and under an unclouded sky, fuch long feafons of drought as Egypt experiences would render it an arid and barren defert, were it not for the fertilizing waters of the Nile. Some defcriptions of Egypt would lead us to think that the Nile, when it fwells, lays the whole province under water. The lands adjoining immediately to the banks of the river are indeed laid under water; but the natural inequality of the ground hinders it from overflowing the interior country. A great part of the lands would therefore remain barren, were not canals and refervoirs formed to receive water from the river when at its greatest height, which is thus conveyed everywhere through the fields, and referved for watering them when occafion requires. The beft part, therefore, of Egyptian agriculture, is the watering of their grounds. The water which the hufbandman needs is often in a canal, much beneath the level of the land which he means to moiften. The water he must therefore raise to an equality with the furface of the grounds, and distribute over them as it is wanted. The great art of Egyptian hufbandry is thus reduced to the having proper machines for raifing the water, and enough of fmall canals judicioufly difpofed to diftribute it. Thofe machines are commonly very fimple; a wheel with buckets forms their whole mechanifm The largest are moved by oxen; the fmaller by the ftrength of the arm. It is not easy to fee how the Egyptians have come to be fo much celebrated for the ingenuity of their machines. Thefe are not of the invention of the modern Egyptians, but have been used for time imme. morial, without receiving the flighteft improvement. Their inftruments of husbandry are very bad. Their plough, which they call Marha, is no better than that of the Arabians, of which I fhall hereafter have occafion to fpeak. To fmooth the ground, they ufe a tree or a thick plank, drawn by oxen yoked with cords. The driver fits upon this machine; for the Egyptian peafants are not fond of walking. They ufe oxen, as the antients did, to beat out their corn, by trampling upon the fheaves, and dragging after them a clumfy implement. This machine is not (as in Arabia) a stonecylinder, nor a plank with fharp ftones (as in Syria) but a fort of fledge, confifting of three rollers fitted with irons, which turn upon axles. A farmer chooses out a level fpot in his fields, and has his corn carried thither in fheaves, upon affes or dromedaries. Two oxen are then yoked in a fledge, a driver gets upon it, and drives them backwards and forwards upon the fheaves; and fresh oxen fucceed in the yoke, from time to time. By this operation the chaff is very much cut down. The whole is then winnowed, and the pure grain thus feparated. This mode of threshing out the corn is tedious and inconvenient; it deftroys the chaff, and injures the quality of the grain. I faw no wheeled carriages in Egypt; every thing is conveyed backwards and forwards on camels or affes. When the canal of Cairo was to be cleanfed, a peafant brought two oxen drawing a fort of open tray on the dry ground; and when it was filled, led them with it to the bank. Within the city, where the bottom of the canal was not dry, the the perfons employed in cleanfing it, threw duft from the street upon the mire in the canal, and then, with their hands, into panniers upon affes, and thus removed it to a proper diftance. Such is the boafted induftry of the Egyptians. I have feen neither wind nor water-mill here. A few large mills there are, which are moved, by oxen turning a poft that forms the axle-tree of a large wheel. The poorer people have only hand-mills to grind their corn; and these they ufe alfo in breaking the beans with which the affes are fed. Recourfe is had to the impreffion of the elements in the management of no other machine. Oxen are employed in working the oilmills, faffron-preffes, &c. Among the different manufactures of Egypt, that of faffron merits particular notice; the procefs by which the Egyptians prepare this article gives it a livelier colour than what is made elsewhere. THE his knowledge extended) by that of London and Cairo: and, in his rude unlettered way, he defcribed the government as monarchical, yet not unlimited; its juftice as fevere, but directed by written laws; and the rights of landed property as guarded by the inftitution of certain hereditary officers, whofe functions appear to be fimilar to the Canongoes of Hindoftan, and whofe important and complicated duties imply an unusual degree of civilization and refinement. "For the probity of their merchants he expreffed the higheft refpect; but remarked with indignation that the women were admitted to fociety, and that the honour of the hufband was