These Locusts
Are Like Grasshoppers, As Long As Ones Finger, And Of A Red And Yellow
Colour.
They come every third or fourth year, and if they were to pay
their visits every year, there would be no living in the country.
While I
was on the coast, I saw them in prodigious and incredible numbers.
[1] The distance between Tisheet and Tombuctu, according to our best maps,
is about 560 miles E. and by S. In the same proportion, supposing
Tisheet to be Teggazza, the distance between Tombuctu and Melli ought
to be about 420 miles. Of Melli we have no traces in our modern maps,
but it may possibly be referred to _Malel_, the apparent capital of
Lamlem; see Pinkert. Geogr. II. 917, as laid down from the Arabian
geographers, nearly 1200 miles E.S.E. from Tombuctu. - E.
[2] This story is probably a fiction, proceeding upon a trade of barter
between parties who did not understand the languages of each other.
The succeeding part of the story seems a mere fable, without the
smallest foundation whatever. - E.
[3] Few persons, perhaps, will be disposed to think the credit of the
Africans, however positive, or the belief of the author, however
strong, sufficient evidence of the truth of this story. Yet it
certainly is a common report of the country, and not the invention of
Cada Mosto. Jobson, who was at the Gambra or Gambia in 1620, repeats
the whole substance of this story; and Movette relates the
circumstances of the blacks trafficking for salt without being seen,
which he had from the Moors of Morocco. He leaves out, however, the
story of the frightful lips. Every fiction has its day; and that part
is now out of date. - Astl.
[4] Melli being itself unknown, we can hardly look to discover the
situation of Kokhia or Cochia; but it may possibly be Kuku, a town and
district to the N.E. of Bornou, which lies in the direction of the
text; or it may be Dar Kulla, greatly more to the S.W. but still in
the same track. - E.
[5] In Grynaeus this place is called Ato. As in the direction of the
caravan from Tombuto towards Tunis, it may possibly be Taudeny, an
ouasis or island of the great desert, in lat. 21 deg. 30' N. - E.
[6] Called Hona in Grynaeus. What part of Barbary this name may refer to
does not appear. But the passage ought perhaps to run thus, "_to Oran
by the Mountain of Wan_," as there is a range mountains of that name
to the S. E. of Oran, which joins the chain of Atlas, or the Ammer
Mountains. - E.
[7] This is the earliest account of the places from whence gold is brought,
and of the course of its trade through Africa, and thence into Europe;
and is even more particular and exact than any that has been given by
later authors. - Astl.
SECTION IV.
_Of the River Senegal and the Jalofs, with some Account of the Manners,
Customs, Government, Religion, and Dress of that Nation_.
Leaving Cape Branco, and the Gulf of Arguin, we continued our course
along the coast to the river Senegal, which divides the desert and the
tawny Azanhaji from the fruitful lands of the Negroes. Five years before
I went on this voyage, this river was discovered by three caravels
belonging to Don Henry, which entered it, and their commanders settled
peace and trade with the Moors; since which time ships have been sent to
this place every year to trade with the natives[1]. The river Senegal is
of considerable size, being a mile wide at the mouth, and of sufficient
depth. A little farther on it has another entrance, and between the two,
there is an island which forms a cape, running into the sea, having sand-
banks at each mouth that extend a mile from the shore[2]. All ships that
frequent the Senegal ought carefully to observe the course of the tides,
the flux and reflux of which extend for seventy miles up the river, as I
was informed by certain Portuguese, who had been a great way up this
river with their caravels. From Cape Branco, which is 280 miles distant,
the whole coast is sandy till within twenty miles of the river. This is
called the coast of _Anterota_, and belongs entirely to the Azanhaji or
Tawny Moors. I was quite astonished to find so prodigious a difference in
so narrow a space, as appeared at the Senegal: For, on the south side of
the river, the inhabitants are all exceedingly black, tall, corpulent and
well proportioned, and the country all clothed in fine verdure, and full
of fruit trees; whereas, on the north side of the river, the men are
tawny, meagre, and of small stature, and the country all dry and barren.
This river, in the opinion of the learned, is a branch of the _Gihon_,
which flows from the Terrestrial Paradise, and was named the Niger by the
ancients, which flows through the whole of Ethiopia, and which, on
approaching the ocean to the west, divides into many other branches. The
_Nile_, which is another branch of the Gihon, falls into the
Mediterranean, after flowing through Egypt[3].
The first kingdom of the Negroes is on the banks of the Senegal, and its
inhabitants are called _Gilofi_ or Jalofs. All the country is low, not
only from the north to that river, but also beyond it, as far south as
Cape Verd, which is the highest land on all this coast, and is 400 miles
from Cape Branco. This kingdom of the Jalofs, on the Senegal, is bounded
on the east by the country called _Tukhusor_; on the south by the kingdom
of _Gambra_ or Gambia; on the west by the Atlantic Ocean; and on the
north by the river Senegal and the Azanhaji[4]. The king who reigned in
Senegal in my time was named Zukholin, and was twenty-two years old.
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