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In: Travel Writing·History - Modern (1750+)·Archaeology & Anthropology
Public-domain ebook sourced from Project Gutenberg #70011.
René Caillié’s two‑volume account is a nineteenth‑century travelogue that records his journey across the interior of West Africa, from the Niger‑river towns of Djenné and Timbuctoo to the Sahara and finally the Moroccan coast. The volume opens with a series of illustrative plates, a portrait of the author, maps of his routes, and detailed sketches of Timbuctoo’s great mosque, before moving into a preface in which Caillé explains the difficulties of publishing his notes, the perils he faced while masquerading as a Muslim pilgrim, and his determination to offer a faithful, if unpolished, record of his observations. The narrative then proceeds chapter by chapter, cataloguing riverbanks, villages, caravan routes, and the customs of the peoples he encounters, all framed by his own reflections on the value of geographic knowledge for French commerce and scientific societies.
The voice is that of a diligent, self‑conscious explorer who writes in a straightforward, earnest style, marked by occasional lapses of literary polish but rich in concrete detail. Caillé’s tone blends personal hardship with a scholarly desire to contribute to the Royal Geographical Society’s understanding of a region then largely unknown to Europe. Readers who enjoy meticulous historical geography, early ethnographic description, or the gritty realities of pre‑colonial African travel will find this work rewarding, while those seeking a polished literary adventure may prefer more fictionalized accounts.
The opening · free to read
I offer, at length, to the public the narrative of my travels in the interior of Africa, which should have appeared long since; several causes have, however, concurred during the fifteen months that have elapsed since my return to my native soil, to retard its publication till the present time. I have brought home, from the regions I have traversed, only fugitive and very laconic notes, written in haste and trepidation: they would have been inexorable evidences against me, had I been surprised tracing unknown characters, and unveiling as it were to the Whites the mysteries of these countries. In Africa, especially in those districts occupied by the Foulahs and the Moors, religious hypocrisy in a stranger is the most flagrant of outrages, and it were a hundred times better to pass there for a Christian, than for a false Mahometan; so that if my mode of travelling had its advantages, which its success has proved, it was also attended with terrible inconveniences. I carried always in my wallet a sentence of death, and how often was that wallet necessarily confided to the hands of enemies! On my arrival in Paris, the notes, written mostly in pencil, were found so faint and so much effaced by time, my wanderings, and my ill fortune, that it required all the tenacity and the scrupulous fidelity of my memory to restore and reproduce them as the basis of my observations and the materials of my narrative.
But that scrupulous fidelity which should always distinguish the compilation of travels, and which I consider the principal merit of mine, demanded that I should consecrate to this work the time necessary to ascertain that I have omitted nothing essential, and to arrange the facts in the exact order in which I had observed and noted them. Another not less legitimate cause of delay arose from a long and dangerous illness which seized me some months after my arrival in France, and exhausted the strength which was left me by the long continued fatigues and privations of a seventeen months’ journey over those burning sands so frequently fatal to our European travellers. To these causes must also be added the extent of my materials, my want of initiation into the art of composition in the most difficult and delicate of languages, and the resolution I had formed to avoid having recourse to a more experienced pen, except for the correction of those errors of style which would naturally escape mine; for I was desirous of offering to the public a composition as entirely my own as the observations on which it was founded; a composition which, however deficient in studied elegance, should at least be simple, clear, and frank, describing the exact extent of my travels and exhibiting the traveller under his peculiar traits. With regret I acknowledge that important observations upon the political and religious institutions, and upon the manners and customs of the people amongst whom I have sojourned, will not be found here; even had my prior studies directed my mind to this species of reflections, the scanty resources at my disposal, and the consequent necessity of a rapid passage, did not permit my residence in any place for a sufficient length of time to furnish a solid foundation for such researches. My principal object was to collect carefully and accurately all the facts, of whatsoever nature, which fell under my inspection, and especially to notice whatever appeared conducive to the improvement of geography and of our commerce with Africa.
A long stay in our establishments of Senegal, and perhaps also, my own experience, had taught me how much this commerce, which, had so long languished, needed new markets and new connections in the interior; but to form these new connections, to impose on the distant population a tribute to our industry, new discoveries were necessary; and increased geographical knowledge was indispensable to enable the government to extend sufficient encouragement to our mercantile establishments on the coast. A strong persuasion of this necessity, of this urgent need, under which our African commerce labours, became in a manner the soul of my inquiries, particularly in a certain portion of my travels. I was convinced that our colonial and all our commercial relations must sooner or later be powerfully influenced by clear and positive information, drawn from the fountain head, and deposited with the government of a king, the zealous and enlightened protector of interests so important, and so nearly affecting, at the present period, the prosperity, and perhaps even, the internal tranquillity of the kingdom.
Have I been fortunate enough to realize in this respect the wishes I had formed, the hopes which, in common with my former compatriots of Senegal, I had dared to conceive, of fulfilling this part of the task which I undertook, and of thus paying my tribute to the government of my country? Let my natural judges, with whom the fruits of my researches are deposited, and let the success of future enterprizes, incited by mine, answer this question for me. It is not for me to estimate the progress which geographical and natural science may owe to my travels. I must leave it to be appreciated by those who so worthily represent them in the capital of the civilized world, and the possession of whose knowledge and talents would have been so delightful, and above all so useful to me, when day after day I found myself alone and left to my own feeble resources in a world as yet unknown to, and unexplored by curious and scientific Europe. Armed with the knowledge and the instruments for which we are indebted to them, I might have hoped to have more fully accomplished the wishes of the Geographical Society, and to have rendered myself more deserving of the flattering and benevolent reception which it has granted me, and of the distinction and rewards which its descriminating patriotism decrees to those who record its efforts; of that Society which, with so much zeal and success, prosecutes the extension of science, and which, by the encouragement it held out to those who should explore the central regions of Africa, confirmed my opinion of the importance of such travels, and determined me in the plan which I had already formed of one day attempting the discovery of Timbuctoo.