often infecure. "Of their written alphabet he knew no more than that it was perfectly different from the Arabic and Hebrew characters; but he defcribed the art of writing as very common in Houffà. When he acted the manner in which their pottery is made, he gave, unknowingly to himself, a reprefentation of Account of fome New Discoveries in the the ancient Grecian wheel. An Arab of the name of Shabeni excited the attention of the Com mittee of this fociety, by the account he gave of an empire on the banks of the Niger: for he faid, "That the population of Houffa, its capital, where he refided two years, was equalled only (fo far as "In paffing to Houffa from Tombuctoo, in which laft city he refided feven years, he found the banks of the Niger more numeroufly peopled than thofe of the Nile from Alexandria to Cairo; and his mind was obvioufly impreffed with higher ideas of the wealth and grandeur of the empire of Houtla, than of thofe of any kingdom he had seen, England alone excepted." The exiftence of this city and empire was confirmed by letters from the English confuls at Tunis and Morocco; who added, that the eunuchs of the feraglio at thofe places, were brought from the city of Houffa. In order to investigate the truth The people are diftinguished, not divided, into two fects with regard to religion, Mahommedans and Deifts. The former are called Buflreens, and the latter, from their drinking with freedom wine and liquor, which Mohammed prohibited, are called Sonikees, or drinking men. of thefe accounts, and to explore the origin and courfe of the Niger, Major Houghton, who, in 1779, had acted under General Rooke as Fort Major in the ifland of Goree, undertook to penetrate to that river by the way of the Gambia. He was inftructed to afcertain the courfe, and if poflible the rife and termination, of the Niger, and to vifit the cities of Tombuctoo and Houffa. The Major left England on the 16th of October, 1790, arrived at the entrance of the Gambia on the 10th of November, and was well received by the king of Barra, whom he had formerly vifited. He proceeded thence up the river to Junkiconda, where the English have a fmall factory. Here he purchafed a horfe and five affes, and prepared to pafs with his merchandize to Medina, the capital of the final kingdom of Woolli. From fome words accidentally dropped by, a negro-woman in the Mundingo language, he learnt that a confpiracy had been formed against his life by fome traders, who feared that his expedition portended the ruin of their commerce; he therefore fwam with his horfe and afles across the Gambia, and proceeded, though with much difficulty, on the fide oppofite to that which is ufually the route, to the district of Cantor, where he repafled the river, and was hofpitably entertained by the king of Woolli, at his capital Me dina. This town is fituated about 900 miles by water from the entrance of the Gambia. The country abounds with corn, cattle, and all things requifite for the fupport, or effential to the comforts, of life. VOL. XXXIV. The Major's dispatches to the Society from this place were loft; but in a letter to his wife, which a feaman preferved from the wreck of the veel, he defcribes his fituation as extremely agreeable,-the country healthy, the people hofpitable, game abundant; and he could make his excurfions on horfeback in fecurity. Above all, he indulges in the idea of the advantages that would attend the English by erecting a fort on the falubrious and beautiful hill of Fatetenda, where they once had a factory; and expreffes a hope that his wife will hereafter accompany him to a place in which an income of ten pounds a-year will fupport them in affluence; and where, from commerce, he imagines vaft wealth may be obtained. While he was here waiting for a native merchant, whofe company he had engaged for the further profecution of his journey, the greater part of Medina was deftroyed by fire, and with it feveral articles of merchandize, to which he trufted for defraying his expences. At the fame time his interpreter difappeared with his horfe and three of his affes; and to add to his miffortunes, a trade-gun, that he purchafed on the river, burft and wounded him in the face and arm. The inhabitants of the neighbouring town of Barraconda on this occation cheerfully opened Сс their houfes RHODES HOUSE OXFORD houfes to more than a thousand fa- On the 8th of May the Major proceeded on foot, in company with a flave-merchant, whose fervants drove his two remaining affes, which carried the wreck of his fortune; and journeying by a north-eaft course, he arrived in five days at the uninhabited frontier which feparates the kingdoms of Woolli and Bondou. A journey of 150 miles