A Labyrinth of Kingdoms

by Steve Kemper

  “No Moor can understand that a European gentleman would expose his life for scientific purposes or to solve a problem in Geography,” wrote Hay. “They take it for granted the object of the Christian or his Government is to get information on Trade and thus in their ignorance conclude it would be made use of to their prejudice.” Thus a request from the British government to protect Barth would be his death warrant. Hay was probably right. Barth later felt this suspicious hostility from the scheming Moorish merchants in Timbuktu, which contributed to his decision not to return home by the Moroccan route.

  Hay did what he could. He asked the British vice-consul at Mogador (Essaouira), 400 miles down the Atlantic coast, to find someone trustworthy who was going to Timbuktu and could take Barth in hand. He also placed £200 at the vice-consul’s disposal to assist Barth or to pay his ransom if he was kidnapped or enslaved instead of killed.

  Barth remained unaware of these strategies and subsidies. In Timbuktu he complained in his journal that the Foreign Office hadn’t sent him the requested letter of transit from the sultan of Morocco. What he called negligence was actually concern, and perhaps helped save his life.

  AFTER THE EMIR’S ULTIMATUM and the sheikh’s stinging response, Timbuktu tensed, its opposing forces expecting an explosion. In early December two groups of Tuaregs arrived, 100 fighting men. They considered Timbuktu a Tuareg town and would support the sheikh against the Fulanis. In a fiery speech that same day at the Djingereber mosque, the city’s Fulani judge exhorted the crowd to attack the Christian and his allies—al-Bakkay, the Tuaregs, and the city’s governor. A friend of the governor, who knew the judge for a cowardly blowhard, stood up and urged him to lead them into battle right then. When the judge hemmed and hawed, the crowd dispersed.

  Meanwhile the Tuaregs were having second thoughts. Fighting for Timbuktu against their old enemies was one thing, fighting for an infidel quite another. In several encounters their chiefs accused Barth of false beliefs, such as not acknowledging Muhammed as the only prophet.

  They had stepped into Barth’s intellectual wheelhouse. He replied that even Muslims did not consider Muhammed the only prophet—they honored Moses, Jesus, and many other holy men also revered by Christians. And in one crucial way, he reminded his accusers, Islam gave pride of place to Jesus, teaching that Jesus, not Muhammed, would return at the end of the world. We worship the same God and follow the same religious principles, argued Barth, despite “a few divergencies in point of diet and morals.” So it seemed to him, he concluded, “that we were nearer to each other than [they] thought, and might well be friends, offering to each other those advantages which each of us commanded.”

  This was not only rhetorically masterful but characteristic of Barth’s open-mindedness. His reasoning usually won over the Tuaregs. In stubborn cases he fascinated them with scholarship: the etymology of their tribal name, historic accounts of their ancient dwelling places, maps of Africa and Arabia. And of course his theology and scholarship were always sweetened with gifts. His disarming acumen didn’t make the Tuaregs any more trustworthy in the long run, but did secure their momentary respect and loyalty, desperately needed.

  On December 9, Barth and the sheikh went back to the tents with their Tuareg allies. The following day a party of twenty-five riders approached from Timbuktu. The delegation was peaceful and made two requests: Give us a copy of the Christian’s letter of protection from the sultan of Istanbul, and don’t bring the infidel back into town. Al-Bakkay agreed to show them copies of letters written on Barth’s behalf by several Muslim rulers, but rejected the second demand. To emphasize his autonomy, he took Barth back to Timbuktu later that day.

  Another week of stalemate passed. Ahmadu threatened to cut off Timbuktu’s supply of corn unless Barth was forced from the city. The governor left for Hamdallahi to discuss the impasse. At the same time, the son of the Berabish chief who had murdered Laing suddenly died. The superstitious people of Timbuktu took this as an omen, since Barth was rumored to be Laing’s son. The Berabish clan that had sworn to kill Barth recanted its oath. These developments lowered the city’s political temperature. The emissaries from Hamdallahi seemed satisfied to await Ahmadu’s response to al-Bakkay’s defiant letter.

  Christmas came and went. On December 26, al-Bakkay jauntily assured Barth of his pending departure and showed him the healthy camels they would take. But the explorer had lost faith in these declarations.

