Feb. 1st.—It is said that we shall leave this for Kuka on Monday next, whether the Sultan of Zinder returns from his razzia or not. It certainly is a shame that I should be kept here waiting the pleasure of a fellow gone to heat up for slaves to pay his debts.

The merchants from Kanou represent the power of the Fellatahs as very strong, if not increasing. From Sakkatou to Kanou, and Kanou to Niffee, Yakoba, and Adamaua, everywhere along these lines of towns and populous districts, are found Fellatah chiefs or sultans. Bornou is, however, now much stronger than during the time of the first expedition. The Sheikh has two thousand muskets; so says the Shereef Kebir; whilst in the time of Denham he had only fifty. Certainly two thousand muskets is a progress beyond fifty. The Asbenouee Tuaricks carried away some half-dozen Arab women when they slaughtered the Walad Suleiman. One of these women has been seen, and the Sheikh and the Shereef Kebir are trying to get her back. The Sheikh has sent word that all the Arab women must be restored to their homes.

The Shereef Kebir says the powder of this country is all bad, but that Haj Beshir and the Sheikh get English or American powder from Niffee. Leaden bullets are scarce; they use zinc bullets: but these will not go far, resisting the force of the powder; nor will they penetrate deep when they hit a person. Nitre is found at a place one hour from Zinder, called Kankandi.

It is supposed that the Sarkee, not having found slaves enough in Korgum, has gone somewhere else. The Shereef Kebir would scarcely mention the subject of the razzia to me for shame. At length a Moor present said, "Fish eats up fish, so it is with the Sarkee." This brought forth a laugh, and seemed to be thought a sufficient salve for all their consciences.

A cry was raised early this morning, "The Sarkee is coming!" Every one went out eagerly to learn the truth. It turned out that a string of captives, fruits of the razzia,[19] was coming in. There cannot be in the world—there cannot be in the whole world—a more appalling spectacle than this. My head swam as I gazed. A single horseman rode first, showing the way, and the wretched captives followed him as if they had been used to this condition all their lives. Here were naked little boys running alone, perhaps thinking themselves upon a holiday; near at hand dragged mothers with babes at their breasts; girls of various ages, some almost ripened into womanhood, others still infantine in form and appearance; old men bent two-double with age, their trembling chins verging towards the ground, their poor old heads covered with white wool; aged women tottering along, leaning upon long staffs, mere living skeletons;—such was the miscellaneous crowd that came first; and then followed the stout young men, ironed neck to neck! This was the first instalment of the black bullion of Central Africa; and as the wretched procession huddled through the gateways into the town the creditors of the Sarkee looked gloatingly on through their lazy eyes, and calculated on speedy payment.

In the afternoon I was informed that the Sarkee was really about to enter the town.

Expecting to see other captives, and anxious to be an eye-witness to all these atrocities attendant on the razzia, I went to see him pass with his cavalry. After waiting ten minutes, there rode up single cavaliers, then lines of horsemen, all galloping towards the castle-gates to show the people their equestrian skill; then came a mass of cavalry, about fifty, with a drum beating, and in the midst of these was the sultan. There was nothing very striking in this cavalcade; a few cavaliers had on a curious sort of helmet, made of brass, with a kind of horn standing out from the crown; others wore a wadding of woollen stuff, a sort of thin mattrass, in imitation of a coat of mail. Its object is to turn the points of the poisoned arrows. The cavaliers thus dressed form the body-guard of the Sarkee. Amongst these troops were some Bornou horsemen, who rode with more skill than the Zinder people. The best cavaliers resembled as much as possible the Arab cavaliers of the north. There were no captives with these horsemen; the slaves had only come in to the number, it was said, of some two or three thousand during the day. Although I wished to see them, I was, nevertheless, spared a repetition of the misery and indignation which the sight in the morning produced in my mind. I have been told positively that the poor old creatures brought in with the other captives will not fetch a shilling a-head in the slave-market. It is, therefore, a refinement of cruelty not to let them die in their native homes,—to tear them away to a foreign soil, and subject them to the fatigues of the journey, and the insults of a rude populace, and ruder and crueller slave-dealers. Many die on the road during the two or three days' march.

