A Labyrinth of Kingdoms

by Steve Kemper

  In the town of Birnin-Kebbi the people told Barth that reaching the Niger was unlikely because of turmoil in the countryside. In Zogirma he fired two bodyguards and replaced them with two old warriors, paying each man a salary of one new black head-shawl, one flask of rose oil for his wife, and 1,000 cowries for household expenses while away. But they only stayed with him from June 9 to 14, so he soon had to start looking for other guardians.

  They saw signs of war parties—hoofprints of horses, destroyed villages, withering cornfields, starving cattle. It became impossible to buy corn for their animals. Despite the urgent warnings of villagers, Barth continued to camp outside the walls each evening. “I again enjoyed an open encampment,” he wrote, “which is the greatest charm of a traveling life.”

  In the Valley of Yelou, just across the border between present-day Nigeria and Niger, the vernacular language changed from Hausa to Songhai. Barth had mastered Hausa and was still studying Fulfulde, the Fulani language. He began looking for a guide fluent in Songhai to tutor him but failed to find one. He tried to pick it up on his own, “and, in consequence, felt not so much at home in my intercourse with the inhabitants of the country through which I had next to pass as I had done formerly.”

  They were angling northwest to hit the Niger. Barth was humming at the prospect. “This celebrated stream,” he wrote, “the exploration of which had cost the sacrifice of so many noble lives.” Other than the Nile, no other African river had so excited the curiosity of Europe. (This would soon shift to the Zambezi and the Congo because of the journeys of Livingstone and Stanley.)

  On the morning of June 20 he reached the famous river. While waiting for ferries to cross from the town of Say, he gazed at the “noble spectacle” of the Niger and duly recorded its width and current-speed. But his response seemed more de rigueur than wholehearted.

  Several things were dampening his enthusiasm. The intense heat and humidity left him “almost suffocated, and unable to breathe.” It was the prelude to fever. He also needed to decide how to proceed from here. The first rains had started and would soon become torrential. He had been advised in Gwandu not to try following the river’s long upstream arc to Timbuktu, which resembled a flattened upside-down U, but rather to cut across country and hit the river again west of Timbuktu. Others had given similar advice. Barth knew that Mungo Park had already traveled the upper part of the river (though his record of it was lost when he was killed). The Landers had traveled the lower river. But no European foot had trod the territory south of the Niger’s arc. That’s what Barth decided to do.

  His reactions in Say illustrated the emotional peaks and letdowns of exploration. He had reached a major goal, the Niger, but couldn’t afford much exultation because he had to move on before the rains worsened and the war caught up with him and his supplies ran out. Barth rarely mentioned the psychological toll of constant stress, and handled it well. He always mustered the energy and will to continue, to pursue the promise of the region ahead, the next landscape, the new peoples and languages.

  At first the cheerful governor of Say was delighted to welcome the town’s first Christian visitor. (Park had floated right by.) Because of the recent conflicts, even traders had stopped passing through, and Say was suffering. The governor hoped that Barth could arrange for a European steamer to visit and fill the town’s market with luxuries. When the governor learned that Barth wasn’t there as a trader, his welcome turned to alarm—because, wrote Barth, “in exposing myself to such great dangers, I could not but have a very mysterious object in view … and he asked repeatedly why I did not proceed on my journey.”

  After four days in Say he eased the governor’s mind by striking inland, toward the northwest and Timbuktu.

  23

  “Obstructed by Nature and

  Infested by Man”

  NO EUROPEAN HAD EVER DESCRIBED THE LANDS WHERE BARTH now ventured. His route would take him across what is now southwest Niger, northern Burkina Faso, and central Mali. He had a rough idea of the distance between Say and Timbuktu, based on geographers’ estimates of that fabled city’s location. But its position had never been fixed and the estimates were grossly incorrect. This would cost Barth dearly in time, effort, and expense, illustrating why accurate maps were crucial.

  He left Say on June 24, 1853. As always, the prospect of unfamiliar people and places galvanized him. Within hours this mood was swept away by a fierce sandstorm followed by three hours of violent rain.