In paying this just homage to the Geographical Society, I must not omit one of its most distinguished members, M. Jomard, President of the Central Committee and Member of the Institute, who, since my arrival in France, has without intermission honoured me with his valuable advice and his personal kindness, who has not disdained to unite his name with mine, and has so largely contributed to any success with which this narrative may be honoured, by enriching it with a map founded upon my notes, and with geographical disquisitions upon a continent, the study of which has long been familiar to him, both as a traveller and as a writer. I request him to accept this public testimony of my warmest gratitude.
CONTENTS OF THE SECOND VOLUME.
Departure for Timbuctoo on the 13th of March — Description of the banks of the river — Slaves released from their chains — Populous villages — Vessels of from sixty to eighty tons burthen — Branch of the river forming a large island — Mode of building canoes — Villages of Banan — Character of the Mandingoes — Description of Lake Debo — Islands called St. Charles, Henry, and Maria-Theresa.
Tongom, a village in the country of the Dirimans — Co — Do — Sa, a commercial port — Mercantile flotillas — The Soorgoos or Tooariks, a nomadic and predatory tribe — Baraconga — Lelel — Garfola — Filinsa — Baracondié — Tircy — Liquor made from the kondoo — Alcodia, the Diriman capital — Customs of the inhabitants — Salacoila — Cora — Coratoo — Separation of the river into two branches — Arrival at Cabra, the port of Timbuctoo — Description of the place.
Journey from Cabra to Timbuctoo — First view of the city — The Kissoors — The king grants the traveller an audience — Condition of the slaves — Description of the city, its buildings, extent, and commerce — Food and dress of the people — Bousbéhey, a city of the Zawats — Toudeyni — Tribe of Salah — Terror inspired by the Tooariks — Description of that tribe — The Jinbalas — Particulars respecting the fate of Major Laing — Reflexions on the means of penetrating to the centre of Africa.
Departure from Timbuctoo on the 4th of May, 1828 — Caravan of six hundred camels — Entrance of the desert — Suffocating heat — The caravan falls in with the Tooariks — Manner in which the Arabs direct their course in the desert — Aspect of Sahara, like the bed of a sea without water — Details respecting the caravans — The place where Major Laing was assassinated — El-Arawan, a city in the desert: its springs, population, and trade — Information respecting Tawât and Walet — Caravan of four hundred camels — Disheartening effect of the view of endless sands.
Violence of the east winds — Pillars of sand — Scarcity of water — Deplorable situation of the caravan — Hills of loose sand — Rocks of granite — Wells of Telig — Toudeyni, rich salt mines — Thistle of the desert — Vexations and persecutions of the Moors, their intolerance — Wells of Cramès — Wells of Trases or Trarzas — Trajacant Moors.
Wells of Amoul-Gragin — Enormous serpents — High sand-hills called Helk — Wells of Amoul-Taf — Hills of various-coloured granite — Wells of el-Ekseif; very good water — Wells called Marabouty, el-Guedea, Mayara, and Sibicia — High and steep mountains, defiles and precipices — A severe fall — Encampment of Sidi-Aly — El-Harib — The Berbers. Tatta — Description of the country at el-Harib, customs; the tribes who inhabit it.
Country of el-Drah — Zawât — el-Hamid — Bounou — Town of Mimcina — Camp of Berbers — Tabelbât — The Tawâts — Wells of Yeneguedel, of Faratissa, of Bohayara — Customs of the Berbers — Wells of Goud-Zenaga, of Zenatyia — Town of el-Yabo — Wells of Chanerou, of Nyela — Arrival at Tafilet — Town of Ghourland — Market — Ressaut, the residence of a Governor under the Emperor of Morocco.
Description of Tafilet and its commerce — Flourishing state of agriculture and industry — Miserable condition of the Jews; their habits and customs — Afilé — Gardens — Taneyara, Marca, M’Dyara, Rahaba — Chains of granite mountains — Small river of Guigo — L’Eyarac, Tamaroc, Kars, Ain-Zeland, L’Eksebi — Very high mountains covered with cork-trees — L’Quin — Guigo — Town of Soforo — Town of el-Fez, or Fez, the ancient capital of Morocco.
Description of el-Fez — Markets, monuments, gardens, police — Mequinaz — Inhospitality — Arm of the sea called Sbo — Arbata or Rabata or Rabat, the ancient Sallee — Visit to the Consular Agent — The traveller avoids the camp of the Emperor of Morocco — Writes to the Vice Consul M. Delaporte — Larache — Arrives at Tangier 7th of September, almost dying, emaciated by want, fatigue, and fever — Generous reception of M. Delaporte — Anxiety of the traveller — Is introduced by night and concealed by the Consul — M. Delaporte obtains from the naval commander of the Cadiz station a vessel to convey him to France.
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