GHÁNAH — Aúdaghost — Aúlíl.

Previous to the foundation of Morocco, all the trade of Negroland with Western Barbary was directed towards Sijilmésah, a town on the eastern side of Atlas, eight or ten days from Fás or Fez, and in the district which is now called Táfílélt.[5] From Sijilmésah, a two months’ journey southward conducted to the nearest kingdom of the Blacks, which was that called Ghánah.[6] But in propriety of speech Ghánah was the title of the king, whose dominion, anterior to the rise of the Al Morábiṭún or Morabites, extended to Aúdaghost, a town on the southern border of the great desert, and containing a Berber population.[7] Driven from Aúdaghost, the negro king fixed his residence at Aúkár, fifteen days’ journey south-westward from the former place, and not far from the great river of the interior, called by Arab writers the Nile of the Blacks.[8] But the new capital, as well as the kingdom, was still generally known by the name of Ghánah.

A desert of forty days’ journey in extent lay between Aúdaghost and Támedelt,[9] a town of Sús el Aḳṣa, on the verge of the desert, and eleven days from Sijilmésah. The two months’ journey between Ghánah and Sijilmésah, would, if literally interpreted, place the capital of the Blacks forty-nine days distant from Támedelt. But where could a route of forty-nine days southward from the borders of Sús el Aḳṣa meet the Great River, unless in the vicinity of Tomboktú?[10] This city is distant about two months from Táfílélt, and not more than fifty days from Sús el Aḳṣa.[11] It owes all its importance to its advanced position, near the very point where the river turns eastward, after repressing the desert in its northerly course, and making its nearest approach to Western Barbary. The advantages of such a position could never have been overlooked while caravans traversed the desolate plains of the interior. The site of Ghánah then, and Tomboktú, being equidistant from Sús el Aḳṣa, both in a southerly direction from it, and both in the vicinity of the Great River, which, within the distance of fifty days from Sús el Aḳṣa, washes the desert during only a short part of its course, cannot have been far asunder. This brief argument is in reality unanswerable. Within the assigned time, a caravan travelling at the ordinary pace, could reach the Great River nowhere but in the vicinity of Tomboktú. The site of Aúkár then being near Tomboktú, Aúdaghost fifteen days distant from it towards the north-east, must have been situate in the same tract as the modern town or encampment of Mabrúk.[12] Thus the first view of the routes to the chief towns of the ancient Ghánah suggests the approximate positions of those towns. Let their positions be assumed accordingly, so as to give distinctness to our conceptions, while we follow, step by step, the routes to them across the desert; and the examination of these routes in all their particulars will, in turn, illustrate and confirm our assumptions, if they be correct.

The position of Támedelt, the starting point of the caravans to Negroland, must be in the first place determined. That town is stated to have been five days westward (or, we must rather suppose, south of westward) from Darʿah, and six days south-eastward from Iklí, the capital of Sús, which town, situate on a river flowing northward, was two days from Mésah and five from Wád Nún. Now the capital of Darʿah was five days distant from Sijilmésah, which was nine ordinary journeys from Fez.[13] Támedelt was therefore twenty days from Fez, by the road on the eastern side of the mountains, and it was also six days south-eastward from Iklí, which town must accordingly be so placed within five days of Wád Nún, and two days northward from the river of Mésah, as to allow Támedelt a somewhat westerly bearing from Darʿah. These conditions being fulfilled, the position of Támadelt will be nearly in lat. 28° 45′ N., long. 7° 10′ W., and not far from the modern Tatta.[14] The position thus assumed, though not quite free from uncertainty, will yet involve no inaccuracy capable of endangering the argument depending on it.

The starting point being ascertained, there remains no difficulty in tracing the route to Aúdaghost. The first day’s journey from Támedelt conducted to a deep well called Bír el Jemmálín:[15] the second led through a narrow defile. Then for three days the road went over the mountains of Azawwar,[16] strewed with masses of iron-stone. These mountains extend, according to El Bekrí, ten days’ journey from the ocean to the road (from Támedelt probably) to Sijilmésah. They are evidently the same chain of mountains which caravans now pass at the distance of six days from Wád Nún. It is apparent also that the road to Aúdaghost must have crossed them at a distance not exceeding ten days’ journey from the sea; and therefore could have scarcely inclined towards the east. Three days beyond the mountains was the watering place of Tendefas, and three days further a great well called Weínhílún.[17] Then another three days led to a scanty spring named Tázḳa, or the House.[18] Four days further were the brackish wells of Weítúnán, and after another four days the watering place of Aúkázenta.[19] There ended the hard desert, and the region of loose sand-hills commenced, the passage of which presented the greatest difficulty to the traveller, and was fraught with danger.

The northern limit and general direction of the sandy region of the great desert are marked out with tolerable distinctness in the narratives of some modern travellers. It was on the twenty-fifth day of his journey from Wád Nún to Tomboktú that Sidi Hamed entered the region of drifting sand.[20] This must have been somewhere between the twenty-third and twenty-fourth parallels of latitude. In the same line, or twenty-two days from El Harib, between Tatta and Darʿah, Caillié left the sand-hills on his journey from Tomboktú northwards.[21] Laing, on his way from Twát to Tomboktú, entered the sands in lat. 23° 56′ N.; and Scott crossed a similar tract, eleven days’ journey in extent, apparently from the twenty-first to the twenty-third parallel inclusive, and not far from the ocean.[22] The vast expanse of light sand thrown up into wave-like hillocks, which change with every wind, is a remarkable feature of the great desert, depending not more on the mineralogical constitution of the country than on the excessive dryness of the climate. The permanence of its general position, therefore, in spite of local fluctuations, is as certain as its extension from west to east, between the zones fertilized by rains. Now the site of Támedelt was four or five days westward from El Harib; and since on the road to Tomboktú from the former of these places the loose sand is entered on the twenty-fifth day, from the latter on the twenty-third; while from Támedelt to Aúdaghost the sands were entered also on the twenty-third day, there is reason to infer, that so far, the direction of the road from Sús el Aḳṣa to Aúdaghost differed little, if at all, from the modern road to Tomboktú. The ancient and modern roads to Negroland ran nearly parallel between the hills south of Sús el Aḳṣa and the zone of drifting sands.