  At first the landscape rippled with hills and cornfields. In exchange for Barth’s modest passage-gifts, the village chiefs sent him fowls, sheep, even heifers. Butterflies sipped from wildflowers in green pastures. The tracks of cattle mixed with those of elephants and, for the first time since Bagirmi, rhinos.

  Four days out of Say he met a merchant heading north, and entrusted letters to him. They never arrived. Barth later heard that disease had killed the merchant before he reached Kano. Given the distances and difficulties, it seems miraculous that any letters ever reached the coast. Oudney, Clapperton, and Denham kept in touch with the outside world through Tebu couriers who traveled back and forth between Lake Chad and Murzuk, 800 miles, carrying little more than a waterskin and pounded corn. For fuel they burned dung caught in bags beneath their camels’ tails. They traveled in pairs because odds were that only one would survive.

  The landscape, pounded by rains, softened into marsh, then bog. They crossed flooding rivers and streams. At the Sirba River, 70 yards wide and 12 feet deep, they haggled with natives who put the smaller packages into calabashes and swam them across. The humans and the larger bundles made the trip on loose bales of reeds, as an audience of villagers watched the entertainment from the river’s high banks. Barth noted that the men smoked small pipes nonstop and wore their hair in long plaits hanging over their faces, things he hadn’t seen before. Copper rings began showing up on women’s arms and legs. The method of carrying water changed as well. A jug on the head was replaced by a yoke across the shoulders, with a pitcher on each side held by netting. The sight reminded him of Germany.

  The rains were capricious. Most stretches of terrain were sodden, but others suffered drought and the tease of oppressive humidity. Huts shimmered in the heat. Corn seedlings wilted. Emaciated cattle licked the soil for salt.

  The extremes of rain and drought made travel more arduous. Good provisions grew more scarce. So did native hospitality. Barth found the Songhais to be the least welcoming people of his journey. Sometimes they refused his request for accommodations and told him to keep moving. Sometimes he obliged, but other times he used threats to claim a space for his soggy, exhausted group. His usual supper changed from fowls or lamb to millet with a vegetable paste made from tree-pod beans. His breakfast was cold vegetable paste with sour milk (thin yogurt). He supplemented this diet with wild fruit.

  Two weeks into the journey, guinea worm attacked one of Barth’s servants. Of all the horrible afflictions in Africa, Barth dreaded guinea worm most. At the time, its source was unknown, but Barth correctly guessed that the main cause was stagnant water. The parasite enters the body when people drink from ponds or standing pools that contain water-fleas carrying the worms’ larvae. The larvae dig their way out of the intestine, meet other burrowing larvae, and mate. The males die and the females excavate their way to the surface, which takes about a year. When about to emerge, the worm secretes acid to form a blister, usually on the leg or foot, that causes burning pain. When the blister pops, the worm’s white head squirms out. The parasite, which may be 2 to 3 feet long, must be tugged slowly and gently. The extraction takes months, all of it excruciating. Sometimes a person is infested with dozens of worms. No wonder Barth dreaded the disease. It often made his servant “the most disagreeable person in the world.”

  Barth, too, had become infested, but his parasite was human: Weled Ammer Walati. El Walati, as Barth called him, was an Arab scoundrel from the Mauritanian desert west of Timbuktu. Barth ran into him at a village about 350 miles
from Timbuktu. El Walati was handsome and slender, with “very fine expressive features.” He wore a black tobe and a black shawl around his head. “His whole appearance, as he was moving along at a solemn thoughtful pace,” wrote Barth, “frequently reminded me of the servants of the Inquisition.”

  At first he beguiled Barth. He had “roved about a great deal” among the Tuaregs and the Fulanis, and knew the territory ahead. He lived in Timbuktu and claimed to be a close friend of the sheikh. He spoke six languages and told fascinating tales about the region’s history. All this was catnip to Barth. He hired the man as a fixer to ease his passage through several hundred miles of unknown territories en route to Timbuktu. El Walati was “altogether one of the cleverest men whom I met on my journey,” wrote Barth, “in spite of the trouble he caused me and the tricks he played me.”