  The new year turned. “I had long cherished the hope,” wrote Barth, “that the beginning of 1854 would have found me far advanced on my homeward journey; but greatly disappointed in this expectation, I began the year with a fervent prayer for a safe return home in the course of it.”

  BACK IN TOWN, Barth was cheered by the arrival in the market of good dates, tea and sugar, and “the luxury of a couple of pomegranates.” During his first months he had eaten pigeons almost every day. Sometimes at the tents there would be roasted goat or ostrich eggs. Then as now, Timbuktu was known for its delicious flatbread, baked every morning in tall egg-shaped ovens made of clay. Barth typically ate this bread with milk for breakfast, had some couscous at about two in the afternoon, and after sunset ate a dish of millet sauced with squash and bits of meat. All of it came from the sheikh, who also sent another dish late, often after midnight, which Barth considered excessive and gave to his servants.

  When the flooding Niger reached its apex in early January, Barth lobbied the sheikh for another excursion to see it and measure it. The river almost licked the city’s walls. Boatmen unloaded their goods within 500 yards of the Djingereber mosque. Creeks streamed over the Sahara, “a marvelous and delightful spectacle.” The journey invigorated Barth but also stirred up the Moorish merchants, who spread the rumor that he had been looking for British gunboats coming upriver from Gao.

  Three days later Barth was back at the tents. His health, though still precarious, had improved. But on January 14 he suddenly crumpled with the worst fever of the journey, accompanied by violent shivering. Al-Bakkay suspected poison. Barth had just drunk some sour milk given to him by a Berabish man, an intimate friend of the sheikh’s but also a member of the clan that had murdered Laing. It speaks volumes that al-Bakkay immediately assumed this man had put clan and religious fervor above old friendship.

  Barth didn’t think the milk caused his illness, but the man had been acting surly, unsatisfied with Barth’s gift to him. Bad-tempered from acute illness, Barth lashed out at him—“I ordered him away in a very unceremonious manner.” So unceremonious that even his own servants and friends among the sheikh’s entourage, “without paying any regard to my feeble state, gave vent to their feelings against me as a Christian”—another reaction that speaks volumes. Only al-Bakkay didn’t waver, sending Barth tea and visiting often to check his condition. The explorer felt better the next morning. His friends came to his tent one by one to apologize. If Barth did the same to the Berabish man, he didn’t record it.

  The pendulum continued its slow swing between the town and the tents. Barth’s patience was thinning. He kept preparing to depart and pressing the sheikh for a date. The answer never changed—soon.

  January turned to February, “with utter disappointment at the failure of my expected departure, and with nothing but empty promises.” When he accused the sheikh of not keeping his word, al-Bakkay replied with a smile, well, if a person has only one fault …

  The sheikh said he couldn’t leave until his brothers arrived, until the Tuareg chief arrived—always some excuse. Under Barth’s relentless pressure, in early February al-Bakkay finally leveled with the explorer and confessed that the delay wasn’t caused by politics but by his wife’s pregnancy—he didn’t want to leave until she gave birth, in perhaps a month. He begged for Barth’s understanding. Barth sighed and agreed, having no other choice.

  Another troop of armed men arrived from Hamdallahi. More were expected soon. They carried an edict from Ahmadu: a tax of 2,000 shells on each slave in Timbuktu. One way or another,
the emir was determined to bring the sheikh and the city to heel.

  Near midnight on February 16 the sheikh’s big drum announced the approach of his older brother Sidi Muhammed. Al-Bakkay wanted Muhammed to watch over the family’s interests in Timbuktu while he accompanied Barth on the first part of his journey. Sidi Muhammed, like his brother, was cheerful and sociable, but also martial and commanding. He clearly doubted the wisdom of al-Bakkay’s stance and questioned Barth sharply. Barth didn’t take offense. He acknowledged that he was a stranger, a foreigner, a Christian, and a big problem.

  BARTH USED THE following ten-day lull to put together another thick packet for Europe, addressed to Vice-Consul Dickson in Ghadames. On February 26 he entrusted it to some merchants going north. He didn’t know that Dickson had left Ghadames for the war in Crimea. The packet languished in Ghadames, with lamentable consequences that Barth didn’t learn about for months.