The most difficult part of the journey, according to El Bekrí, lay over the ridges of loose sand, on entering which there was no water to be found till, after four days’ toil, the traveller reached the wells of Wanzamín, where all the roads to Negroland met together.[23] The roads thus said to meet that from Sijilmésah must have been those from Wergelán, Twát, and Télemsén or Tremecen. Now the roads from these places to Tomboktú all unite at Telig, about thirty days from El Harib, and our hypothesis respecting the position of Aúdaghost derives no slight confirmation from the circumstance that it gives to the meeting of the roads to that place, twenty-seven days from Támedelt, a position which harmonizes perfectly with their present junction on the road to Tomboktú. Near the meeting of the roads was a mountain, the recesses of which concealed bands of various tribes of the Zenágah, as the Lamṭah, Gezúlah, Geráwah, &c., all from the south-western extremity of Atlas, who lay in wait to attack caravans.

From the wells of Wanzamín the road continued through sand-hills in the province of Wárán for five days to a large well belonging to the Benú Wáreth, thence in two days to Agharef, and in three more to Akríri, that is to say, the reservoir of water.[24] Near this place was a mountain named Azgúnán, where caravans were in danger of being attacked by the Blacks.[25] One day further, over hot sands, lay the brackish wells of Wárán, then, for three days, fresh water was found in wells belonging to the Zenágah, and another day led over the high mountain, at the foot of which stood Aúdaghost. This town was situate in a hilly country, within the limits of the rains, and does not appear to have had any water but that of wells. It can hardly be supposed that the limit of the rains in the interior of the African continent, at a distance from the sea coast, ascends beyond the twentieth parallel of latitude.[26] Now if a distance of forty days’ journey be measured from Támedelt, so as to intersect the twentieth parallel towards the interior, it will be found that fifteen days’ journey south-westward (according to the distance and bearing of Aúkar from Aúdaghost) measured from that intersection, will reach to the neighbourhood of Tomboktú.

The foregoing account is evidently that of a route frequented by caravans, and therefore the distances mentioned in it may be received with confidence. Its general direction, as Abulfedá tells us, was to the south. El Bekrí describes also the journey from Darʿah to Ghánah, in a brief and uncircumstantial manner; but his description, though wanting in the minuteness and precision derivable from the experience of caravans, is yet not wholly uninstructive. From Wádi Darʿah to Wádi Tárḳa, on the margin of the desert, was a journey of five days. Then the traveller entered the wilderness in which water occurred only every two or three days. Of the wells first met with, one was called Tezámt. Eastward of it were Bír el Ḥammálín, or the porters’ well, and another named Nálellí or Málekí.[27] “From these wells,” says our author, “to the country of Islám, is a distance of four days; and at an equal distance are the Adarérén Wazzél, or mountains of iron.[28] There a desert begins in which there is no water for eight days; it is, indeed, that which is emphatically styled The Desert. The water in it belongs to the Benú Yentesír, a tribe of Zenágah. The village of Moddúken, which is next arrived at, belongs to the same race. Thence to Ghánah is a journey of four days.”[29]

Wádi Darʿah was three days from Támedelt, probably east by north. Wádi Tárḳa may be conjectured to have been on the southern side of the mountains of Azawwar mentioned in the account of the route to Aúdaghost. But the particular here chiefly deserving of attention, is The Desert, in which no water was met with for eight days. The name of this desert, omitted by El Bekrí, is supplied by subsequent writers. We are informed that the merchants going to Ghánah passed through the desert of Tíser, a dry and desolate wilderness of sand, with only a few pools of bad water, the chief of which was that called the well of Tíser.[30] The extent of this desert is variously stated to be eight, ten, twelve, and even fourteen days’ journey.[31] At its eastern extremity stood Aúdaghost, and hence it is not surprising that the journey to that city should present diminished difficulty; though the loose, hot sands, and intervals of four or five days without water, in the latter half of the route thither, between the 23rd and 32nd days, clearly mark the continuation of the inhospitable tract.[32] On the west, the desert of Tíser adjoined the division of the Ṣaḥrá called Kamnúdíyah, which bordered on the ocean in the vicinity of Cape Bojador, as shall be shown hereafter. Unless we assign, therefore, to the territorial divisions of the Ṣaḥrá a disproportionate extension from west to east, the contiguity of the maritime district of Kamnúdíyah to the desert of Tíser, strengthens the presumption that the latter could hardly have reached beyond the twelfth meridian from the shores of the Atlantic; or, in other words, that it did not extend far east of the meridian of Tomboktú, and, consequently, that the road to this city from the north passes over the tract of desert anciently named Tíser.

But it will naturally be asked, is there such a tract of peculiarly arid desert on the road to Tomboktú? Certainly there is; a desert of like extent, presenting the same physical character, and occupying a similar position in the route. Ibn Baṭúṭah, on his way from Sijilmésah to Tomboktú, arrived at Tegháza, near the edge of the desert, in twenty-five days. In ten days more, he came to the wells, or rather muddy pools of Táserahlá, where the caravan halted to prepare for the march over the formidable waste of sand, which it required ten days to traverse in order to reach Aïwalátin, a town on the southern border of the Ṣaḥrá.[33] Had that traveller crossed obliquely from Táserahlá to Tomboktú, he might perhaps have found the waterless desert to exceed a ten days’ journey in extent. But towards the east its width seems to diminish; whether it be that the northward course of the Great River, or the chain of mountains determining that circuit of the stream, and stretching across into the desert, modifies the atmosphere so as to give a greater range to the periodic rains in that meridian, we have no means of deciding. But the whole of the western Ṣaḥrá and the peculiar tract under consideration, are described by Leo Africanus in the following manner:—

“To begin with the desert of Zenaga; this is a dry and barren tract beginning from the ocean on the west, and extending eastward to the salt pits of Tegaza. On the north it is bounded by Numidia; that is to say, by Sus, Acca, and Darah; and it extends towards the south as far as the land of the Blacks; that is to say, to the kingdom of Gualata and Tombutto. There is no water found in it, except at intervals of a hundred miles, and this, after all, is salt and bitter, in wells of great depth, particularly on the road from Segelmesse to Tombutto. There are many wild animals and serpents in it, as shall be related in the proper place. In this waste is found a desert very difficult and dismal, called Azaoad, where neither water nor dwelling-place is met with for two hundred miles, from the well of Azaoad to the well of Araoan, which is a hundred and fifty miles from Tombutto, and in which great numbers of men and animals perish of heat and thirst.”[34]