  The tricks began a few days later at the town of Dori. Barth didn’t want to pause anywhere very long. He hoped to stay ahead of rumors about his presence. Dori, for instance, was full of salt traders who would broadcast news about this stranger wherever they went. But in Dori, Barth learned that he was now traveling at El Walati’s leisurely pace. The Arab always had a deal brewing, and he made excuses, or made himself scarce, until the deal was done. He quickly sold the horse that Barth gave him as part of his salary and bought seven oxen, with an eye toward selling them at a great profit in Timbuktu. The intricacies of this deal kept them in Dori for nine days.

  Barth used the delay to write a long letter to Consul Herman about his plans and his route. He put it inside a package addressed to a Fulani friend in Sokoto, with instructions written in Arabic to forward it to Tripoli. But the traveler carrying the package crossed so many high rivers that by the time he reached Sokoto, the outer envelope and instructions had dissolved. The English inside looked like gibberish to Barth’s friend, so he gave the letter back to the messenger, who put it in his cap as a charm. Barth found it there a year later while passing back through Gwandu. Meanwhile the Foreign Office had grown alarmed by the explorer’s silence and had begun to suspect the worst.

  BARTH DESCRIBED THE territory beyond Dori as “unsettled provinces obstructed by nature and infested by man.” He considered this the most dangerous stage of his journey to Timbuku and expected it to take about twenty days. It took almost twice that long, partly because of the city’s incorrect position on maps, partly because of heavy rains and flooding, and partly because of El Walati.

  When Barth’s group left Dori, so did a large band of armed men who insisted on offering their protection. A similar band had recently made a similar offer to a wealthy sherif, who was later found murdered. Barth refused to proceed until the men wheeled back toward Dori.

  His group passed villages terrified by rumors of approaching warlords. Four days beyond Dori, 150 to 200 belligerent herders surrounded them, shouting and shaking their spears “with warlike gesticulations.” “The affair seemed rather serious,” wrote Barth rather casually. He pulled his gun. El Walati saved them by shouting that Barth was a friend of the sheikh of Timbuktu, and was bringing him books from the east. The men dropped their spears and crowded around Barth to ask his blessing. He complied, “although it was by no means a pleasant matter to lay my hands on all these dirty heads.”

  The main hazards during this stretch were heavy rains, flooding rivers, and swamps. Everything and everyone stayed wet. These discomforts were worsened during the day by biting flies that penetrated their clothing. At night, “of mosquitoes there was no end,” wrote Barth. If he closed his tent to keep them out, the sweltering humidity made the interior stiflingly hot. If he sought a breath of air outside, shoals of mosquitoes attacked. Either way, sleep was nearly impossible. The insects also maddened the animals. Barth typically downplayed insects as inconveniences, but during this portion of the journey he mentioned them often, along with his constant exhaustion.

  Every African explorer complained about these pests. Denham was especially vivid about the “millions of flies and mosquitoes beyond all conception.” At one point his eyes swelled shut and his hands were so puffy from bites that he couldn’t hold a pen. He tried to escape the bugs by sleeping in the middle of herds of cattle, or by lighting damp vegetation to make smoky fires. On bad nights even the horses overcame their terror of fire and sought relief by hanging their heads in the smoke. Denham could be almost operatic on the subject: “… another night was passed in a state of suffering and distress that defies description: the buzz from the insects was like the singing from birds; the men and horses groaned with anguish; we absolutely could not eat our paste and fat, from the agony we experienced in uncovering our heads.”

  IN EARLY AUGUST, four days after the dirty-haired spearmen, Barth entered the territory of Dalla, part of the Caliphate of Hamdallahi (“Praise to God”). Dalla’s ruler, like Hamdallahi’s emir, was a fanatical Muslim “who would never allow a Christian to visit his territory.” Hamdallahi had been founded by fundamentalists inspired by the jihad of dan Fodio. Its capital city was about 150 miles due east of Barth’s position. He expected trouble from that direction. Just to the north of him began territory controlled by Tuaregs. Barth knew how Tuaregs treated Christians. His route to Timbuktu was a tightrope between these dangers. To escape detection for as long as possible, he assumed the identity of a Syrian sherif. He was still trying to travel fast and stay ahead of rumor, but the rains and El Walati kept slowing him down.

