Chapter VI

General Remarks on the Empires of Bornou and Cashna. — Rout from Mourzouk to Bornou — Climate of Bornou — Complexion, Dress, and Food of the Inhabitants — Their Mode of Building — Their Language — Government — Military Force — Manners — and Trade.

To the South of the kingdom of Fezzan, in that vast region which spreads itself from the river of the Antelopes westward for 1200 miles, and includes a considerable part of the Niger’s course, two great empires, those of Bornou and those of Cashna, are established.

The circumstances of soil and climate, and those also which constitute political character, are nearly the same in both: for their prevailing winds are the same; their rains, which are periodical in each, though much more profuse in Bornou, begin at the same season; the same grains are cultivated; the same fruits (generally speaking) are produced; and except that no camels are bred to the westward of the City of Cashna, the capital of the empire, the same animals are reared. In both, the complexion of the inhabitants is black; their mode of building too is similar, and their manners, though in some respects more civilized in Bornou, have a general resemblance.

Each of the two empires is formed by the subjection of different tribes or nations to the dominion of one ruling people. The nature of the Government, and the laws which regulate its succession, are the same in both. In both, the ruling people are Mahometans; in both, the dependent nations are composed of converts to the Musselman faith, and of adherents to the antient worship; and though at present their languages are different, the conquerors in both had probably the same original.

Of these empires, Cashna, till of late, was esteemed the first in power; but though a thousand villages and towns are still included in her vast domains, she is now considered as much inferior to Bornou.

ROUT FROM MOURZOUK TO BORNOU.

FROM Mourzouk in Fezzan to Bornou, the capital of the empire from which it takes its name, the Fezzanners, whose commercial spirit no distance can discourage, are conducted by a rout of more than a thousand miles. Temmissa, the first town at which they arrive, and the last which they see in Fezzan, they reach on the seventh day; and in three days more they enter the territories of Bornou. Several villages, inhabited by Blacks, whose persons, their waists excepted, are entirely naked, whose meagre limbs and famished looks announce their extreme of misery, and whose idolatrous religion neither excites the resentment nor restrains the charity of the benevolent Fezzanners, mark the northern frontier of the empire.

On the day following their departure from these melancholy hamlets, they begin the ascent of a hilly uninhabited desart of sand, where a few bushes of penurious vegetation point out the successive wells that are found in these barren heights, and diminish the fatigues of a three days passage. At the close of the fourth day they enter a plain that is inhabited by Mahometans, where, in addition to a plentiful supply of excellent water, they are cheared with the sight of date trees, and of Indian corn.

From this plain, which lies to the West of the Desart of Tibesti, and the end of which they reach on the second day, a part of the Tibesti mountains take their rise. These vast hills, the range of which is very extensive, are variously peopled; but such of them as are crossed on the rout from Fezzan to the City of Bornou, are inhabited by a mixture of Musselmen and Idolaters, who employ themselves in breeding camels and asses, and other cattle, particularly horses of a small size.

Exclusively of the two days that are requisite for the passage of the mountains, an allowance of twice that time is generally given to refreshment and repose; soon after which a fertile and beautiful country, as richly diversified as numerously peopled, opens to their view. Its inhabitants are herdsmen, and with the exception of a few Pagans who are intermixed among them, are Musselmen in their faith. Their dwellings are in tents which are composed of hides, and their wealth consists in the multitude of their cows and sheep.

Four days are employed in crossing these fortunate districts: the sixth conducts the caravan to the entrance of the vast and burning Desart of Bilma. Surrounded by this dreary solitude, the Traveller sees with a dejected eye the dead bodies of the birds that the violence of the wind has brought from happier regions; and as he ruminates on the fearful length of his remaining passage, listens with horror to the voice of the driving blast, the only sound that interrupts the awful repose of the Desart.

On the eleventh day from their entrance on these scorching sands, the caravan arrives in the fertile plains that encompass the Town of Domboo, the approach to which is enlivened by the frequent appearance of the majestic Ostrich, and of the gay but fearful Antelope.

From thence, in about five days, they reach the City of Kánem, the capital of an extensive and fertile province, of which it bears the name, and in which the inhabitants, who are composed of Musselmen and Pagans, breed multitudes of cattle, and raise innumerable horses for the service of the King.

A journey of ten days more concludes their labour, and brings them to the imperial City of Bornou.[13]

Bornou, the name which the natives give to the country, is distinguished in Arabic by the appellation of Bernou or Bernoa, a word that signifies the land of Noah, for the Arabs conceive that, on the first retiring of the deluge, its mountains received the Ark.