The same writer elsewhere informs us, that the desert of Azawad was so called from its barrenness and dryness. It is not unreasonable to suppose that when the local designation of Tíser fell into disuse, the epithet expressing the general aspect of the region took its place. The name Azawad still remains to the tract of desert northward of Tomboktú.[35] And it cannot escape attention that the deserts of Tíser and Azawad resemble each other not only in extent and physical character, but that they are also equidistant from Sijilmésah; that they are both on the road southward from it, and both reaching to the southern limit of the Ṣaḥrá. There is still another point of resemblance between them, which, of itself, is almost sufficient to prove their common identity. El Bekrí remarks, that in travelling from Sijilmésah to Ghánah, a desert of two months’ journey was traversed, in which there were no fixed habitations, and the only people met with were wanderers, such as the Benú Masúfah, a branch of the Zenágah. The Benú Masúfah then, were in the middle of the eleventh century the tenants of the inhospitable plains over which lay the road to Ghánah; and it is remarkable that, three centuries later, the same miserable tribe hovered over the road to Tomboktú. Ibn Baṭúṭah found them to be the regular, and, as it were, hereditary guides across that desert, with the intricacies of which, tradition as well as personal experience had made them perfectly acquainted. In a region where the natural landmarks are so broad and unchangeable, and where man is comparatively so weak; where there is so little to tempt ambition or to nourish caprice, and where the whole tribe laying claim to a long extent of territory, could never exceed a handful of individuals,—the fact that the roads to Ghánah and Tomboktú, traced over peculiarly arid and forbidding tracts, both passed through the encampments of the same tribe, is a strong proof of the proximity of those roads: for the occupiers of the most inhospitable region in which life can with difficulty be supported, are not likely to be disturbed in their possessions.

It has been seen that Leo Africanus represents the country of the Zenágah, or Ṣinhájah, to have extended from the sea shore as far eastward as Tegháza and Tomboktú. He obviously meant to intimate that the road to Tomboktú formed the eastern boundary of that nation or division of the Berbers. But his expressions are not such as require to be strictly interpreted; on the contrary, they have a claim to that latitude of explanation which reconciles them with the state of things at present, when the Zenágah occupy the country round Tomboktú and to a short distance eastward of it. His expressions, however, militate most strongly against any hypothesis which would place Aúdaghost remote from Tomboktú, since the road to the former of those cities lay wholly within the limits of the Zenágah. If these people held as large a share of the Ṣaḥrá in the beginning of the sixteenth century as in the middle of the eleventh,—and, since they figured as conquerors in the only revolution generally affecting them in the meantime, this can hardly be disputed,—it must follow that the road to Aúdaghost, being within their limits, could not have passed far eastward of Tomboktú.

The Zenágah extended southward, according to Leo, “to the country of the Blacks, where are the kingdoms of Gualata and Tombutto.” To the words, “the country of the Blacks,” Marmol, while borrowing largely from the Arab writer, adds the gloss, “which is called Geneúa.”[36] And herein he accords with all other authorities respecting the position of Genéwah, which region, however vaguely defined, is yet always placed on the frontiers of Negroland, westward from Tomboktú. In early ages however, before the Berbers had derived strength from Arab instruction, the Blacks probably possessed a larger share of the desert, or at least the name Genéwah reached further northward. An Arab writer informs us, that Genéwah extended from the ocean in the west, to the country of Wergelán in the east, and from Amímah in the south to Arkí and Núl el Aḳṣa in the north.[37] The longitudinal dimensions of this country are here expressed in terms of obvious inaccuracy. Wergelán, though far to the north-east of the country called Genéwah, is yet made conterminous with it, owing to the great share which that Berber state took in the commerce of Negroland, at that time concentred in Ghánah. But the line on which the breadth of Genéwah is measured, drawn from north to south, from Arkí to Amímah, may be presumed to mark its central or principal section. Now Arkí was on the hills of the Lumtúnah, seven days distant from Wád Nún, and Amímah stood at a short distance westward or south-westward from the future site of Tomboktú.[38] The mean position of Genéwah being thus indicated, the author adds, “and of its cities, is Ghánah.”[39] Here, then, is another proof that Ghánah was contiguous to the western desert and to western Negroland, and that the tract of country in which it stood and flourished, was the same in which Tomboktú subsequently rose into importance.

The country assigned to Genéwah, in the above-cited passage, really belonged for the most part to the Zenágah, who, anterior to their conversion to Mohammedanism, lived much intermingled with the Blacks. The latter may have had the upper hand; or, though in a servile state, they may have been the more numerous class of the inhabitants; or finally, the slave trade being carried on universally in the desert, the Arabs of Barbary may have easily confounded the country exporting slaves with that which produced them; and thus applied the name Genéwah to the deserts of which Berber tribes were, if not the sole occupants, at least the masters. But the movements of the Morabites revealed more completely the partition and social condition of the Ṣaḥrá. The northern portion of it, towards the ocean, was possessed by the Lumtúnah, whose dwellings covered a range of hills (probably those called by El Bekrí Azawwar) said to be six days’ journey in length, and to be shaded by 20,000 palm trees.[40] On these hills, and about seven days from Wád Nún, stood the fort or town of Arkí, the chief place of the Lumtúnah, whose flocks wandered from the shores of the ocean as far eastward as the road to Ghánah.