It is exceedingly painful to live in a place like Zinder, where almost every householder has a chained slave. The poor fellows (men and boys) cannot walk, from the manner in which the irons are put on, and when they move about are obliged to do so in little jumps. These slaves are ironed, that they may not run away. There are many villages and towns, a few days from Zinder, to which they can escape without difficulty, and where they are not pursued. It was exceedingly horrifying to hear the people of Zinder salute the troops of the razzia on their return with the beautiful Arabic word, Alberka, "blessing!" Thus is it that human beings sometimes ask God for a blessing on transactions which must ever be stamped with his curse. The Italian bandit also begs the Virgin to bless his endeavours. It is evident that nothing but the strong arm of power and conquest will ever root out the curse of slavery from Africa.

The slave whom Haj Beshir sent from Kuka to Zinder, to accompany me to Kuka, went with the Sarkee, and took one of my servants with him. I did not know anything about it until they were gone. But this evening, on my return from seeing the Sarkee, I found a woman and child, a boy and a young man, tied together, lying not far from my hut, in the enclosure where we are residing. I was excessively indignant at this conduct of Haj Beshir's slave, although certainly done in ignorance. These captives were the fruits of the part he took in the expedition. I have not made up my mind whether I will go to Kuka with this fellow, for it is not the first time he has shown something like an insolent behaviour. As to my servant, I had already discharged him, but the Shereef Kebir persuaded me to let him go with the boat to Kuka, as he knew how to place it on the camels better than the other servants. I scolded him well for going with the razzia, because he himself was once in bondage, and had returned free under our protection. But I fear my words will have little effect; for in Zinder, at least, the great concern and occupation of the black population is, to go and steal their neighbours, and sell them into slavery. I repeat again, nothing but foreign conquest by a non-slaveholding power will extirpate slavery from the soil of Africa.

I read Milton's "Comus" and other portions of his poetry, and find it a great relief in drawing my mind a little off African subjects. I am sorry I did not bring with me a copy of Shakespear. I have very few books with me of any kind, and fewer maps. I received a visit of fighis from the villages around, also from a sister and niece of the Sultan of Zinder, and gave them all a bit of sugar and sent them off.

Around my house exists a swarm of fighis, who can copy charms and a few passages from the Koran. I procured some of the bon fide specimens of their calligraphy. There are four different hands. These fighis are all blacks of pure blood. They write sideways.

A courier arrived to-day from Kuka, bringing a despatch for the Governor of Zinder, to the effect that, in the event of his finding any people of Bornou committing misdemeanours of any sort, he, the Sultan of Zinder, was at liberty to treat them as he chose. I am told that the Bornou slaves, as well as the free people of that country, when they come to Zinder, have the audacity to seize on whomsoever comes in the way, and take them and sell them as slaves in the souk. This kidnapping is mostly done in the villages around Zinder, but even in the city itself it has been ventured; and the Sultan has hitherto been afraid to arrest these Bornouese miscreants. What a glimpse into the state of the empire of Bornou do such facts afford!

2d.—This morning the slave of Haj Beshir came to declare that the slaves which he brought here yesterday were not his booty, but belonged to another person, a volunteer. There is no getting at the truth in these countries. The theatre of the late razzia is westwards from Zinder about two days. Korgum is one day from Tesaoua. Konchai is a neighbouring country, about four hours from Korgum. The Sarkee attacked four villages of Korgum, but got few slaves. The people, though without their sultan, defended themselves well with their renowned arrows, and when they could hold out no longer they ascended the rocks and escaped. The wounds of arrows, though poisoned, are not always fatal, and often cured by the remedies known in these countries.