through a country before unvifited by Europeans, of which the population is numerous and extenfive, and where his companion traded in every town, conducted him to the fouthwestern boundary of the kingdom of Bambouk. This kingdom is inhabited by a nation whose woolly hair and fable complexions denote them to be of the negro race: but their character feems to be varied in proportion as the country rifes from the plains of its western divifion to the highlands on the eaft. The people are here, as in the kingdoms of Woolli and Bondou, diftinguished by the tenets of Mohammedans and Deifts; but they are equally at peace with each other, and mutually tolerate the refpective opinions they condemn. Agriculture and pafturage are the chief occupations of this people; but they have made fufficient progrefs in the arts to fmelt their iron ore, and fabricate from it the feveral inftruments of husbandry and war. Cloth of cotton, which feems to be univerfally worn, they appear to weave by a difficult and laborious procefs; and hence probably it is, that the measure of value is not, iron, but a piece of cloth. The as on the Atlantic coaft, a bar of vegetable food of the inhabitants is rice; their animal, beef and mut ton. mented honey fupplies the place of A drink prepared from ferwine, and furnishes the means of feftive entertainments, which conftitute the principal luxury of the court of Bambouk. river Falemé, which feparates the Major Houghton arrived at the kingdoms of Bondou and Bambouk, juft at the termination of a war bethe former had obtained, the ceftween thofe kingdoms; by which fion of fome part of the low lands belonging to the latter; and in thefe conquefts the King of Bondou refided. pay his refpects to the victorious The Major haftened to prince, and offer him a prefent; but he met with an ungracious reception. He was permitted to leave the prefent; but ordered to repair to the frontier town from whence he came; and the next day the King's fon, with an armed attendance, entered the house where he had taken up his abode, and took from him fuch articles as he chofe; particularly a blue coat, in which the Major hoped to have been introduced to the Sultan of Tombuctoo. Major Houghton next fet out on but unfortunately loft his way in a vifit to the King of Bambouk; one of the vaft woods of that country; and the wet feafon having commenced on the 4th of July, he was obliged to pals the night on ground deluged by rain, while the ky exhibited that continued blaze of lightning which in those latitudes often accompanies the tornado. This brought on a fever; and it' was with great difficulty that he reached reached the capital of Bambouk, after wading through the river Serra Coles, or River of Gold, on the eastern fide of which it is fituated. On his arrival at this town, which is called Ferbanna, his fever rose to a height that rendered him delirious; but by the ftrength of his conftitution, and the kindness of the negro family to which he was conducted, he foon recovered. From the King of Bambouk the Major met with a friendly reception; and he informed him, that the loffes which he had fuftained in the war with Bondou, arofe from his having exhaufted his ammunition; the French having abandoned the Fort of St. Jofeph, and, from fome caufe or other, deferted the navigation of the upper part of the Senegal, he had no means of replenishing his ftores; whereas his enemy received from the English, through the channel of his agents on the Gambia, a conftant and ade quate fupply. The Major took this opportunity of representing to the King the advantage of encouraging the English to open a trade, by the way of his domínions, to the populous cities on the banks of the Niger. This negotiation was put a stop to by the commencement of an annual festival, at which the people fend prefents of mead to the King, which are followed by intemperate feftivity for several days. During this the Major agreed with an old and refpectable merchant of Bambouk, who offered to carry him to Tombuctoo, and bring him back to the Gambia, for 1251. to be paid at their return by the British factory at Junkiconda. This plan was much approved of by the King, to whom the merchant was perfonally known; and, as a mark of his esteem, and pledge of future friendship, he prefented Major Houghton at parting with a purfe of gold. With an account of his preparations for this journey the Major clofes his dispatch of the 24th of July; and as no further advices had been received from him by his correfpondent on the Gambia (Dr. Laidley) on the 22d of December laft, the writer of this narrative concludes that he had defcended the eastern hills of Bambouk, and proceeded on his journey to Tombuctoo. |