South of the Lumtúnah, but separated from them by an uninhabited tract ten days’ journey in width, were the Benú Goddálah, the most powerful of the Berber tribes. In the uninhabited tract ten days wide, it is easy to recognize the sandy region south of Cape Bojador, and forming the continuation of the desert of Tíser or Azawad. The country of the Benú Goddálah is said to have extended a two months’ journey in length and breadth, a description which is applied also to the whole western Ṣaḥrá, and to the dominions of Ghánah; and considering that in each case the Atlantic Ocean is taken as a boundary, it is evident enough that no exact limits were set to territorial possessions in the desert, and that claims of sovereignty often extended from opposite quarters over the same ground.[41]

In the country of the Benú Goddálah was a mine or natural deposit of salt near a town or place of fixed habitation on the sea shore, called Aúlíl. At this place was a point of land, or peninsula, insulated by the tide, but accessible on foot at low water. Close to it was the port. Ambergris was collected on it at the sea side, and turtle, which constituted the chief food of the inhabitants, were there so large, that fishermen, as our author assevers, went to sea in their shells. From Aúlíl salt was carried inland to Ghánah and other cities of the Blacks. The road from the same place to Wád Nún was a two months’ journey in length, going along the sea shore, where fresh water was found by digging in the sand when the tide was out.[42]

There is little room for doubt or hesitation in determining the position of Aúlíl. One point only on the whole coast of the Ṣaḥrá can be selected for it with any show of reason: and that point is in the bay of Arguin, where the natural deposits of salt, the little island or peninsula, and the abundance of large tortoises, are all found together; and exactly at a distance of two months’ journey from Wád Nún, along the shore.[43] At Arguin also existed, in the fifteenth century, a trade derived from the natural productions of the place, exactly similar to that ascribed to Aúlíl in the eleventh century. Since the shores of the Great Desert offer one locality, and but one, answering to the description given by El Bekrí of Aúlíl, we must necessarily conclude that this town was situate in that locality,—namely, near Cape St. Anne in the bay of Arguin.[44]

Thus it appears that the Benú Goddálah were the possessors of the maritime region of the Ṣaḥrá, from Cape Blanco southwards. They also extended far inland (a two months’ journey, as has been already stated), and were separated by a distance of only six days from the Blacks on the Great River, and in the vicinity of Ghánah. They were the possessors, therefore, of the vast country which is now divided among the Ludayas, Brebísh, Trarzas, Erghebat, and others. Though esteemed the most powerful of the Berber tribes, they were yet compelled to yield the pre-eminence to the Lumtúnah, in the wars which immediately preceded the coalition of both under the name of Morabites. It may be fairly assumed, therefore, that these great tribes which divided between them the entire breadth of the Ṣaḥrá where it was least inhospitable, constituted the main body of the Berber nation to which they belonged; and therefore that the road to Aúdaghost, which left them on the west, lay near to the limit of the country occupied by the Zenágah, and consequently passed through the same tract as the road subsequently traced to Tomboktú.

Having thus examined the routes from Sijilmésah to Ghánah, and briefly surveyed the state of the western deserts, with a view to illustrate the geographical position of the latter country, we may now proceed to consider also its internal condition and character; to inquire who were its neighbours in Negroland; how these were placed in relation to each other; and how far the accounts given of them, taken collectively and in the plainest acceptation, accord with the knowledge which we at present possess of the interior of Africa.

Aúdaghost, once the residence, as we are told, of the king styled Ghánah, was situate in a hilly country, on the margin of the desert, but within the limit of the summer rains. Its water was chiefly drawn from wells; its irrigated gardens had small extent, yet to eyes accustomed only to the monotony of the sandy waste, the groups of palm trees around it formed a luxuriant scene. Its population, gathered from various tribes in the Belédu-l-Jeríd, belonged chiefly to the Berber nation of the Zenátah.[45] Nor is it difficult to explain why an isolated Zenátah population should fix and maintain itself in immediate contact with the roving and predatory Zenágah; for during the period referred to in these accounts, Sijilmésah, with which Aúdaghost was connected by ties of commerce, belonged to the Zenátah. The latter town was, in reality, but a trading colony on the frontiers of Negroland; and its mercantile inhabitants, content with the town and trade, seem to have never affected political independence.

In the year of the Hijra 350 (A.D. 961), the king of Aúdaghost was Tín Yerátán, son of Wasenbú, of the Zenágah nation. His empire is said to have had an extent of two months’ journey in length and breadth, and more than twenty negro kings paid tribute to him. But, at a later period, Aúdaghost became tributary to Ghánah. This submission of a Berber people to a nation of Blacks and unbelievers, served as a pretext to the Morabites, who, in 446, (A.D. 1054, the same year in which they made themselves masters of Sijilmésah,) destroyed Aúdaghost, carrying off the women and children into slavery.[46] Arab writers, of a later date than the fifth century of the Hijra, still speak of Aúdaghost and its Zenágah rulers. It is not unlikely that, regardless of events, they only re-echo the words of ancient historians; otherwise, we must suppose that place to have revived for a short time under the descendants of its Morabite conquerors. But the same revolution which yielded up the old and circuitous channel of commerce to the owners of the Western Desert, must have tended to let it fall into disuse. Under the new state of things, the Lumtúnah and Masúfah would naturally take the nearest road to Ghánah, through their own country and over the desert of Tíser; and thus Aúdaghost would be forgotten.[47]

The trade centering in Aúdaghost embraced not only the gold and slaves of Negroland, but also the productions of the Western Desert, and of the shores of the Atlantic Ocean. The skins of the antelope called Dant, or Lant, were wrought into bucklers by its artisans; who also manufactured ambergris, their supplies of which, we are told, they owed to their vicinity to the sea shore.[48] From this it may be concluded, not that Aúdaghost was near the sea, but that, in those early times, the possessors of the Western Ṣaḥrá were generally in too wild a state to allow trade to be carried on through their country; and that consequently the maritime productions of Aúlíl passed eastwards through the hands of the Benú Goddálah (who, occupying a favoured tract, had acquired more settled habits) to Aúdaghost, and thus reached Sijilmésah, after making the circuit of the domains of the rude Zenágah. El Bekrí says also, that on the hills round Aúdaghost grew trees yielding the gum which was used in Spain to dress silks.[49] Though this statement is not improbable, yet it is more likely that the Benú Goddálah, while conveying their salt and amber to the interior, likewise carried thither the produce of their rich gum forests. Wealth in Aúdaghost consisted chiefly in slaves, of which single individuals sometimes possessed a thousand each. That mercantile spirit had there fixed its abode in the midst of natural sterility, is forcibly expressed in the acknowledgment that slaves were the only luxury of the place. Aúdaghost exhibited the extreme licentiousness of manners characteristic, as will appear from other examples occurring in these pages, of all the towns in the southern border of the great desert, where the traveller, just escaped from the perils of the wilderness, indulges in the pleasures offered by a degraded population; and where the recklessness usual in a seaport is increased by the opportunities of the slave-mart.

