The Martyrdom of Man by Winwood Reade (mobi ebook reader TXT) 📖

world.

 

The Tuaricks of the Sudan were merely the ruling casts, and were much

darkened by harem blood, but they communicated freely with their

brethren of the desert, who had dealings with the Berbers beyond the

Atlas. When the Andalusia of the Arabs became a polite civilised land

crowds of ingenious artisans, descended from the old Roman craftsmen

or from the Greek emigrants, or from their Arab apprentices, took

architecture over to North Africa. The city of Morocco was filled with

magnificent palaces and mosques; it became the metropolis of an

independent kingdom; it was called the Baghdad of the west; its doctors

were as learned as the doctors of Cordova, its musicians as skilful as the

musicians of Seville. A wealthy and powerful Morocco could not exist

without its influence being felt across the desert; the position of Timbuktu

in reference to Morocco was precisely that of Meroe to Memphis or to

Thebes. The Sahara, it is true, is much wider across from Morocco to

Timbuktu than from Egypt to Ethiopia, but the introduction of camels

brought the Atlas and the Niger near to one another. The Tuaricks, who

had previously lived on horses, under whose bellies they tied water-bottles of leather when they went on a long journey, had been able to

cross the desert only at certain seasons of the year; but now, with the aid

of the camel, which they at once adopted and from which they bred the

famous Mehara strain, they could cross the Sahara at its widest part in a

few days. A regular trade was established between the two countries, and

was conducted by the Berbers. Arab merchants, desirous of seeing with

their own eyes the wondrous land of ivory and gold, took passage in the

caravans, crossed the yellow seas, sprang from their camels upon the

green shores of the Sudan, and kneeling on the banks of the Niger with

their faces turned towards Mecca, dipped their hands in its waters and

praised the name of the Lord. They journeyed from city to city and from

court to court, and composed works of travel which were read with eager

delight all over the Moslem world, from Spain to Hindustan.

 

The Arabs thronged to this newly discovered world. They built factories;

they established schools; they converted dynasties. They covered the

river with masted vessel; they built majestic temples with graceful

minaret and swelling dome. Theological colleges and public libraries

were founded; camels came across the desert laden with books; the

negroes swarmed to the lectures of the mullahs; Plato and Aristotle were

studied by the banks of the Niger, and the glories of Granada were

reflected at Timbuktu. That city became the refuge of political fugitives

and criminals from Morocco. In the sixteenth century the Emperor

dispatched across the desert a company of harquebusiers who, with their

strange, terrible weapons, everywhere triumphed like the soldiers of

Cortes and Pizarro in Mexico and Peru. These musketeers made

enormous conquests not for their master but for themselves. They

established an oligarchy of their own; it was afterwards dethroned by the

natives, but there yet exist men who, as Barth informs us, are called the

descendants of the musketeers and who wear a distinctive dress. But that

imperial expedition was the last exploit of the Moors. After the conquest

of Granada by the Christians and of Algeria by the Turks, Morocco,

encompassed by enemies, became a savage and isolated land; Timbuktu,

its commercial dependent, fell into decay, and is now chiefly celebrated

as a cathedral town.

 

The Arabs carried cotton and the art of its manufacture into the Sudan,

which is one of the largest cotton-growing areas in the world. Its

Manchester is Kano, which manufactures blue cloth and coloured plaids,

clothes a vast negro population, and even exports its goods to the lands of

the Mediterranean Sea. Denham and Clapperton, who first reached the

lands of Haoussa and Bornu, were astonished to find among the negroes

magnificent courts; regiments of cavalry, the horses caparisoned in silk

for gala days and clad in coats of mail for war; long trains of camels

laden with salt and natron and corn and cloth and cowrie shells—which

form the currency—and kola nuts, which the Arabs call “the coffee of the

negroes.” They attended with wonder the gigantic fairs at which the

cotton goods of Manchester, the red cloth of Saxony, double-barrelled

guns, razors, tea and sugar, Nuremberg ware and writing-paper were

exhibited for sale. They also found merchants who offered to cash their

bills upon houses at Tripoli, and scholars acquainted with Avicenna,

Averroes, and the Greek philosophers.

 

The Mohammedan religion was spread in Central Africa to a great extent

by the travelling Arab merchants, who were welcomed everywhere at the

negro or semi-negro courts, and who frequently converted the pagan

kings by working miracles—that is to say, by means of events which

accidentally followed their solemn prayers, such as the healing of a

disease, rain in the midst of drought, or a victory in war. But the chief

instrument of conversion was the school. It is much to the credit of the

negroes that they keenly appreciate the advantages of education; they

appear to possess an instinctive veneration and affection for the book.