  Despite these anxieties, he continued to collect information. Many of the villages were built for war, with strong fortifications and gates too narrow for loaded camels. Some towns had towers and crenellations that reminded him of Bavarian castles. He noticed that travelers began using a different greeting as they passed on the road. The value of certain trade goods changed. His darning needles, once ignored, were now highly desired, but his small needles, treasured in Bagirmi, were regarded with contempt. Near Kobou, now just across the border between Burkina Faso and Mali, Barth’s group encountered masses of black and red worms covering the paths, “marching in unbroken lines toward the village.”

  The closer he got to Timbuktu, the more people drank tea. In Songhai villages, he noticed, “there is no end of smoking,” and people danced every night—behavior reported in the eleventh century by the Andalusian geographer Al-Bakri. Such amusements were forbidden by the fundamentalist regime in Hamdallahi, and were a constant source of conflict with the tobacco-loving dancers of Timbuktu.

  But in general Barth wasn’t happy with the quality of his findings. He hadn’t had time to master Songhai or to do his customary deep interviewing. “I must apologize to the reader,” he wrote, “for not being able in this part of my journey, which was more beset by dangers, to enter fully into the private life of the people.”

  Their route now angled more to the northwest, into the domain of Tuaregs. El Walati began working a profitable con. He advised Barth to deflect the Tuaregs’ suspicions by sending gifts to the chiefs whose lands they were crossing. El Walati insisted on serving as Barth’s intermediary. Then he entered the village or camp, sold Barth’s gifts, and announced the imminent arrival of an important and wealthy Syrian sherif. When Barth appeared, the chief demanded presents. El Walati would commiserate with the exasperated explorer about such outrageous greed. This hustler epitomized the Hausa proverb, “You do not give a hyena meat to look after.”

  Barth soon sniffed out the scam but bit his tongue. He was afraid that without El Walati he would never reach Timbuktu. He also believed that if he crossed the Arab or fired him, El Walati would betray him to the Fulanis or the Tuaregs for a reward. Barth felt trapped between the fanaticism of the Fulanis, the violent avarice of the Tuaregs, and his fixer’s cunning.

  The journey was repeatedly delayed by El Walati’s entrepreneurial shenanigans. “As long as my friend El Walati had something to sell,” wrote Barth, “there was no chance of traveling.” The Arab used the proceeds from selling Barth’s goods to wheel and deal all along the route. In one place he “helped”
Barth bargain for oxen, but the price included a 50 percent commission for himself. Farther down the road he sold one of the new oxen and mournfully told Barth it had been stolen. In another village Barth was puzzled by the hostility toward his group until he learned that El Walati had gotten married there four years earlier and absconded with all his wife’s property. Barth had to bail him out to avoid violence.

  By that point the explorer’s tongue was almost bitten through. “It was only by degrees that I became acquainted with all these circumstances,” wrote Barth, “while I had to bear silently all the intrigues of this man, my only object being to reach safely in his company the town of Timbuktu.”

  Sometimes Barth couldn’t help admiring El Walati’s cleverness. When some Tuaregs stole the fixer’s tobacco pouch, he pulled out one of Barth’s books—it happened to be Lander’s Journey—and threatened the thieves with it as if it was the Koran. The pouch reappeared.

  Several times Barth narrowly escaped detection as a Christian. One Tuareg chief, after talking to Barth, refused to believe he was a Syrian sherif, pegging him as a Berber from the north. Barth almost blew his own cover twice. At Bambara, about 75 miles from his goal, he met an Arab from West Africa who had been everywhere between Mecca and the Atlantic port of St. Louis in Senegal. Barth couldn’t resist peppering the man with questions, including many about the Arabs west of Timbuktu. The man soon grew suspicious, because he had never met an Arab from the Middle East, as Barth purported to be, who knew so much about West Africa. Barth talked his way out of it.