The villages of Korgum are called Tangadala Agai. Not getting many slaves there, the Sarkee attacked two or three villages of Konchai. This province contains some three hundred villages. Ganua and Tanbanas were the places razzied. From the latter place six hundred slaves were obtained, nearly half of the whole captured. The total product of the razzia is about fifteen hundred; a thousand for the Sultan's share, and five hundred for the troops and volunteers. It is said this thousand will not suffice to pay the Sultan's debts, and it was on account of the fewness of slaves the Sarkee was obliged to bring with him the halt, the blind, the maimed, and the aged, stooping to the earth with age. Besides human beings, the Sarkee captured eight hundred and thirty bullocks, and flocks of sheep; seven hundred bullocks he gave to the troops and volunteers, and one hundred and thirty have been reserved for himself. Four men were killed, and one hundred horses, belonging to Zinder; but the enemy are said to have lost a good number. All the villages made resistance but one, where the poor people were busy cooking their suppers; when the Sarkee and his famished crew rushed upon them, seized them, and carried them into captivity. This, at any rate, is the report; but, according to others, the results of the expedition are much less important.

All the country razzied is nominally subject to the Sheikh of Bornou, so that this Sarkee of Zinder has been pillaging the Bornou territories, and carrying off their inhabitants, who are subjects of the Sheikh, to raise money to pay his debts. A certain enmity exists, it is said, between Konchai and Zinder, which formerly was subject to the province of Konchai.

According to one authority, the booty of the razzia is greatly reduced, even to more than half of what was reported. The share of the Sarkee is four hundred slaves, and one hundred and twenty slaves he gave to his troops. Seven places were attacked, but the people had news of the movements of the Sarkee, and were prepared to receive him: they shot their arrows through their stockades, thick and fast, upon the Sarkee and his people, and then retired to the rocks and behind the trees, which are abundant. Only one country was fairly razzied. Also but few beasts were taken, the people having secured all their cattle and flocks beforehand. The Sarkee got about one hundred bullocks. He took with him no less than two thousand horse, a collection from all the petty governments in the surrounding provinces, with their chiefs. All these forces did little more than beat the air. The capture of five hundred slaves will not pay the expenses of the expedition, but these people never sit down to count the cost. Their reckoning-days are few and far between.

There is a report here that the Sultans of Maradee, Gouber, Korgum, and Tesaoua, have all gone together on a razzia to the territory of Sakkatou, and a few of the people of Zinder have gone with them; and this is the reason given for horses being now scarce in Zinder.

Haj Beshir has sent a message from Kuka, that I am to quicken my steps thitherward. The kafila from Mourzuk has arrived, and many Arabs from the north.

Of gubaga, called by the people of Zinder, ferri, four draÂs are sold in Zinder for one hundred wadÂs, about twopence. This native cotton cloth, when doubled, makes tents impervious to the summer rain.

There are about fifty Ghadamsee merchants in Kanou and Boushi, capital of Yakoba, the principal of whom (here described as Maidukia) are:—

• Haj Mohammed Bel Kasem.
• Haj Tahir.
• Mairimi.
• Haj Mohammed Ben Habsa.
• Hemed Basidi.
• Kasem Ben Haiba.
• Haj Ali.
• Mohammed Makoren.
• Haj Hoda.
• Haj Abdullah.

There are some merchants of consequence from Fezzan, viz. Basha Ben Haloum, Mohammed es-Salah, the agent of Gagliuffi, Sidi Ali, and Fighi Hamit, who always goes to Goujah (blad of the gour-nuts). This country of the gour is distant three months' travelling, making small stages south-west by west. Morocco, Tuat, and the countries of the west, are scarcely represented by merchants in Kanou—there being one or two of them at most. Nor are there any from Egypt or the East.

According to my informant, a small merchant, but well acquainted with these parts, not more than one hundred and fifty or two hundred slaves pass through or from Zinder annually to the north, and about five or six hundred go by the route of Tesaoua to the north, i.e. Tripoli, and a few to Souf. After all, the great slave-market is Central Africa itself.

