed the chief object of his exertions to establish a direct communication with the ports on the coast of the Mediterranean, in order to supply himself with those manufactures which, before the spoil of Bagirmi, had been almost unknown to the people of Waday.

But to the account of the exertions of 'Abd el Kerím in this field, such as has been given by the late M. Fresnel, in his memoir on Wáday, I have nothing to add, as it no doubt formed the chief subject of his inquiries; but the account given by that gentleman of the king's death, and of the reign of his successor, is full of errors. 'Abd el Kerím Sabún died in the tenth year of his reign, whicl: falls in the year 1815, in a place close to Wára, called Júnne, where he had collected an army, in order, as I have been assured by well-informed persons, to make war upon the ruler of Bórnu, or rather on the Sheikh Mohammed el Kanemí, who, endeavoring to restore his adopted country Kánem to its former splendor, was anxious to rescue it from the hands of Wádáy.

Sabun died so suddenly that he was unable to name his successor; but by all whom I have questioned on this point, I have been assured that the suspicion of poison is quite out of the question. Moreover, the circumstances, as related by M. Fresnel, are greatly misrepresented, Sabún having no son at all of the name of Seksan; for he left six sons, the eldest of whom, of the name of A'sed, was born of a mother from the tribe of the Kóndongó, while Yusuf, the second son, and three more sons of 'Abd el Kerím, were born of one and the same mother, who belonged to the tribe of the Mádabá. As for J'afar, who, on account of his long residence in Tripoli, and his numerous interesting adventures, has become well known to the English public,* his mother belonged to another tribe.

When, therefore, Sabún had died without naming his successor, the partisans of the tribe of the Mádabá rose against the Kóndongó, or the faction of A ́sed. and having succeeded in vanquishing their adversaries, and slaying A ́sed, they placed on the throne Yusuf, with the surname Kharífáyín, a name which, however, is not generally known in the country. This Yusuf, partly under the guardianship of his uncle, A'bú Rokkhíyé, and partly by himself, after he had slain his uncle, together with Dómmo, the agid of the Máhamíd, ruled for sixteen years in the most tyrannical manner over Wáday, till, about the beginning of the year 1830, he was put to death at the instigation of his own mother, whose name was Símbil. There has never ruled over Wádáy a king of the name of 'Abd el Káder; and Major Denham was quite right when, in 1823, he called the then king of that country the immediate successor of Sabún.

Yusuf was succeeded by his infant son Rákeb, who, after seventeen or eighteen months, died from the small-pox, when a man belonging to a lateral branch of the royal family, namely, 'Abd el 'Aziz, son of Rádama, whose father, Gandigin, was a younger son of Joda Mohammed Sulay, while his mother also belonged to the royal line, ascended the throne; and, being supported by the warlike tribe of the * See Mr. Barker's, or rather Lieutenant (now Rear-Admiral) Sir Henry Smyth's story of J'afar in the United Service Journal, 1830.

Kodoyí (called by the Arabs Bú-senún, on account of their red teeth), among whom he had taken his residence, he succeeded in maintaining his position, in an almost continual struggle with his adversaries. The first conflict which he had to sustain was against the Kélingen, who put forth, not J'afar, the rightful claimant to the succession, but another pretender, named Kéde; they were, however, totally beaten, near a place in the vicinity of Wára, called Fólkotó.

'Abd el 'Aziz had hardly begun to enjoy some tranquillity, when the tribe of the Kóndongó, leaving their mountain seats, marched against him; but they likewise were beaten, and almost annihilated, in a battle fought near a place called Búrtay. 'Abd el 'Aziz, who has been represented to me by my informants as a man of excellent qualities and of great intelligence, died likewise of the small-pox, after a reign of five years and a half, when his infant son A ́dam was placed upon the throne, but, after a little more than a year, was dethroned, and carried into honorable captivity, into Dár-Fúr.

The circumstances which led to this revolution were as follows: Mohammed Saleh, not quite correctly named e' Sherif, who had stealthily entered Wáday a long time previously, but had not been able to collect a party sufficiently strong to enable him to assert his claims openly as the brother of Sabún, had at length addressed himself to Mohammed Fádhl, the King of Dár-Fúr, and, under promise of a considerable tribute to be paid yearly, had induced that prince to assist him in obtaining the kingdom of Wadáy; and in the misery in which that country was just then plunged by a severe famine, it only required the assistance of two captains or ágade, viz., 'Abd e' Sid and 'Abd el Fat-ha, to conquer Wáday, while none but the Kamkolák, of the tribe of the Kodoyí, made a serious resistance, though without success.

Mohammed Saleh, who thus ascended the throne with the assistance of a foreign power, in the month Tóm el awel, in the year 1250 H., may certainly be said to have exerted himself for the benefit of his country, though the last years of his reign have been rather unfortunate, as well for himself as for his subjects.

