YA'URI. ZABEʼRMA.

2nd. A hamlet of the Kámbari.

547

3rd. Kotá-n-koró, a place larger than Zinder, under the dominion of Kátsena, with a daily market.

ZABE'RMA.

The province of Zabérma, or Zérma (Jérma) is bordered towards the south-west by the Niger: towards the south by the province of Déndina and the district of Támkala; and towards the south-east by the province of Máuri. Its northern, or rather north-western, border cannot be well defined with the insufficient knowledge which we possess of that quarter; although thus much is clear, that the district of I'mmanan, which lies between the former and Kidal, the province of the Debbákal, or the Benú Sékki, is to be sought for in that neighbourhood. It is inhabited by a race of Songhay and Tawárek, but, apparently, of a degraded and mixed character, who give to the country, or at least to the eastern portion of the province, the name Chéggazar, which however seems to attach to one locality in particular; the people of this tract appear to have a chief of their own named Hatta. The country, with the exception of one or two open places, appears scarcely to have any centres of a settled population; and the chief interest attaching to it seems to be the broad valley, rich in natron, which intersects the province. (See Itineraries in the note.*) The trees most * 1.—Itinerary from Aúgi, along a winding track, by way of Máuri and Zabérma, to Támkala.

1st day. Kókoshé.

2nd. Dámbugél, belonging to the territory of Máuri or A'rewá. 3rd. Dammána.

4th. Karákará, at the western frontier of A'rewá.

5th. Fergéza, village of elephant-hunters, the first place (mafári)

of Zabérma.

6th. Tembekíre.

7th. Dóso, open capital of Zabérma; residence of Dáúd, son of Hammam Bákara, during the period of my journey independent. Beside him, there seems to be another

common in the province are the góreba or dúm-palm, the ákkora, and the g'aó, and the valley is said to be girt by fine tamarind trees. This province is also famous on account of its rich pasture-grounds, and is for this reason frequented also by a good many sections of the Fúlbe or Féllani, during some months of the year, if the state of the land is favourable, even the cattle of the Féllani-n-Kátsena pasturing in that country.

I here give a list of the sections of the Fúlbe or Féllani who usually pasture here.

Féllani-n-Zabérma:

Jelgóbe, Démbubé, Kurmé, Señínankoye, Módibankoye, Wárbe, Fíttuga, Nibángankoyen, Kúlasankoyen, Jáborin

chief in Zabérma, named Hammam Jymma. From here direction S. or S. E.

8th. Yéni, on the eastern side of the broad dallul Bóso, or Bosso, which comes from Kúrfay, and rejoins the Kwára at Kirotáshi; it is full of natron, but along the border of the valley there are wells of fresh water one fathom in depth. 9th. Támkala.

2.-Indication of Route from Yéni to Kúrfay, in very long marches in a N. W. direction along the natron valley.

1st station. Téghazar, or Chéggazar, on the west side of the dallul, at several miles' distance, and evidently E. or N. E. from Dóso. The data furnished by Mohammed el Másini are of the utmost importance, and fully confirmed. Jérma (Zabérma) on the right, probably S.E., of Téghazar, and extending down to the very border of the river Kwára: Téghazar, on the contrary, three days' from the river, through a barren desert full of wild beasts, and the deep stream running at half a day's distance.

2nd station. I'mmanan, likewise on the western or rather north

western side of the dallul.

3rd station. Kurfay.

MOHAMMED MAʼSINI'S ACCOUNT.

549

koyen, Chenbángankoyen, Dárëankoyen, Fármaké *, Báliyankoyen, Túkankoyen, Kúdurankoyen, Gargánga.

The Féllani-n-Háusa call all those countrymen of theirs who are scattered over these western districts by the nickname Menénnata Háusáre (properly, "I do not understand Háusa"); proving by such a name, which is an opprobrium to themselves, their own loss of nationality, and that they, although Fúlbe, usually address their own people more in Hausa than in their own idiom, the Fulfulde language.

LIST OF PLACES IN MA'URI OR A'REWA'.