An affecting incident is told of the people of Korgum during the late razzia. The Sultan of Zinder besieged one town four days, and would not allow the people to drink water. They then sent word that "they did not know either God, or the Prophet Mahommed, or the Sheikh of Bornou, only him, Sarkee Ibrahim of Zinder, as their ruler and lord, and prayed him to give them water and peace." The Sarkee replied, "When my brother fled to you, you also would not allow him to drink, nor will I now permit you; therefore surrender into our hands." The people of the town held out these four days, and then during a night they all fled to the rocks and escaped.

There are but few places to make razzias upon around Zinder, except on the Sheikh's provinces, unless the Sarkee will go to Maradee, and there he is now in friendship, or else is afraid to move in that direction. In the account of the booty, it is to be understood that all of it was not brought to Zinder, some having been distributed amongst the troops and volunteers of the rest of the province. I am told that the greater part of the slaves will be sent to Kanou for sale. It has already been observed, that only a few slaves go to the north in comparison with the numbers captured. The bulk of the slaves of the razzias are employed as serfs on the soil, or servants in the town. In Kanou, a rich man has three or four thousand slaves; these are permitted to work on their own account, and they pay him as their lord and master a certain number of cowries every month: some bring one hundred, some three hundred or six hundred, or as low as fifty cowries a-month. On the accumulation of these various monthly payments of the poor slaves the great man subsists, and is rich and powerful in the country. This system prevails in all the Fellatah districts.

At dusk, there was a hue and cry near our house. I ran out to see what it was: the noise and stir was nothing less than an attempt of a slave to escape. The poor fellow was surrounded by a mass of men and boys, all anxious to seize him and deliver him to his master, to obtain the reward.

My sympathies certainly begin to cool when I see the conduct of these blacks to one another. The blacks are, in truth, the real active men-stealers, though incited thereto frequently by the slave-merchants of the north and south. It must be confessed, that if there were no white men from the north or south to purchase the supply of slaves required out of Africa, slavery would still flourish, though it might be often in a mitigated form; and this brings me to the reiteration of my opinion, that only foreign conquest by a power like Great Britain or France can really extirpate slavery from Africa.

3d.—The sky never gets clear here till late at night. I read several pieces of Milton's poetry. I went to the gardens to see the wells: people fetch water from the wells of the gardens, where the supply is sufficiently abundant. I observed in the gardens the henna plant, the cotton plant, the indigo plant, and the tobacco plant. All these appear to be commonly cultivated in the gardens of Zinder. There are scarcely any other vegetables but onions, and beans, and tomatas; but the people cultivate a variety of small herbs, for making the sauce of their bazeens and other flour-puddings. The castor-oil tree is found in the town and in the hedges of the gardens in abundance.

A Tuarick woman was brought here to-day for me to cure. She had been in an ailing, wasting state, for the last four years; the husband said that the devil had touched his wife, and reduced her to this state. Another woman was brought with an immense wen upon her abdomen. I have given away nearly all my Epsom salts, and now supply emetics. It is necessary to purge these people immediately, in a few hours, or they think you do nothing for them, or will not or cannot do them any good. Many Tuaricks come from the open country. We have also frequent cases of ophthalmia, mostly from the villages around.

This evening I was charmed by the vocal sounds of a strolling minstrel, attended by two drummers with small drums, called kuru, and a chorus of singing-girls collected from the neighbourhood. The chorus-singers sang like charity-school girls at church. Altogether the singing was more pleasing than the monotonous, plaintive sounds of the Arabs.

It seems difficult to get off. Everybody is making preparations for our journey, from the Sultan to the lowest slave sent from Kuka to assist in the transport of the boat and our baggage, and yet nothing is done!

I parted with my new acquaintance, Medi, to-day, a soldier and slave of the Sarkee. He has been occasionally my cicerone in Zinder. He had been captured from a child, and is now past middle age, and knows little of the loss of home. He was a friendly chap, and gave me all the information he could make me understand in Soudanee and Bornouee.

The evening was warm; a most pestilential sort of mist usually covers the ground at dark. After an hour or so it clears off—a few meteors now and then.