  The day was unlucky for him in another way, too, but this one was instantly clear. A large troop of armed men, including 10 musketeers, entered town under the command of Ahmadu’s fierce uncle. They deliberately marched past Barth’s house to intimidate him. In response, the explorer opened his door to display his firearms and the men ready to use them. The incident unnerved one of Barth’s men, who quit.

  The next day things darkened. Another troop of 100 men arrived from Hamdallahi bearing two letters for the sheikh, one friendly, the other threatening reprisals if Barth wasn’t thrown out. The three Kunta brothers discussed their options. After spending time with Barth, Sidi Muhammed had agreed to help protect him, though grudgingly. This was reflected in the lukewarm defense of Barth that he wrote that night to the delegation from Hamdallahi. His main argument: Barth wasn’t any worse an infidel than Laing. Barth noted that this would allow his opponents to reply that the current infidel wouldn’t be treated any worse than the previous one, who had been murdered.

  A messenger from Ahmadu came to the sheikh’s house with the same unchanging demand. Again, al-Bakkay replied that Barth was his guest and therefore under his protection. Consequently the only choices were honorable peace or war. The messenger retorted that the second option was more likely. Events again seemed to be coming to a head.

  Barth went home “to refresh myself with a cup of tea, and then made preparations for the eventual defense of my house, and for hiding the more valuable of my effects.” He returned to al-Bakkay’s around midnight and found the sheikh holding a double-barreled gun, surrounded by 40 men armed with spears and muskets. For the rest of the night the sheikh entertained the group with stories about Moses and the life of the Prophet. At five o’clock Barth went home “and endeavored to raise my exhausted spirits by means of some coffee.”

  The emissary from Hamdallahi rode into town that morning with 60 men but didn’t approach the sheikh’s quarter. By that time more than 200 defenders had gathered at al-Bakkay’s house. Despite the posturing, neither side seemed keen on fighting. After another conference that evening between the Kunta brothers, Sidi Alawate was dispatched to probe the emissary’s intentions.

  The sheikh came to Barth’s house after midnight with surprising news. Only one of the recent letters—the friendly one—had been written by Ahmadu. The threatening letter had been written in Kabara at the insistence of the Moorish merchants. Al-Bakkay had assured the emissary that if Ahmadu stepped back, Barth would leave Timbuktu soon—even sooner, he added cheekily, if Ahmadu would pay for the departure with public funds.

  But al-Bakkay was sugarcoating the facts. The next day the emissary came to the sheikh’s house and accused Barth of being a war chief and a freebooter who must leave immediately. Luckily for Barth and al-Bakkay, 60 warriors from the Kel Ulli, a ferocious tribe of Tuaregs allied with the sheikh, arrived that afternoon “with great military demonstrations and beating of shields.” The Kel Ullis were infamous for “totally annihilating” two other powerful Tuareg tribes. They were distinguished, wrote Barth, “by three qualities which, to the European, would scarcely seem possible to be united in the same person, but which are not infrequently found combined” in Tuaregs: valor, thievishness, and hospitality. In his vocabulary of Tamasheq words and phrases, Barth used this illustrative sentence: “The Kel-ulli are expert in stealing.” They were welcome allies, but volatile. Barth saw them as the perfect escort to whisk him from Timbuktu.

  He had started a letter to Bunsen about these incidents, adding to it as events developed. Written in the stress of the moment, his letters reveal far more impatience than the cooler version in his book. “Though entirely innocent,” he wrote to Bunsen, “I shall be the pretended and alleged cause of great revolutions in this stupid little city of the desert. If I were not a quiet man, with my whole mind turned to scientific acquisitions, and to a happy return home, I should very likely be able to set up for the petty dictatorship of Timbuktu. On the other hand, these annoyances, and (as yet, at least) bloodless quarrels afford me some amusement, for these continual disappointments about my departure wholly unfit me for study.”

  Several days later, after the arrival of the Kel Ullis, he added to the letter that he expected to leave soon with them. “But I do not yet give way to joy, for the cup may be snatched from my lips a thousand times before I taste it. I study quietly, and wait, and keep on my guard; for I always have to expect deception… . In short, I hope for the best, and prepare for the worst.”