The Climate, as may naturally be expected in a kingdom which seems to be bounded by the 16th and the 26th parallels of latitude, is characterized by excessive, though not by uniform heat. Two seasons, the one commencing soon after the middle of April, the other at the same period of October, may be said to divide the year. The first is introduced by violent winds that bring with them, from the South East and South, an intense heat, with a deluge of sultry rain, and such tempests of thunder and lightning as destroy multitudes of the cattle, and many of the people. During the rainy period (the continuance of which is from three to nine successive days, with short intervals from the occasional changes of the wind to the North or West) the inhabitants confine themselves closely to their dwellings; but the rest of the first season, however sultry and however occasionally wet, is not incompatible with the necessary labours of the husbandman and the shepherd.

At the commencement of the second season in the latter part of October, the ardent heat subsides; the air becomes soft and mild; the weather continues perfectly serene; and as the year declines, an unwelcome coolness precedes the rising of the sun.

The inhabitants, though consisting of such a multitude of nations that thirty languages are said to be spoken in the empire, are alike in their Complexion, which is entirely black, but are not of the Negro cast.

In a climate so warm, the chief recommendations of Dress are decency and ornament: among the poorest, therefore, by whom the first only is regarded, a kind of girdle for the waist is sometimes the only covering; but in general a turban, consisting, as in Barbary, of a red woollen cap, surrounded by folds of cotton, together with a loose robe of coloured cotton of a coarser kind, are also worn.[14]

The Grain that constitutes the principal object of culture in Bornou is Indian corn, of two different kinds, which are distinguished in the country by the names of the gassób, and the gamphúly.

The gassób, which in its general shape resembles the common reed, is of two species; the first grows with a long stalk that bears an ear, which in length is from eight to twelve inches, and contains, in little husks or cavities, from three to five hundred grains, of the size of small pease. The second species, which is common in Tripoli, differs no otherwise from the first than in the shorter size of the ear.

The gamphúly is distinguished from the gassób, by the bulk of the stalk, for that of the gamphúly is much thicker, by the number of its ears, for it has several on the same reed, and by the size of the grain, which is considerably larger. This kind of corn is frequently seen in Spain, and is there called Maize.

Wheat and barley are not raised in Bornou; but the horse-bean of Europe and the common kidney-bean are cultivated with great assiduity, as they are used for food, both by the slaves and by the cattle.[15]

In the culture of these different grains, the hoe alone is employed, as the use of the plough is still unknown to the people. The women divide with the men the labours of their husbandry; for while the latter, with their hoes, open the ground, and form the trenches in straight lines parallel to each other, the women follow and throw in the seed: nor is this the only part which they take in the business of the field; for to them, as soon as the weeds begin to rise on the ridges of the lines in which the grain is sowed, the hoe is constantly transferred.

The sowing season commences at the end of the periodical rains of April; and such in that climate is the rapid vegetation, that on the 9th of July the gassób is reaped; but the gamphúly, a grain of slower growth, is seldom cut till the month of August or September.

Such are the several species of corn that, among the people of Bornou, supply the place of the wheat, the barley, and the oats of Europe. Two species of roots are also used as wholesome and substantial food: the one, which is called the Dondoo, produces a low plant, with branches that spread four or five feet upon the ground, and leaves that resemble those of the garden-bean. At the end of five months, from the time of its being planted, the leaves fall off, and the root is taken from the ground, and being cut into small pieces, is dried in the sun, in which state it may be kept for two years. Its further preparation consists in reducing it to a fine powder, and mixing it with palm oil till it assumes the consistency of paste.

The other root is that of a tree, of which the name had escaped the Shereef’s recollection: boiling is the only process that is requisite in preparing it for use.

The same character of sufficiency which marks the catalogue of the different kinds of grain in Bornou, belongs also to the list of its various Fruits; for though neither olives nor oranges are seen in the empire, and even figs are rare, and though the apples and plumbs of its growth deserve no commendation, and the dates are as indifferent as they are scarce, yet grapes, and apricots, and pomegranates, together with lemons and limes, and the two species of melons, the water and the musk, are produced in large abundance.[16] But one of the most valuable of its vegetable stores, is a tree which is called Kedéynah, that in form and height resembles the olive, is like the lemon in its leaf, and bears a nut, of which the kernel and the shell are both in great estimation, the first as a fruit, the last on account of the oil which it furnishes when bruised, and which supplies the lamps of the people of Bornou with a substitute for the oil of olives.

