The World's Greatest Books [Volumes 1-15, 17-20]

This town is situated in the heart of lovely mountain and river scenery. The Bakoy river here breaks into a rocky waterfall, some hundreds of yards in length, full of rapids and foaming currents. The horizon is bordered by mountain-tops, and the river banks are covered by gigantic trees festooned with garlands of long creepers. The road from Dioubaba to Bammaku cuts, from east to west, the massive Foota Jallon range that separates the basin of the Senegal from that of the Niger, and is so abundantly watered that you fall asleep every night to the sound of some gurgling cascade.

It was not without a certain amount of emotion that I approached the great Niger. After days and days of travel a narrow path widens suddenly, and its rocky sides fall right and left, like the leaves of a door. A vast horizon lies at my feet, bathed in the splendours of a tropical sunset; and down there, in a plain of gold and green and red, shines a silver trail bordered by a line of darkness.

The Niger, with its vast and misty horizons, is more like an inland ocean than a river. I engaged for my voyage up-stream a boat which was a whimsical mixture of a European barge and an aboriginal canoe, in which a thatched hollow served me amidships as bedroom, dining-room, study, and dressing-room. A small folding bedstead was the only piece of furniture. The crew consisted of Bosos, the true sailors of the Niger, of whose skill, patient endurance, and loyalty I had full experience. Alone among them, travelling through an imperfectly conquered, sometimes openly hostile country, never once did I feel that my safety was in any way threatened.

Coming to Lake Debo, a fief of the Niger, we enter a sea of grass. Paddling being no longer possible, my Bosos crew, leaning heavily upon bamboo poles, push the boat vigorously through the grass, which, parting in front, closes together behind us with loud rustling and crackling. We are no longer upon the water, but seem to be sliding under a tropical sun over grassy steppes streaked with watery paths. These Bosos, living at a distance of nearly 900 miles from the coast, possess no idea of the sea, and the question of what becomes of the mighty Niger beyond the regions they know troubles them very little. One unusually intelligent Bosos, when asked what became of the river beyond the towns which he knew, or had heard of, down the Niger, said, "Beyond them? Oh, beyond them the fishes swallow it."

II.—The Valley of the Niger

The country lying to the south of Timbuctoo, which is on the threshold of the great Sahara desert, is the Sudan, otherwise called the Valley and the Buckler of the Niger. It is a vast region traversed to an extent of nearly 2,500 miles by one of the largest rivers in the world. This river rises in the Kouranko chain of mountains, and is really formed by two streams, the Paliko and the Tembi, which unite at a place called Laya. The more important of these is the Tembi, and the wood from which it springs is reputed sacred, and is the subject of innumerable legends and superstitions. Access to it is denied to the profane by the high priests and lesser priests, who represent the diety to mortals. The neighbouring kinglets refer to them before undertaking a war, or other act of importance, and the common herd consult them on all occasions of weight. The spirit of the spring, being eminently practical, will only condescend to attend to them through the medium of sacrifice, but the ceremonies are not very ferocious, merely oxen being offered, and not human victims, as in the neighbouring Dahomey.

The region of the source of the Niger is the land of heavy rainfall, and the slopes of the mountain ranges are channelled by innumerable cascades, rivulets, brooks, and rivers that carry off the heavenly overflow. These countries of the Upper Niger are radiant. Tropical vegetation spreads over them with the utmost prodigality. The river flings itself headlong over the entire low-lying region between Biafaraba and Timbuctoo, covering it and swamping it, until a steppe of barren sand becomes one of the most fertile spots in the universe. The Niger is to the Sudan what the Nile is to Egypt; but we find there not one delta, as in Egypt, but three. Thus a most complete system of irrigation is formed, and fertility is spread over thousands of square miles. The rise and fall of the waters is as regular as that of the Nile, and an infinitely greater distance is covered.

Bammaku is an important strategic centre, from which it is easy to send reinforcements to any part of the Sudan that may be momentarily threatened. This precaution is wise, for we do not really know how far we are masters of this splendid country, which is many times larger than France, and contains from ten to fifteen millions of people. There are only 600 Europeans, including officers and other officials, and 4,000 negroes are enrolled as foot-soldiers, cavalry, and transport bearers, while it requires an army of 40,000 men to maintain order in Algeria, about a fourth of the size of the Sudan.

Apart from the fertility of the soil for cereal crops, there are three kinds of trees which grow abundantly everywhere. The most interesting is the karita, or butter-tree, from the nuts of which a vegetable butter is extracted with all the delectable flavour of chocolate. Throughout the whole of the Sudan no other fatty substance is used. The second tree is the flour tree. The flour is enclosed in large pods, is of a yellow colour, rich in sugar, and is used in the manufacture of pastry and confectionery. The third is the cheese-tree, called baga by the natives, from the capsules of which a fine and brilliant vegetable silk is yielded. The principal articles of commerce sent by Bammaku to Timbuctoo are the products of these trees, gold, and kola-nuts.