After the destruction of Aúdaghost by the Morabites, Aúkár, fifteen days distant from it towards the south-west, became the capital of Ghánah; or rather that capital was composed of two towns, viz.—Aúkár, inhabited by Mohammedans, and containing no less than twelve mosques; and Ghábah, where the king resided, in the midst of a black population.[50] Dark woods environed the latter town, and spread a gloom well suited to the pagan rites for the performance of which they were reserved, and which often involved the sacrifice of human victims. An interval of six miles, covered with habitations, separated the two towns. The inhabitants drew their water from wells. The climate was deadly to all but the natives.

El Bekrí’s description of Ghánah evidently brings us within the limits of Negroland. It exhibits to us, on the one hand, the Blacks summoned before their king by beat of drum, sprinkling dust on their heads, and prostrating themselves in his presence; or performing the rites of their cruel superstitions in the darkness of their woods: and, on the other, the Arabs or Berbers dwelling apart in a more elevated and open situation, and yet suffering from the noxious humidity of the air. But, it is to be remarked, that he makes no mention of running waters, the importance of which no Arab author ever overlooks; and indeed, it must be inferred from that author’s words, that there was no river—certainly no great river—in the immediate vicinity of the capital of Ghánah.

The Benú Goddálah, who possessed the southern portion of the Ṣaḥrá from the shores of the ocean eastwards, carried their salt and other merchandise to the Ṣínghánah, the nearest black nation, from whom they were separated by a distance of only six days’ journey, and whose chief city stood on both banks of the Great River, called the Nile of the Blacks. When it is considered that the Lumtúnah reached within ten days of Ghánah; that they were separated from the Goddálah by a broad tract of uninhabitable sand; and that all accounts agree in representing Ghánah as the most western of the kingdoms of the Blacks,—or, in other words, that the desert alone intervened between it and the ocean; it will be apparent that the Ṣínghánah, who were nearest to the Goddálah, lay towards the south or south-west from Ghánah.[51] South-westward from the Ṣínghánah, at no great distance, was Tekrúr, and a little further on stood Silla, both likewise on the Great River or Nile of the Blacks. The last-named place was twenty days’ journey from Ghánah; and, from what has been already said, it will be manifest that its bearing from that capital was between south and south-west.[52]

Going eastward from Ghánah, through Aúghám, a fertile and well-cultivated district, the traveller arrived in five days at Rás el má, or the Water-head, “where the Nile issued from the land of the Blacks.” On the northern bank of the river dwelt the Merásah, a Zenágah tribe. Pagan blacks inhabited the opposite side. Six days further down the river stood Tírḳa, a market frequented by the people of Ghánah as well as of Tádmekkah. From Tírḳa the Nile turned southwards, and in three days entered the territory of the Seghmárah, a tribe depending on Tádmekkah. “On the side of the river opposite to them,” observes our author, “is Kaúkaú, which belongs to the Blacks.”[53]

Tádmekkah was a town situate, like Aúdaghost, on the southern frontier of the Great Desert. According to El Bekrí, it was fifty days eastward from Ghánah, fifty from Wérgelán, and forty from Ghodémis.[54] Another author, whose measures of distance are not so easily appreciated, places Tádmekkah forty days westwards from Tajúah (in the northern part of Darfur), through the country of the Molaththemún—that is, the people who muffle up or conceal their faces (the Tawárik), and thirty days eastwards from Ghánah, beyond which is the ocean.[55] These intimations combined will place Tádmekkah in the hilly country north of Aghades. It owed its name, signifying the Likeness of Mekkah, to its situation between two hills, in the manner of the Holy City.[56] In the miscellaneous composition of its mercantile population, and in dissolute manners, it was the counterpart of Aúdaghost. Our author adds, that it was nine days from Kaúkaú; but as he appears to be involved in the general mystification enveloping that name, it will be more convenient for the present to waive the consideration of so embarrassing a particular, and to avoid touching on the difficulties attending Kaúkaú till we can make them the immediate subject of discussion.

The route from Ghánah to Tádmekkah leads us again expressly eastward, in the following manner: three days to Safnaḳú, a town on the Nile, and the limit of Ghánah in that direction. Thence along the river to Búgrát, a town of the Merásah. From Búgrát to Tírḳa, and thence over the desert to Tádmekkah.[57]

From all this it appears that the capital of Ghánah was three days distant from the river (at Safnaḳú); and five days from Rás el má, or the Head of the Water, where the river issued from the land of the Blacks—that is to say, where it emerged, in its course northwards, from the marshes and dark forests, and laved the open plains of the desert. It thence flowed eastwards, for six days, to Tírḳa, where it turned southwards towards Kaúkaú.

Thus we find the river called by El Bekrí the Nile of the Blacks, described by him throughout its course for above thirty days with a distinctness and completeness of detail quite sufficient to enable us to recognize it with certainty at the present day. If we assume, as we may reasonably do, that Safnaḳú and Ghánah were equidistant from Silla, then from this town to the first-named place was a distance of twenty days. Rás el má stood at least two days further down the stream towards the east or north-east; Tírḳa was therefore twenty-eight days, and the commencement of the country of the Seghmárah thirty-one from Silla.

This winding of a great river, in such a compass, from Negroland northwards to the desert and down again, is a remarkable feature, which cannot be overlooked or mistaken; and it is one which we find in the river of Tomboktú at the present day, exactly as it was described in the river of Ghánah eight centuries ago. And that which renders it more easy to identify the Nile of Ghánah with the Nile of Tomboktú, is the circumstance, that the towns situate at the extremities of the great circuit of the stream comprised within the descriptions of Arab writers, and near the apex of which the emporium of Negroland has always stood, still bear the same names as in ancient times. From the modern Silla, which is evidently identical with the ancient town of that name, a journey of twenty-two days will conduct to the place where the Great River gets clear of the greenland or inundated country and touches the desert, which point is near Tomboktú; thence it flows eastward for six days, and then turns southward or south-eastward to Kaúkaú.[58] Ibn Baṭúṭah, who descended the river from Tomboktú to Kaúkaú, omits indeed to describe the course of his voyage; but Leo Africanus, who likewise visited those countries, says that Gago, as he writes the name, is four hundred (Italian) miles south by east from Tomboktú.[59] Nor can we doubt that the Gago of Leo is identical with the Kaúkaú of Ibn Baṭúṭah, for Ibn Khaldún expressly informs us that the Kaúkaú here spoken of was also called Kághó.[60]