The first enterprise which he undertook in order to enrich his subjects, or perhaps himself, and with the purpose of extending his dominion, was an expedition against Karká or Kargha, the district composed of islands and half-submerged meadow-lands and pasture-grounds in the southeast corner of the Tsád, which I have described in my account of Kánem, and from whence he carried away a great number of cattle. Perhaps, also, one reason why he undertook this expedition was the circumstance that another member of the royal family, namely. Núr e' Dín, who, by Yusuf and Furba, was descended directly from Sáleh Dérret, had retired into that swampy and almost inaccessible district, and, owing to the influence which he obtained over the neighboring tribes, might have risen as a pretender at a future time. The next year Mohammed Saleh marched against the Táma, that very intractable and predatory tribe settled in a mountainous district four days N.E. from Wára, and, having conquered them and slain their chief, invested another man with his authority; but the Táma having driven this person away after the king had retraced his steps, Mohammed Saleh was obliged to make another expedition against them the following year, when he subdued them once more, and made them acknowledge as their chief a person called Ibrahim.

After this, in the year 1846, he undertook that expedition against Bórnu of

HISTORICAL SKETCH OF WA'DA'Y.

647 which I have given a short account in the chronological table of the history of that empire, and which had been greatly misrepresented by M. Fresnel; for although he penetrated to the very heart of that country, he did not attain his object of reinstating the family of the Sultan of Bórnu in its ancient right; and although he certainly carried away a great amount of spoil, yet he lost a considerable portion of his army, as well in the battle of Kúsuri as on his return home, principally while crossing the Shárí.

However, on his return, the king turned his arms against the Tebu tribes settled on the Bahr el Ghazál; and, conquering them, subjected them to an annual tribute. Having returned from this memorable campaign, Mohammed Saleh did not undertake a second expedition, but, having kept quietly at home for three or four years, was obliged to waste the strength of one part of his empire in a bloody struggle against the other.

The origin and reason of this civil war, which, up to the time of my leaving Negroland, kept Wádáy in rather a weakened state, is to be sought for in the real or presumed blindness of the king, which gave to his adversaries the Kodoyi, who regard A'dam as their legitimate prince, some pretext for not acknowledging him any longer as their master, besides the general unpopularity produced by his avarice. It was on this account, in order to escape from his public and private enemies, that in the year 1850 he abandoned the old residence of all the former kings of Wádáy, down from Kharút the First, and transferred the seat of government from Wara to Abéshr, a very inconsiderable place or village, about twenty miles to the south of Wara, where, on account of its being almost entirely destitute of water, and situated in the very territory of his partisans the Kélingen, he felt himself tolerably secure.

The contest, fomented for a long time, did not break out until 1851, when, in the month of Sh'abán, he was obliged to march against the Kodoyí, who, assisted by part of the A'byí or Abú Shárib, awaited him in their mountains, from whence they rushed down upon him when he had closely approached them, on Friday, the 9th of Sh'aban, with great impetuosity, and breaking through all his lines, and killing a great many persons of high rank, among whom was A bú Horra, the blind aged brother of the king, and his own daughter Fátima, penetrated to his very person, and were on the point of slaying him, when his people succeeded in saving his life. But, having become imboldened by this success, the enemy the next day ventured to leave their mountain fastnesses, and descended into the plain, and were in consequence overpowered by the greater numbers and the superior cavalry of the king's host, and, after a severe loss, which, however, cleared rather the ranks of their companions, the Abú Shárib, than their own, sought refuge in the mountains. But, notwithstanding this shock received by them in the above-mentioned battle, which by the natives is called the battle of Torbigen or Jálkam, being a warlike race, they have by no means given up their point, and were stated, during my stay in Bagírmi, to persist in the intention of renewing the struggle after the labors of the harvest should be over.

So far I have brought down the history of the country in the dispatch which I sent home after my return from Bagírmi; and the remarks with which I then concluded my account of the history of Wádáy have been since confirmed in a very remarkable manner. My words were: "The discord which at present prevails in the centre of Waday is the more considerable, as the king, Moham

med Saleh, seems to be on bad terms even with his eldest son Mohammed, the heir to the throne, who, having staid behind in Wára, and being repeatedly summoned to appear before his father, is said to have retired to the southern parts of the country." A few months after I wrote these lines we received the news of a civil war having broken out between the son and his father; and a long, sanguinary struggle ensued, in which Mohammed, the son of Mohammed Saleh, vanquished not only his father, but also his brothers, who were supported by strong factions, while he himself, being born of a woman who was not a native of the country, but a Fellatníye from Kordofán, had solely to rely upon his own energy and courage; and it is said that he committed great havoc among the principal men of the country. What the present state of the country may be I do not know, but I have been told that this king has been overthrown by one of his brothers. If Mr. Vogel, who, according to the latest accounts, has succeeded in entering this country, should be so fortunate as to escape with his life, we shall soon hear more about this interesting region.