To this competent provision of such vegetables as are requisite to the support, or grateful to the appetite of man, must be added a much more ample and more varied supply, of Animal Food. Innumerable flocks of sheep, and herds of goats and cows, (for there are no oxen) together with multitudes of horses, buffaloes, and camels, (the flesh of which is in high estimation) cover the vales or pasture on the mountains of Bornou.[17]

The common, though not the Guinea fowl is also reared by the inhabitants; and their hives of bees are so extremely numerous, that the wax is often thrown away as an article of no value in the market.

Their game consists of the Huaddee, and other species of antelopes, of the partridge, the wild duck, and the ostrich, the flesh of which they prize above every other.

Their other wild animals are the lion, the leopard, the civet cat, the small wolf, the fox, the wild dog, that hunts the antelope; the elephant, which is not common, and of which they make no use; the crocodile, the hippopotamus, which is often killed on the banks of the river that runs from the Neel Shem, (the Nile of Egypt) to the Desart of Bilma; and a large and singular animal, which is distinguished by the name of Zarapah, and which is described as resembling the camel in its head and body, as having a long and slender neck like the ostrich, as being much taller at the shoulders than the haunches, and as defended by so tough a skin, as to furnish the natives with shields that no arrow or javelin can pierce.[18]

Bornou, like other countries that approach the Equinoctial, is much infested with different kinds of dangerous or disgusting reptiles, especially snakes and scorpions, centipedes and toads.

Of its beasts of burthen the variety is as ample as the numbers are abundant; for the camel, the horse, the ass, and the mule, are common in the empire.

The dog, with which the inhabitants pursue their game, appears to be their only domestic animal.

In the mountains of Tibesti, and perhaps in other parts of the empire, the herdsmen, probably for the sake of a more easy change of pasture, prefer a residence in tents to stationary dwellings; and those, it seems, are not manufactured, like the tents of the Zahara, from the camel’s hair; but are composed of the hides of cows, a more durable and impervious covering.

Through all the empire of Bornou the same mode of building, and with the difference of a greater or a smaller scale, the same form in the plan of the houses universally prevails.—Four walls, inclosing a square, are erected; within those walls, and parallel to them, four other walls are also built: the ground between the walls is then divided into different apartments, and is covered with a roof. Thus the space within the interior walls determines the size of the court; the space between the walls determines the width of the apartments; and the height of the walls determines the height of the rooms. In a large house the rooms are each about twenty feet in length, eleven feet in height, and as many in width.

On the outside of the house, a second square or large yard, surrounded by a wall, is usually provided for the inclosure and protection of the cattle.[19]

Such is the general plan of a Bornou house. For the construction of the walls the following method is constantly pursued: a trench for the foundation being made, is filled with dry and solid materials rammed in with force, and levelled; on these a layer of tempered mud or clay is placed; and in this substitute for mortar a suitable number of stones are regularly fixed. Thus with alternate layers of clay and stones the wall proceeds; but as soon as it has reached the height of six or seven feet, the workmen suspend its progress for a week, that it may have time to settle, and become compact; for which purpose they water it every day.

When the walls are finished they are neatly plaistered, both within and without, with clay or mud, tempered with sand; for the country furnishes no lime.

The roofs are formed of branches of the palm tree, intermixed with brushwood; and are so constructed as at first to be waterproof; but such is the violence of the wind and rain, that the end of the second year is the utmost period of their brief duration.[20]

Much less attention is given to the furniture than is bestowed on the structure of the houses; for the catalogue of the utensils is extremely short. Among the lower classes of the inhabitants it consists of the mats covered with a sheep-skin, upon which they sleep; of an earthen pot; of a pan of the same materials; of two or three wooden dishes, a couple of wooden bowls, an old carpet, a lamp for oil, and perhaps a copper kettle.

Persons of a superior rank are also possessed of leathern cushions, that are stuffed with wool; of several brass and copper utensils, of a handsome carpet, and of a sort of candlesticks; for instead of the vegetable oil which is used by the common people, they employ the light of candles manufactured from their bees wax and the tallow of their sheep.