Wherever Mohammedans settled the sons of chiefs were placed under

their tuition. A Mohammedan quarter was established; it was governed

by its own laws; its sheikh rivalled in power and finally surpassed the

native kings. The machinery of the old pagan court might still go on; the

negro chief might receive the magnificent title of sultan; he might be

surrounded by albinos and dwarfs and big-headed men and buffoons; he

might sit in a cage, or behind a curtain in a palace with seven gates, and

receive the ceremonial visits of his nobles, who stripped off a garment at

each gate and came into his presence naked, and cowered on the ground,

and clapped their hands, and sprinkled their heads with dust, and then

turned round and sat with their backs presented in reverence towards him,

as if they were unable to bear the sight of his countenance shining like a

well-blacked boot. But the Arab or Moorish sheikh would be in reality

the king, deciding all questions of foreign policy, of peace and war, of

laws and taxes and commercial regulations, holding a position resembling

that of the Gothic generals who placed Libius Severus and Augustulus

upon the throne—of the mayors of the palace beside the Merovingian

princes, of the Company’s servants at the court of the great Mogul. And

when the Mohammedans had become numerous, and a fitting season had

arrived, the sheikh would point out a well known Koran text and would

proclaim war against the surrounding pagan kings. And so the movement

which had been begun by the school would be continued by the sword.

 

It may, however, be doubted whether the Arab merchants alone would

have spread Islam over the Niger plateau. On the east coast of Africa

they have possessed settlements from time immemorial. Before the

Greeks of Alexandria sailed into the Indian Ocean, before the Tyrian

vessels, with Jewish supercargoes, passed through the straits of Bab-el-Mandeb, the Arabs of Yemen had established factories in Mozambique

and on the opposite coast of Malabar, and had carried on a trade between

the two lands, selling to the Indians ivory, ebony, slaves, bees-wax, and

gold-dust brought down in quills from the interior by the negroes, to

whom they sold in return the sugar beads, and blue cotton goods of

Hindustan. In the period of the caliphs these settlements were

strengthened and increased, in consequence of civil war, by fugitive tribes

from Oman and other parts of the Arabian peninsula. The emigrants

made Africa their home; they built large towns which they surrounded

with orchards of the orange-tree and plantations of the date; they

introduced the culture of tobacco, sugar-cane and cotton. They were

loved and revered by the negroes; they made long journeys into the

interior for the purposes of trade. Yet their religion has made no

progress, and they do not attempt to convert the blacks. Their towns

resemble those of the Europeans; they dwell apart from the natives, and

above them.

 

The Mohammedans who entered the Niger regions were not only the

Arab merchants but also the Berbers of the desert, who, driven by war or

instigated by ambition, poured into the Sudan by tribes, seized lands and

women, and formed mulatto nationalities. Of these the Fulahs are the

most famous. They were originally natives of Northern Africa; having

intermarried during many generations with the natives, they have often

the appearance of pure Negroes, but they always call themselves white

men, however black their skins may seem to be. In the last century they

were dispersed in small and puny tribes. Some wandered as gipsies

selling wooden bowls; others were roaming shepherd clans, paying

tribute to the native kings and suffering much ill-treatment. In other parts

they lived a bandit life. Sometimes, but rarely, they resided in towns

which they had conquered, pursued commerce, and tilled the soil. Yet in

war they were far superior to the Negroes: if only they could be united the

most powerful kingdoms would be unable to withstand them. And finally

their day arrived. A man of their own race returned from Mecca, a

pilgrim and a prophet, gathered them like wolves beneath his standard,

and poured them forth on the Sudan.

 

The pilgrimage to Mecca is incumbent only on those who can afford it,

but hundreds of devout Negroes every year put on their shrouds and beg

their way across the continent to Massowah. There, taking out a few

grains of gold-dust cunningly concealed between the leaves of their

Korans, they pay their passage across the Red Sea and tramp it from Jidda

to Mecca, feeding as they go on the bodies of the camels that have been

left to die, and whose meat is lawful if the throat is cut before the animal

expires. As soon as the Negroes—or Takrouri, as they are called—arrive

in the Holy City they at once set to work, some as porters and some as

carriers of water in leather skins; others manufacture baskets and mats of

date leaves; others establish a market for firewood, which they collect in

the neighbouring hills. They inhabit miserable huts or ruined houses in

the quarter of the lower classes, where the sellers of charcoal dwell and

where locusts are sold by the measure. Some of these poor and

industrious creatures spread their mats in the cloisters of the great

Mosque, and stay all the time beneath that sacred and hospitable roof.

They are subject to the exclamatory fits and pious convulsions so

common among the Negroes of the Southern States. Often they may be

seen prostrate on the pavement, beating their foreheads against the stones,

weeping bitterly, and pouring forth the wildest ejaculations.

 

The Great Mosque at Mecca is a spacious square surrounded by a

colonnade. In the midst of the quadrangle is the small building called the

Caaba. It has no windows; its door, which is seldom opened, is coated

with silver; its padlock, once of pure gold, is now of silver gilt. On its

threshold are placed every night various small wax candles and

perfuming pans filled with aloeswood and musk. The walls of the

building are covered with a veil of black silk, tucked up on one side, so as

to leave exposed the famous Black Stone which is niched in the wall

outside. The veil is not fastened close to the building, so that the least

breath of air causes it to wave in slow, undulating movements, hailed

with prayer by the kneeling crowd around. They believe that it is caused

by the wings of guardian angels who will transport the Caaba to paradise

when the last trumpet sounds.

 

At a little distance from this building