4th, Dies non.—It is said we shall probably leave this to-morrow. Read Milton all day. Weather sultry hot; did not go out. Thermometer in the evening, at dark, 80°.

5th.—I had a visit from a number of Tuarick ladies from the villages around, all of whom put their hands to their stomachs, and pretended they were mighty ill. I gave them all round a cup of tea. The renegade Jew came this morning, and gave me a list of all the things sold in the market of Kanou.

I went in the afternoon to see the KaÏd of Haj Beshir of Kuka, called Abd-el-kerim. He had a female slave afflicted with the leprosy, and sent for me to come and see her. He gave me some gour-nuts, and I found him a friendly man. Denham represents the Bornou people of his time as very fanatical. At present I have seen nothing of this. But we are in a province where there are many Hazna, or pagans; and the people of Zinder are but lukewarm Muslims. I have yet had no instance of fanaticism, either from people of Kuka or from residents here.

I was amused by the relation of Haj Mohammed Ben Welid respecting his intercourse with an American vessel at Niffee.[20] He first describes the vessel as very large; the sides being ascended by a ladder. Then these Americans (English they were called) had a black interpreter, who spoke Arabic. Through this black fellow they inquired of the man of Ghadamez from whence he came. He replied, "Ghadamez,"—this they did not know; then "Trablous,"—this they did not know; then "Tunis,"—nor was this place known; and, finally, "Malta." "Ah!" they cried, "we have heard of this place." They then asked him what he traded in, and gave him some tobacco and rum. They were full of goods of every description,—calicoes, powder, shot, rum, tobacco, dollars, and wad yaser (a great quantity of cowries), &c.

My room has been an hospital all this day, full of the sick, with various disorders. They come mostly from the villages around Zinder, and amongst them are a great number of Tuaricks, these people being more exposed to the weather, or more delicate, or more fanciful in their complaints. These poor devils all bring something—a little cheese, or a little milk; and I have received more of these trifling presents from them during the twenty days that I have been in Zinder, than in all the five or six months which I spent in their country. The reason may be, that in Asben they have nothing (or next to nothing), whilst here reigns abundance. Our servants say now that the Tuaricks always bring something, and the townspeople of Zinder nothing. Some of the Tuaricks are not sick; they come only to see the Christian, and stop, and look, and stare, and watch the minutest action of the said Christian,—more especially the women, who would never leave my room if I were not to drive them away.

6th.—I am told by a well-informed person, that morals are much relaxed here. To-day a black man came from the country to beg for his wife, who had been taken away from him and given to a Moor, who was about to send her to the coast for sale. She is to be restored to the man in exchange for two young girls, whom he has fetched from the country (probably kidnapped). The woman, however, has been given over, in the first place, to Shroma, the commander-in-chief; and after she has passed two or three days with him, she will be allowed to return to her husband. This woman was first kidnapped by the Sultan, and belonged to the Sheikh's dominions, to a village near Zinder, and was taken in a razzia. The Sultan gave or sold her to the Moor. This is a sample of the transactions daily going on there. I am also assured that the three hundred wives of the Sarkee himself are at almost everybody's disposal, two or three gour-nuts being the utmost which these ladies ask. But this is not all; for these women, wives of the Sultan, have intrigues with the slaves of the Sultan, with the brothers of the Sultan, and even with the sons of the Sultan. Whatever may be said of the Tuaricks and their freebooting, they do not practise such revolting immoralities as these.

The Sarkee of Zinder is feared both by Fellatahs and Tuaricks, especially on account of the barbarous nature of his executions, which I have described. It may be supposed that a better system, both of government and morality, is practised in Kuka, and the more connected Bornou provinces.

A man came to me to beg or buy some large beads for his wife; he said his wife was very anxious for them, to wear round her loins. Various are the caprices of fashion. Europeans show their finery, but here children and women wear beads round their loins under their clothes.

It is now said we shall leave Zinder positively on Saturday next.