Bornou is situated at the distance of a day’s journey from a river which is called Wed-el-Gazel, from the multitude of antelopes that feed upon its banks, and which is lost in the deep and sandy wastes of the vast Desart of Bilma.[21]

From the symmetry of the houses, and the general resemblance which they bear to each other, a regular arrangement of streets might, with the utmost ease, have been given to their towns. In Bornou, however, a different system has prevailed; for even in the capital, the houses, straggling wide of each other, are placed without method or rule; and the obvious propriety of giving to the principal mosque, a central situation, exhibits the only proof of attention to general convenience.[22]

The King’s palace, surrounded by high walls, and forming a kind of citadel, is built, perhaps with a view to security, in a corner of the town.[23]

Markets for the sale of provisions are opened within the city; but for other articles, a weekly market, as in Barbary, is held without the walls.

£. s. d.

The common price in Bornou of a cow or a bull is a mahaboob of Tripoli, or 0 6 0

A sheep, 0 3 0

An ostrich, 0 6 0

An antelope, 0 1 6

A camel from 6l. to 7l. 10s. or at a medium, 6 15 0

A horse from 3l. to 7l. 10s. or at a medium, 5 5 0

In general, the towns have no other defence than that which the courage of the inhabitants affords: but the capital is surrounded by a wall of fourteen feet in height, the foundations of which are from eight to ten feet deep, and which seems to be built with considerable strength. To this defence is given the additional security of a ditch, which encompasses the whole; and care is taken, that at sun-set the seven gates which form the communication with the country shall be shut.[24]

The great population of Bornou is described by the indefinite and metaphorical expression of a countless multitude.

In Fezzan the price of all things is measured by grains of gold; and where the value is too small to be easily paid in so costly a metal, the inhabitants have recourse to corn, as a common medium of exchange. But in Bornou, as in Europe, the aid of inferior metals is employed, and copper and brass (which seem to be melted together, and to be mixed with other materials) are formed into pieces of different weights, from an ounce to a pound, and constitute the current species of the empire.[25]

Dominions so extensive as those of Bornou have seldom the advantage of one uniform language; but an instance of so many different tongues, within the limits of one empire, as are spoken in that kingdom, and its dependencies, has still less frequently occurred, for they are said to be more than thirty in number.

Of the language, however, which is current in the capital, and which seems to be considered as the proper language[26] of Bornou, the following specimen is given by the Shereef.

One is expressed by Lakka Eight is expressed by Tallóre

Two Endee Nine L’ilkar

Three Nieskoo Ten Meiko

Four Dekoo Eleven Meiko Lakka

Five Okoo Twelve Meiko Endee

Six Araskoo Thirteen Meiko Nieskoo

Seven Huskoo Fourteen Meiko Dekoo.

Two different Religions divide the sentiments, without disturbing the peace of the kingdom.

The ruling people profess the Mahometan faith;[27] and though the antient Paganism of the dependent nations does not appear to subject them to any inconvenience, a considerable part are converts to the doctrines of the Prophet.

An elective monarchy constitutes the Government of Bornou,[28] and like the similar system of Cashna, endangers the happiness, while it acknowledges the power of the people. On the death of the Sovereign, the privilege of chusing among his sons, without regard to priority of birth, a successor to his throne, is conferred by the nation on three of the most distinguished men, whose age and character for wisdom, are denoted by their title of Elders; and whose conduct in the State has invested them with the public esteem. Bound by no other rule as to their judgment or restraint, as to their will, than that which the expressed or implied instruction of electing the most worthy may form, they retire to the appointed place of their secret deliberation, the avenues to which are carefully guarded by the people: and while the contending suggestions of private interest, or a sense of the real difficulty of chusing where judgment may easily err, and error may be fatal to the State, keeps them in suspence, the Princes are closely confined in separate chambers of the Palace. Their choice being made, they proceed to the apartment of the Sovereign elect, and conduct him, in silence, to the gloomy place in which the unburied corpse of his father, that cannot be interred till this awful ceremony is passed, awaits his arrival. There, the Elders point out to him the several virtues and the several defects which marked the character of his departed parent; and they also forcibly describe, with just panegyric, or severe condemnation, the several measures which raised or depressed the glory of his reign. “You see before you the end of your mortal career; the eternal, which succeeds to it, will be miserable or happy in proportion as your reign shall have proved a curse or a blessing to your people.”

From this dread scene of terrible instruction, the new Sovereign, amidst the loud acclamations of the people, is conducted back to the Palace, and is there invested by the electors with all the slaves, and with two-thirds of all the lands and cattle of his father; the remaining third being always detained as a provision for the other children of the deceased Monarch. No sooner is the Sovereign invested with the ensigns of Royalty, than such of his brothers as have reached the age of manhood prostrate themselves at his feet, and in rising press his hands to their lips—the two ceremonies that constitute the declaration of allegiance.