The exact parallelism of the rivers of Ghánah and Tomboktú, throughout such a length of course, the compared portions being in each case terminated by a Silla on the west, and a Kaúkaú on the east, is of itself quite sufficient to establish their identity with one another. There is, in fact, but one great river on the south side of the Ṣaḥrá to which such descriptions will at all apply. But their resemblance may be traced much further, through a long series of particulars. The Nile of Ghánah was navigated in large boats or barques, just as the river between Jenni and Tomboktú is navigated at the present day.[61] The Berbers inhabiting the shores of the Ṣaḥrá carried their salt and other merchandise in the eleventh century to the Sínghánah, who dwelt on the Great River between Silla and Ghánah: and now they resort in like manner to the banks of the Great River between Silla and Tomboktú.[62] A part of the river between Silla and Ghánah was remarkable as the haunt of hippopotami or river-horses, which animals were killed by the natives, with javelins attached to cords, for the sake of their skins;[63] and Ibn Baṭúṭah, while travelling north-eastward to Tomboktú, probably not far from Jenni, had his attention called to the multitude of those animals frequenting the river in the vicinity, and gives a similar account of the means used to destroy them.

Tekrúr, the town or community of Negroland first converted to the Mohammedan faith, was in the neighbourhood of Silla, as already stated, and probably eighteen or twenty days south-west, or south-south-west from Ghánah. It would be, therefore, a decisive proof that this capital stood not far from the position of Tomboktú, if it could be shown that the original site of Tekrúr was near the modern Silla. But to touch this argument here, would be to enter prematurely on the discussion of a question of some magnitude. The application of the name Tekrúr may be more conveniently examined further on, when the historical connexion between Ghánah and Western Negroland shall have been disclosed. For the present it will be sufficient to observe, that the early history of Tekrúr seems to be in a great measure appropriated by the Mandingoes;[64] that the date usually assigned to the conversion of Ghánah, exactly coincides with the epoch of conversion adopted by the Mohammedan nations of western Guinea; and that the glory of the first acceptance of the faith is conceded by undisputed tradition to the country on the Joliba immediately below Silla.[65]

The Nile of Ghánah turned eastward at Rás el má, the most northern part of the river, and not more than five days from Ghánah. Towards that point, therefore, may be said to have been directed the great caravan route from Sijilmésah to Negroland; and now the frequented route from the same quarter conducts to the most northern point of the Great River flowing by Tomboktú, and which, in like manner there turns eastward. It might be added that since the Kaúkaú and Gago, visited from Tomboktú by Ibn Baṭúṭah and Leo, are shown to have been the same place, the distance of 400 Italian miles between that place and Tomboktú, according to the latter writer, agrees perfectly with the distance of fifteen journeys between Ghánah and Kúghah, according to El Bekrí, assuming that Kúghah is here written for Kaúkaú or Kághó; but until the peculiarly equivocal character of these names be discussed, no reliance can be placed on any argument involving either of them separately. But they may be dealt with safely when taken together, and where it is not necessary to discriminate between them. Now both El Bekrí and El Edrísí mention Kaúkaú and Kúghah; and if it be conceded that either of these places was identical with the Kaúkaú or Kághó, which, from the 14th to the 18th century, ranked as the most important city in Negroland (a supposition which seems highly probable), then it follows that Ghánah was at least fifteen days higher up the stream, or, according to the construction of the Arab geographers, westward from the same place, which was 400 miles lower down than Tomboktú; and, consequently, was either near the site of the latter city, or, if remote from it, must have been still further westward.

Again, the rivers of Ghánah and Tomboktú closely resemble each other in this respect, that on turning eastward, after attaining their most northern point, they both approach the limits of the Zenágah, whose eastern boundary sloped south-eastward from the road to Ghánah, till, near the river, it reached a distance of ten or twelve days from that capital; and now its relation to Tomboktú may be described in nearly the same terms.[66]

The Nile of the Blacks has been thus traced from Silla, a distance of twenty days north-eastward towards Ghánah; then to a distance of eleven days eastward from the latter place, and then three days southward, where our author’s continuous account of its course unfortunately terminates. But we are again led to it by a route through Negroland, so obscure and uncertain indeed as to be in itself of little value; but the discussion of which, as a means of comparing authors, may be indirectly turned to advantage. We are informed by El Bekrí that much of the gold collected in Ghánah was brought from Ghaïárú, eighteen days distant from the former capital, and near the Great River. It is manifest that Ghaïárú did not lie south-westward from Ghánah, for, in that direction, a journey of eighteen days near the river brings us into the vicinity of Tekrúr and Silla, of which our author has already spoken. It must therefore have been situate down the river, below Kaúkaú, or south-eastward from Ghánah; and the described route, not following the stream, must also have gone directly through the interior, till it met the river after its circuit eastward. It seems necessary to suppose that the route does not begin from the capital of Ghánah, but from its frontiers and the opposite side of the river; and also that the day’s journey in Negroland was a conventional measure, founded perhaps on the speed of couriers or messengers on horseback, and exceeding that of the loaded caravan in the desert. The construction here given to this route, as described by El Bekrí, agrees in the main with that adopted by subsequent Arab writers, though their misconceptions have in some instances wholly perverted his meaning.[67] The route was as follows:

From Ghánah four days to Sámaḳanda, the inhabitants of which place were the most expert archers among the Blacks. Thence two days to Ṭáḳah; one day more to the branch of the Nile called Zúghú, fordable by camels, but which men were obliged to cross in boats.[68] Thence to Gharnatil or Ghúntil, an extensive and powerful country wherein Mohammedans experienced good treatment, but had no establishment.[69] Elephants and giraffes were there numerous. From Ghúntil the route went directly to Ghaïárú, a town twelve miles from the Nile. In the latter place, as well as in Bersana, a town on the Nile westward of Ghaïárú, were many Mohammedans, chiefly engaged, it would appear, in the slave trade.[70] “Beyond Bersana, and at the other side of the river,” says El Bekrí, “is a great country, eight days in extent, the king of which is called Daúr, and beyond it is Melil or Malelo, the king of which is a true believer, while his people are still Pagans.” We may suppose the countries here mentioned to be the Daúri and Mallawa of modern geography, the former northward of Kanó, extending towards the desert, the latter a large region, comprising apparently in the acceptation of the indigenous population, the north-western portion of the country called Houssa.[71] But it must be acknowledged that little confidence is due to conjectures guided only by such obscure and equivocal indications.