Zormakoye (residence of a special governor), Lokoye (the capital of the province in former times), Gíwaye, Dámana or Dammána, Tiwellíje (Séberi), Gómbora, Birni-nMáuri, Bébe (with caverns), Gálewa, Degéji, Sákari, Bákin-dútsi †, Lóga.

* Whether the name of this tribe has any connection with the name of the province Fermágha to the W. of Timbúktu, I cannot say. Mr. Cooley suggests to me that it may have some relation to the Mandingo.

It is very remarkable, that while this town is mentioned in that excellent little geographical treatise of Mohammed Ben A'hmed Másini, appended to Captain Clapperton's Second Travels, p. 332, as belonging to the country or district of Emanoo, none of the other towns of Máuri which I have enumerated are there named, with the exception of Lokoye (Lu-koo-yow), but in their stead four others of which I heard nothing. But those places which then were the most considerable may have been since either greatly reduced, or even destroyed. There can be no doubt that Mohammed's Emanoo is the district I'mmanan, mentioned by me as lying between Téghazar and Máuri.

550

APPENDIX VI.

INFORMATION WITH REGARD TO THE PROVINCES OF GURMA, MO'SI, AND TOMBO.

THE whole triangle interposed between the Niger towards the north, and the country of the Eastern Mandingoes or Wángaráwa towards the south, appears to be inhabited by a single race of people, whose language, although they are divided into several different states and nations, nevertheless appears originally to have been of the same stock. It is very probable, that this race in ancient times occupied the whole upper course of the Niger, and that this tract may have been wrested from them in later times by the Songhay, and the Mandingoes, especially that section of the latter which is generally called Bámbara. These are the Gurma towards the N. E., the Tombo towards the N. W., and between them the Mósi, or, as they appear to call themselves, Móre. Gurma, also, does not appear to be the indigenous name by which those people designate themselves, but is, I think, of Songhay origin. The Gurma, on account of the neighbourhood of the centres of the Songhay empire, appear to have lost almost their whole independence and nationality, the Songhay conquering from them great part of their territory, and wasting the remainder by continuous predatory expeditions; but the former seem to have recovered part of their strength since the weakening of the power of the Fúlbe in these quarters, who followed upon the heels of the Songhay, and who appear to have formed settlements all along the great high road from Másina to Háusa, having established themselves firmly in the latter province from very remote times. The strongest among these pagan kingdoms five centuries ago, and even at the present moment,

GURMA, MO'SI, AND TOMBO.

551

is that of the Mósi, although the country is split into a number of small principalities, almost totally independent of each other, and paying only some slight homage to the ruler of the principality of Wóghodogó. The Mósi are called Morba (perhaps originally Móre-bá; bá being, as Mr. Cooley informs me, a formative of personal nouns in the Mandingo language) by the Bámbara; they themselves give peculiar names to the tribes around them, calling the Fúlbe, Chilmígo; the Songhay, Marénga; the Gurma, Bimba; the Wángara, Tauréarga; the Háusa people, Zángoró; the Asanti or Asianti, Santi. The inhabitants of Gurma call the Háusáwa, Jongoy; but the name of the Fúlbe they have changed only very slightly, calling them Fuljo in the singular, Fulga in the plural form. The Bámbara give to the A'swánek or Swanínki the name Marka. With regard to the line of Mandingo or Wángara settlements, which extend through the whole breadth of this tract along about the tenth meridian of north latitude, I shall say more further on. I will here only remark that Mr. Cooley ("Negroland of the Arabs," p. 79) seems to have been right in his supposition respecting the original settlements of that eminent African race.

Besides the nationalities mentioned, there are in the tract described several smaller tribes, the degree of whose affinity it is not so easy to determine, especially as the names are more or less corrupted by the traders: Tuksáwa, Gurúnga, Basánga, well known also from other sources, with the chief places Lárabu and Tangay, the Susámga, Samgay, Kántantí, Kárkardí, Chókoshí, whose chief place situated on an eminence seems to be Gambága, formerly supposed to be the name of a country; Choksáwa is probably only the Háusa form of -Chókoshí.

The Tombo seem to have been very powerful in former times, extending probably to the very banks of the Niger at Timbúktu, and became known to the Portuguese from the

* The Tombo call the Songhay "Jennawélam."