If any doubt of their sincerity suggests itself to the King or to the Elders, death or perpetual imprisonment removes the fear; but if no suspicion arises, an establishment of lands and cattle from the possessions of their father, together with presents of slaves from the reigning monarch, are liberally bestowed upon them.

Often, however, the most popular, or the most ambitious of the rejected Princes, covering his designs with close dissimulation, and the zeal of seeming attachment, creates a powerful party; and assured of Foreign aid, prepares, in secret, the means of successful revolt. But, stained with such kindred blood, the sceptre of the victorious Rebel is not lastingly secure—one revolution invites and facilitates another; and till the slaughter of the field, the sword of the executioner, or the knife of the assassin has left him without a brother, the throne of the Sovereign is seldom firmly established.

Such, in the Mahometan empires of Bornou and of Cashna, is the rule of succession to the monarchy; but the Pagan kingdoms adjoining, with obviously less wisdom, permit the several sons of the late Sovereign, attended by their respective partizans, to offer themselves, in person, to the choice of the electors, and be actually present at the decision; an imprudence that often brings with it the interference of other States, and unites the different calamities of foreign and intestine war.

Those of the Royal Children of Bornou who are too young to take their share in the reserved part of their deceased father’s possessions, are educated in the Palace till the age of maturity arrives; at which time their respective portions of lands and cattle are assigned them.

To the four lawful wives of the late Sovereign, a separate house, with a suitable establishment, is granted by the reigning Monarch; and such of his numerous concubines as were not slaves, are at liberty to return to their several friends; and, together with leave to retain their cloaths, and all their ornaments, which are often valuable, have free permission to marry.

In the empire of Bornou, as in all the Mahometan States, the administration of the provinces is committed to Governors, appointed by the Crown; and the expences of the Sovereign are partly defrayed by his hereditary lands, and partly by taxes levied on the people.

The present Sultan, whose name is Alli, is a man of an unostentatious plain appearance; for he seldom wears any other dress than the common blue shirt of cotton or of silk, and the silk or muslin turban, which form the usual dress of the country. Such, however, is the magnificence of his seraglio, that the ladies who inhabit it are said to be five hundred in number; and he himself is described as the reputed father of three hundred and fifty children, of whom three hundred are males; a disproportion which naturally suggests the idea that the mother, preferring to the gratification of natural affection, the joy of seeing herself the supposed parent of a future candidate for the empire, sometimes exchanges her female child for the male offspring of a stranger.

Equally splendid in his stables, he is said to have 500 horses for his own use, and for that of the numerous servants of his household.

In many of the neighbouring kingdoms, the Monarch himself is the executioner of those criminals on whom his own voice has pronounced the sentence of death; but the Sultan of Bornou, too polished, or too humane, to pollute his hands with the blood of his subjects, commits the care of the execution to the Cadi, who directs his slaves to strike off the head of the prisoner.

The Military Force of the Sultan of Bornou consists in the multitude of his horsemen; for his foot soldiers are few in number, and are scarcely considered as contributing to the strength of the battle.[29] The sabre, the lance, the pike, and the bow, constitute their weapons of offence; and a shield of hides composes their defensive armour. Fire-arms, though not entirely unknown to them, for those with which the Merchants of Fezzan occasionally travel, are sufficient to give them an idea of their importance and decisive effect, are neither used nor possessed by the people of Bornou.

When the Sovereign prepares for war, and levies an army for the purpose, he is said to have a custom, (the result of idle vanity or of politic ostentation) of directing a date tree to be placed as a threshold to one of the gates of his capital, and of commanding his horsemen to enter the town one by one, that the parting of the tree in the middle, when worn through by the trampling of the horses, may enable him to judge of the sufficiency of their numbers, and operate as a signal that his levy is compleat.

In their Manners, the people of Bornou are singularly courteous and humane. They will not pass a stranger on the road till they have stopped to salute him: the most violent of their quarrels are only contests of words; and though a part of the business of their husbandry is assigned to the women, yet, as their employment is confined to that of dropping the seed in the furrows, and of removing the weeds with a hoe, it has more of the amusement of occasional occupation, than of the harshness of continued labour.