Such is the short account of the history of Wádáy, as far as my inquiries in Bagirmi enabled me to learn it, and for the general accuracy of which I can answer, although it may be at variance with other reports. As for the character of the country, which has been thus united into one extensive kingdom, stretching in its greatest extent from W.N.W. to E.S.E., and reaching from about 15° east long. to about 23°, and from about 15° north lat. to 10° south, I shall here only give a very short view of the most characteristic features, leaving the particulars to the itineraries, as all the knowledge which we possess of the country is derived from them, and not from ocular inspection.

Waday proper is rather a level country, but interspersed with a great many isolated mountains of a dry and sterile character, as it seems, without being capable of feeding constant springs of water, the only sources of whose existence in the country I have been able to obtain information being those near the place Hamiyen, in the wadi Waringék; and even these are said to contain hot water. The whole country has an inclination from east to west-in other words, from the foot of Jebel Márra, in Dár-Fur, toward the basin of the Fittri, the lake or lagoon of the Kuka, which receives all the moisture carried down during the rainy season by the smaller water-courses, and collected in the larger valley of the Bat-ha; with the exception, as it seems, of the wadi Kiya, which, running from north to south, next to the above-mentioned range of mountains, is stated by most of my informants not to have any connection with that basin, and may possibly join some branch of the Nile. In the northern part, where the country is bordered by desert tracts, there are several smaller water-courses, or, as they are here called, "zaraf," which die away in the sands.

As for the country between (Lake) Fittri and (Lake) Tsád, I have already shown it in another place to be an elevated district intercepting entirely the communication between the two lakes, or rather lagoons. The water-course and valleys form the natural high roads, along which the dwelling-places of men are established.

With respect to the outlying provinces of the empire, which are situated toward the south, their character is evidently much more varied and rich in perennial water-courses than the nucleus of the kingdom, but inquiries with regard to these water-courses have not as yet advanced far enough to enable us to take a general view of them.

APPENDIX VIII.

ETHNOGRAPHICAL ACCOUNT OF WA’DA’Y.

WADAY, in every respect, is as yet a young empire, where the most heterogeneous elements subsist together side by side, with almost unrestricted power, weakening and debilitating the whole body. Nevertheless, the variety of those elements, in a territory of so considerable an extent as Wádáy, is not at all marvelous and extraordinary in this part of the world, the number of the different languages spoken there not exceeding that of the different languages spoken in the circumference of Fúmbiná; and even in Bórnu, where, by a system of centralization, several tribes have in the course of time been almost entirely annihilated, the number of languages spoken at the present day exceeds fifteen.

As for Waday, there are first to be separated the two large groups of the indigenous or immigrant Negro tribes, on the one hand, and that of the Arab tribes on the other. I shall first consider the Negro tribes, of which I give a complete list, adding in each place a few observations with regard to their strength and their political power. As for their affinity to each other, little can as yet be stated with certainty, vocabularies of their languages not being at hand; and I myself was not able to procure more than three, namely, vocabularies of the language of the principal stock or the Mába, of the Kúka, and of the A ́byí or A bú Shárib. With regard to their dwelling-places, they will be better ascertained from the collection of itineraries than from this account.

I will first consider that body of tribes which inhabit Wádáy proper, or rather Dár Mába, speaking one and the same language, called Bóra Mábang, of which I have been able to collect a tolerably correct vocabulary, comprising more than two thousand words, together with a great many phrases, including the Lord's Prayer. This group consists of the following tribes, or rather sections: first, the Kélingen,* inhabiting several villages, about one day south of Wára; the Kajanga, two days south of Wara; the Malanga,† to the N.E.; the Mádabá and the Madalá, close to the latter; the Kodoyí, or mountaineers (from "Kodók," the mountain), called by the Arabs “Bú-Senún” (in the singular form Sennawy), on account of their red teeth, which color is said to be produced by the quality of the water in their mountain residences, where they preserve their vigorous bodily frames and their intrepid state of mind, and are unanimously acknowledged to be the most valiant among all the tribes of Wadáy. The most conspicuous of their mountain seats, situated one day's march east of Wara, are Kúrungun, the residence of their chief; Búmdan, Mógum, Búrkulí, Mutúng, and Warshékr. Then follow the smaller sections of the Kunó, the Jambo, the A'bú Gedám, the Ogodóngda, the Kawák, the A'shkiting, the Bili, the Bilting, the 'Aín-Gámara, the Koromboy, the Gírri, settled in A'm-dekík; the people of Shéferí, the Mánga, settled in the district called Fírsha; the Amírga, settled in Máshek; the people

* The name is written in Arabic

. كلن

. ملك Written +