Among the countries depending on Ghánah, according to El Bekrí, was Sámah, four days distant from Ghánah. Its inhabitants, who were called the Bokmo, used poisoned arrows, and were reckoned the best archers among the blacks. In this circumstance, as well as in their distance from Ghánah, they resemble the people of Sámaḳanda; so that we are led at once to suspect that the latter place was the metropolis of Samah.[72] But it is a curious coincidence that a people named Bokmo should be at a short distance from Ghánah, towards the south, and that a district called Bagamo should have a similar position with respect to Tomboktú. For Marmol, copying the words of De Barros with a few slight additions, thus expresses himself respecting the various names of the rivers of Tomboktú, in conformity with the erroneous opinion prevalent in his time, that it flowed into the sea by the Senegal. “The Portuguese (he says) call it Zenega; the Zenagas, Zenedec; the Gelofes, Dengueh: the Tucorones, further in, call it Mayo; the Saragoles, higher up, name it Colle; and when it goes through a district called Bagamo, more to the east, they call it Zimbala; in the kingdom of Tombut it is called Yça.”[73] The name Zimbala or Jimbala has always hovered in the neighbourhood of Tomboktú and vicinity of the river. Its exact position has been matter of controversy. Yet there seems little reason for dissenting from the statement of Caillié, who says that a large tract of country south of Tomboktú bears that name.[74] The tract in question therefore must be on the eastern bank of the river between lake Debú and Tomboktú, and there also we must look for Bagamo.[75]

The King styled Ghánah, while residing in Aúdaghost, aided, we are told, the King of Másín in a war of the latter with the King of Aúghám. But it appears that the last-named place was close to Aúkár, subsequently the capital of Ghánah, and was passed through in going from that city to Rás el má. One of the belligerent parties being thus found near Ghánah and the river, it is natural that we should look for the other in the same neighbourhood; and the conjecture seems as unobjectionable as it is obvious, that the Másín of El Bekrí is the Másín or Maséna of the present time, situate on the western side of the Great River, not far north from Silla.[76] The same writer tells us that to the west of Ghánah was the hostile country of Anbárah, nine days from Kúghah, which was fifteen from Ghánah. This statement presents insuperable difficulties; inasmuch as it contradicts the general testimony which places Ghánah at the extreme west of the Black nations on the frontiers of Negroland, and because by referring to Kúghah it introduces the confusion accompanying that name. If, however, we boldly solve the problem by supposing Kúghah to be written for Kaúkaú or Kághó, and by placing Anbárah accordingly south by east from Ghánah, we shall then recognize it in the warlike state of Oonbori, situate in the Hajri or mountainous country south of Tomboktú.[77]

But an anonymous Arab writer expresses himself more intelligibly respecting the political relations of Ghánah; he says that twenty parasangs or leagues east of that city was Ráyún, or perhaps rather Ráyawen, the nearest city (on the southern border) of the desert, to Sijilmésah and Wergelán. Between Ráyawen and Ghánah were the encampments of the Morabites, with whom the people of the latter place waged war, as well as with the inhabitants of Amímah, a town, as has been already observed, not far from Tomboktú towards the west or south-west.[78]

Of the laws and usages of Ghánah, such as were capable of enduring after subjection to a foreign power and conversion to the Mohammedan faith, but scanty notices have been transmitted to us. It deserves to be remarked, nevertheless, that the law of inheritance in Ghánah gave the preference to the sister’s son, and that the same law remained in force in the fourteenth century in Waláta, as well as in the Mandingo kingdom of Málí, where, however, its existence need not create surprise.[79] But in Waláta, on the border of the desert, with a population chiefly of Berber origin, the existence of a law so singular, so characteristic of Guinea, and so exactly coinciding with the law of Ghánah, strongly argues the influence of Negro rule, and favours the presumption arising out of what precedes, that Waláta was comprised within the limits of Ghánah.

One of the customs of Ghánah, transiently mentioned by El Bekrí, calls for some remark. In the presence of the king, the people prostrated themselves, and sprinkled their naked bodies with dust. This agrees exactly with what Ibn Baṭúṭah witnessed and justly reprobated at the court of Málí.[80] Such slavish manners could never have originated on the border of the desert, nor where local circumstances give the least encouragement to the love of independence. They are the manners of Western Guinea, and cannot be supposed to have ever existed in Houssa, a hilly country, divided into petty states, each cherishing a rude spirit of liberty. Succession to power in Houssa, is said to be elective among the sons; the hereditary principle being thus blended with the exercise of a popular right.[81] In Bornú it has been always customary to consult the dignity of the sovereign by concealing him from the vulgar gaze, and not by debasing the subject. Those admitted to the presence of the king sit with their backs to the curtain which screens the royal person.[82]

In El Bekrí’s time the dominion of Ghánah extended toward the east but three days’ journey from the capital. Toward the south it could not have reached very far. The independent kingdom of Tekrúr was, at the utmost, eighteen or twenty days distant in that direction. Still nearer was Ṣínghánah, apparently an independent state, which carried on trade with the Benú Goddálah. This trade was guided in its channel, as must always be the case in the early stages of society, by natural circumstances. A branch of the desert penetrates south-eastward to the very banks of the Great River, in a tract of which we know not the exact width, but which embraces the western shores of Lake Debú.[83] Such a road, laid open by nature, could not fail to exert a great influence on the history of Negroland. And indeed, the fact that Tekrúr, situate near that part of the river, was the first converted of the Negro states; that the trade of the Berbers occupying the sea shore at Aúlíl, and subsequently their sway also, extended to the same quarter, might alone create a suspicion, that the tribes of the desert found in that tract of country a nature congenial to their habits. This suspicion is converted into certainty by the narrative of Alexander Scott, who crossed the tract in question.[84] The Berbers were actual possessors of territory south of Ghánah, where the desert approached the Great River between that country and Tekrúr. North of Ghánah, the dry desert of Tíser or Azawad was but eight or ten days distant. In that direction, however, as well as towards the west, the wilderness opposed no precise limits to the claims of empire, but allowed pretensions of sovereignty to expatiate freely over territories of two months’ journey in extent.