Passionately attached to the tumultuous gratifications of play, yet unacquainted with any game but drafts, they often sit down on the ground, and forming holes to answer the purpose of squares, supply the place of men with dates, or the meaner substitute of stones, or of camel’s dung. On their skill in the management of these rude instruments of the game, they stake their gold dust, their brass money, and even their very cloaths; and as the bye-standers on these occasions constantly obtrude their advice, and sometimes make the moves for the person whose success they wish, their play is usually accompanied by that conflict of abuse, and vehemence of scolding, which mark and terminate the sharpest of their quarrels.

Such is the amusement of the lower classes of the people; those of a superior rank are devoted to the more difficult and more interesting game of chess, in which they are eminently skilled.

In countries that afford without cultivation, or that give in return for slight exertions of labour, the principal requisites of life, few articles of export are likely to be found. Those of the Bornou Empire consist of—

Gold Dust,[30] Ostrich Feathers,[30]

Slaves, Salt, and

Horses, Civet.

By what means the gold dust, that appears to be a principal article of trade, is procured by the inhabitants, whether from mines in the country, or by purchase from other nations, the Shereef has not explained. But of their mode of obtaining the Slaves, which constitute another extensive branch of their commerce, he gives the following account:

South East of Bornou, at the distance of about twenty days travelling, and separated from it by several small desarts, is situated an extensive kingdom of the name of Begarmee, the inhabitants of which are rigid Mahometans, and though perfectly black in their complexions, are not of the Negro cast. Beyond this kingdom to the East are several tribes of Negros, idolaters in their religion, savage in their manners, and accustomed, it is said, to feed on human flesh. They are called the Kardee, the Serrowah, the Showva, the Battah, and the Mulgui. These nations the Begarmeese, who fight on horseback, and are great warriors, annually invade; and when they have taken as many prisoners as the opportunity affords, or their purpose may require, they drive the captives, like cattle, to Begarmee. It is said that if any of them, weakened by age, or exhausted by fatigue, happen to linger in their pace, one of the horsemen seizes on the oldest, and cutting off his arm, uses it as a club to drive on the rest.

From Begarmee they are sent to Bornou,[31] where they are sold at a low price; and from thence many of them are conveyed to Fezzan, where they generally embrace the Musselman faith, and are afterwards exported by the way of Tripoli to different parts of the Levant.

Such is the mode of obtaining the greatest part of the slaves who are annually sold in Bornou; but as several of the provinces of the empire are inhabited by Negros, their insurrections, real or pretended, afford to the Sovereign an opportunity of increasing his income by their sale.

A more politic and more effectual mode of aiding his finances is fruitlessly offered by the salt lakes of the Province of Domboo: for, as the great Empire of Cashna is entirely destitute of salt, and none is found in the dominions of the Negros, the sole possession of this article might insure to the King of Bornou a constant and ample revenue of the best kind, a revenue collected from the subjects of Foreign States; but such is the prevalence of antient custom over the obvious suggestions of policy, that the people of Agadez, a Province of the Cashna Empire, are annually permitted to load their immense caravans with the salt of Bornou, and to engross the profits of this invaluable trade. The salt is collected on the shores of the several lakes which produce it, and the only acknowledgement that the Merchants of Agadez give in return for the article, is the trifling price which they pay in brass and copper (the currency of Bornou) to the neighbouring peasants.

The civet, which forms another article of the export trade of Bornou, and the greatest part of which is sent to the Negro States who inhabit far to the South, is obtained from a species of wild cat that is common in the woods of Bornou and of Cashna.

This animal is taken alive in a trap prepared for the purpose, is placed in a cage, and is strongly irritated till a copious perspiration is produced. Its sweat, and especially the moisture that appears upon the tail, is then scraped off, is preserved in a bladder, and constitutes the much valued perfume. After a short interval the operation is renewed, and is repeated, from time to time, till at the end of twelve or fourteen days the animal dies of the fatigue and continual torment. The quantity obtained from one cat is generally about half an ounce.

Of Manufactures, none for exportation are furnished by the people of Bornou; but the Shereef remarks that, for their own consumption, they fabricate from the iron ore of their country, though with little skill, such slight tools as their husbandry requires.[32]

In return for their exports, they receive the following goods:

Copper and Brass, which are brought to them from Tripoli, by the way of Fezzan, and which, as already mentioned, are used as the current species of Bornou;

Imperial Dollars, which are also brought to them from Tripoli by the Merchants of Fezzan, and are converted by their own artists into rings and bracelets for their women;

Red Woollen Caps, which are worn under the turban;

Check Linens,

Light coarse Woollen Cloths,

Baize,

Barakans,

Small Turkey Carpets,

Plain Mesurata Carpets.