  THE CUP WAS snatched away. Al-Bakkay, still a father-to-be, dillydallied. Three days later, on March 4, this excuse disappeared when the sheikh’s wife gave birth. Al-Bakkay assured Barth that they would leave in three days. The explorer wanted to believe him but couldn’t. Sure enough, the very next day al-Bakkay decided to wait for the arrival of the Tuaregs’ main chief and his warriors, who were said to be approaching. People in the vicinity began moving their flocks far way to save them from these marauders.

  On March 7 another Kunta brother, ‘Abidin, entered Timbuktu and racheted up the tension. ‘Abidin opposed al-Bakkay’s protection of Barth. He chose to lodge with Hammadi, their nephew and al-Bakkay’s enemy. This instigated a quarrel between al-Bakkay and his older brother Sidi Muhammed. Barth listened quietly. Like the explorer, Sidi Muhammed had lost patience with al-Bakkay’s stalling. Why didn’t he defuse the situation by leaving town with the Christian? And why, asked Sidi Muhammed, should they fight the entire Fulani kingdom for the sake of a single person, especially an infidel? Al-Bakkay, master of procrastination, dodged the question by promising to send for Barth’s horses the following day, in preparation for departure.

  Things seemed to be coming to yet another head. Barth went home and finished packing so he could leave on quick notice. In a continuation of his letter to Bunsen, he noted that ‘Abidin’s arrival might force al-Bakkay into action. He also inserted a map of the countries south of the middle course of the Niger, then unknown to Europeans, and asked Bunsen to correct a small portion of a map sent previously. He spent a paragraph summarizing his scholarly disagreement with Cooley’s placement of the ancient capital of Ghana. Lastly he attached the subdivisions of the powerful tribe El Aarib. All this while unsure of his fate.

  The next day Sidi Muhammed and Sidi Alawate went to confer about Barth with their brother ‘Abidin and nephew Hammadi. The explorer was kept in the dark about their discussion. That afternoon al-Bakkay made his own visit to ‘Abidin and half-promised (his specialty) to depart with the Christian in two days, on March 10. The sheikh was trying to buy time until the great Tuareg chief arrived. He evidently still hoped to use this force to fight for Timbuktu’s independence from Hamdallahi.

  March 10 arrived. The Kunta clan repaired to the tents, not in preparation for a journey but to celebrate the birth of al-Bakkay’s son. Five oxen were slaughtered for a supper that began after midnight. “Nothing during my stay in Timbuktu was more annoying to me, and more injurious to my health,” wrote Barth, “than this unnatural mode of living, which surpasses in absurdity the late hours of London and Paris.” Considering
what his stay had been like, the statement is flabbergasting. Two more cows were slaughtered the next day. Crowds of people came to feast on enormous dishes of rice and meat, some of them five feet in diameter, and so heavy that six men hoisted them. The celebration featured the usual displays of horsemanship and gunfire. Some of the Berabish guests carried new double-barreled guns bought in the north from the French, whose designs on the territory south of their toehold in Algeria had started to alarm al-Bakkay.

  Barth described the festivities and chatted up the interesting guests. He tried to enjoy himself, but he was twitching with exasperation at the interminable delays. He grumped about being separated from his books and his morning coffee, and about the choking clouds of windblown dust.

  On March 15 he started a letter to Lord Clarendon by noting that he had sent two packets of considerable scientific importance, including maps. He hadn’t written the foreign secretary earlier, he said, “as I did not like to entertain Your Lordship with a detail of my hopes and fears… . I have preserved my life and liberty during my stay in this place merely with a loaded gun in my hand and a pair of loaded pistols in my girdle; else I would have fallen a sacrifice to the intrigues of hostile men long ago.”

  THEY HAD BEEN back in town for three days when yet another crisis arose. At a raucous meeting the Moorish merchants and the Fulanis from Hamdallahi swore an oath to drive Barth from Timbuktu before sunset. If the infidel defied them, vowed Ahmadu’s martial uncle, he would kill him with his own hands. At that point Sidi Alawate, who had crashed the meeting, stood to declare that Barth would see both sunset and sunrise in Timbuktu, but would leave tomorrow morning. And if he didn’t, he was theirs to dispose of. Barth knew none of this. It was March 16.