Thus we have seen that Ghánah was the frontier kingdom of the Blacks contiguous to the advanced portion of the Great River at its north-west angle; and extending in front of that portion of the desert, over which lay the commerce with Sijilmésah,—a commerce guided by a principle, which if not strictly unchangeable, at least fluctuates only within narrow limits,—namely, that of choosing the shortest and safest route across the desert. It comprised the country between Waláta and the Great River, near the future site of Tomboktú, and enjoyed the identical advantages of position which subsequently made the latter city so prosperous.

But what were the revolutions, it may be asked, which caused Ghánah to disappear? This question shall be fully answered hereafter; our inquiry at present regards the place where Ghánah existed, and not the events which led to its extinction. Yet it will not be alien from our purpose to observe, that although the name, or rather title, of Ghánah became politically extinct, and was erased from the list of sovereignties, yet it still adhered obscurely, in the sixteenth century, to at least one spot of the territory originally designated by it. For Marmol informs us, that in his time Walata was also called Ganata; and that he did not in this instance hazard an erudite conjecture, but spoke the plain language of habit and experience, is evident as well from the unostentatiousness of the remark, as from the frequency with which he indifferently employs these two names one for the other.[85]

Let the reader now recal the account of Negroland, and of Ghánah in particular, given in the preceding pages; let him fix his attention on those features of the description pointed out for the purpose of showing that Ghánah was near the site of Tomboktú; let him consider well that those features have a magnitude incompatible with the supposition of their being repeated, and a permanence derived from their dependence on the physical constitution of the African continent. Let him, in fact, figure to himself a great and navigable river, flowing from a town called Silla north-eastwards for three weeks, through the country of the Blacks who first embraced the Mohammedan faith, skirting the desert eastwards for six days, and then turning southwards to a place called Kaúkaú, or Kághó; let him place the emporium of Negroland near the north-western angle of that river, at a distance of two months’ ordinary travelling from the shores of the Atlantic, two months from Sijilmésah, and fifty days from Tádmekkah, not far from the modern Aghades. He may then trace the road from Sijilmésah to that emporium, dividing the whole distance into its distinct portions, viz.—eleven days south-westward to the border of the desert, then six days over the hills, about seventeen more to the zone of drifting sand, passing near the salt mines of Tagháza, and eight or ten over an utterly inhospitable tract near the southern limit of the Ṣaḥrá. Along this road he may distribute the tents of the wandering Masúfah; and, a little to the east of it, he may mark the boundary line of the great Berber nation, the Zenágah. Let him then write above Silla, on the left hand, this remark:—“Trade carried on with the Berbers on the sea shore;” and below Kaúkaú, on the right,—“Obscure and little known:”[86] and when, having finished this delineation, he finds that, though drawn in conformity with the descriptions of Ghánah, it is yet perfectly applicable to Tomboktú; and that it is equally true and faithful, whichever of these names be given to the emporium of the Blacks: then, even if he throw aside all other considerations, such as the relations of Ghánah with the Morabites and with Mímah, the town whence Tomboktú derived its Berber population, he certainly cannot refuse to admit that the Ghánah of Arab writers was contiguous to that part of the Great River where Tomboktú now stands.

In the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, when numerous accounts of Barbary were published in Europe, and when the trade of Morocco and Táfílélt (the ancient Sijilmésah) with Negroland was highly rated, we find that, besides Tomboktú, whither the routes from Táfílélt and Wád Nún conducted, no places of any importance in Negroland were mentioned, except Jenni near Silla, and Gago, which is the same as Kaúkaú. The caravans across the desert directed their march to the nearest point of Negroland, and the merchants, arriving there, never looked beyond the marts with which they could thence maintain a direct intercourse. In the same manner, and exactly within the same limits, was El Bekrí’s information circumscribed. He says nothing of the Mandingoes, Serakholies, Wolofs, Fellatah, or other black nations of the west. He is equally silent respecting Houssa, toward the south-east. Of Kánem, which was reckoned to be only forty days distant from Zawílah, he speaks in terms indicative of the faintness of his knowledge:—“The people,” he says, “are blacks and idolators; and the country is hardly ever visited by travellers.”—Thus the analogous modes in which Ghánah and Tomboktú present themselves respectively to the ancient and modern historians of Negroland, corroborate the opinion that the site of the former of those places was in the vicinity of the latter.[87]

In the attempt here made to demonstrate that Ghánah was near the site of Tomboktú, it will be perceived that no aid has been sought from etymologies or fancied resemblance of names; much less have such delusive lights been allowed to guide our investigations. The arguments urged in the foregoing pages rest wholly on necessary deductions from the obvious sense of our Arab authorities, without any attempt to wrest their meaning. The topics touched on in those arguments may be thus briefly recapitulated:

The description of Ghánah in respect to its bearing and distance from Sijilmésah—the details of the road to it, and characteristics of the desert—the relations of Ghánah with the Zenágah, and particularly with the Morabites—its intercourse with the tribes on the sea shore—the position of Genéwah—the course of the River—the relations of Ghánah with Mimah, Másín or Masena, Anbárah, &c.—the name Ganata remaining to Walata—the laws and usages of Ghánah.

There still remains an argument of no common weight, the substance of which, though belonging to another part of this inquiry, yet may, without impropriety, be briefly stated here. The Blacks of the country named Málí, who, it will be seen, were Mandingoes, issuing from the south-west, conquered Ghánah. Their empire (to use the words of their historian) extended from Ghánah in the east, to the ocean in the west. Nearly a century after that conquest, they advanced eastward (or rather south-eastward) to Kaúkaú, whence they marched into the desert and made themselves masters of Tekaddá. They subsequently relinquished, however, the possession of that place, and retired to Kaúkaú; so that the Great River formed the boundary of their sway towards the east, with the exception, perhaps, of a short space below Kaúkaú. Now there can be no uncertainty respecting the ground over which these conquerors marched. The celebrated traveller, Ibn Baṭúṭah, visited, in the fourteenth century, the capital of Málí, on the Joliba above Sego; he thence travelled to Tomboktú; thence descended the river to Kaúkaú, and from that place he went to Tekaddá, which was on the road from Kaúkaú to Ghát and Ghodémis. He thus appears to have followed exactly the course which had been taken by the Mandingo conquerors; the only difference in his described route being, that he found Tomboktú where they had found Ghánah.