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Updated: June 3, 2025
Have determined again to pursue the Kanou route. The forty slaves brought by the Touaricks and the Tibboo have been all sold to the Souafah. The Tibboo sold his for twenty dollars per head. The ten dollars per head tax on them put the Rais in possession of a little ready money, and his Excellency paid me back the hundred Tunisian piastres.
They bring their sable brethren, of the same flesh and blood, and barter them away for trumpery beads, coarse paper, and cloth, &c. They little think, that for such trifles, what miseries they inflict upon their helpless brethren! A Kanou merchant, in a friendly manner, recommended me not to go to Soudan, adding, "The Touaricks of Aheer would butcher me because I was a Christian."
I seem, indeed, to get on better with the people, their prejudices apparently are beginning to give way; I shall be able to open the way for some other person. The father of one of my young friends has been now twelve years in Kanou; when he returns he brings a fortune. Speaking to the Rais of the Ghadamsee people, I asked him what they did for soldiers before the Turks came?
The Soudanese merchants gave me some account of the reigning Sultans. Ali is the Sultan of Succatou, and succeeded the famous Bello, to whom Clapperton was dispatched in his last mission. Daboo is the Sultan of Kanou, and Ghareema, Sultan of Kashna, but both subjected to the Succatou Sultan.
This is ingeniously made out by the merchants of Tripoli and Morocco, the subjects of the two Sultans, being obliged to pay black-mail in passing through the Saharan districts of the Touaricks. Some of the ill-natured are continually magnifying the dangers of the route of Kanou, and one present said, "You can't go, there are thousands of Touaricks to block up your way."
To proceed to Soudan, Kanou, and Noufee, and then descend the Niger to the Bight of Benin. This would be a fine journey, and perhaps not attended with any very great difficulties. 5th. To proceed to Soudan, as above, thence along the upper banks of the Niger to Timbuctoo, and return viâ Mogador in Morocco. This I believe the most perilous of all the routes.
They are sent to Asoudee, where there is a caravan just arrived from Kanou. Among the persons composing it are some Mourzuk people, who will take charge of the despatches. This caravan stays a few days in Asoudee, when it will leave direct for Mourzuk, and arrive at this latter city in the course of two months and a-half.
A great part of the slaves, elephants' teeth, and senna which daily arrive here, are not for sale in Ghat, but are sent direct from Soudan to Tripoli by the correspondents of the Ghadamsee merchants at Kanou. The Ghat Souk is nearly closed, all the slaves are sold, and some of the people are thinking about returning. 28th. Rose early and better in health.
Dickson, but neglected to be sent until the caravan had left Ghadames. The instruments, which could easily have been procured in Tripoli, were of the greatest consequence, in making a more extended tour intelligible. 3rd. Kanou, being reported by all the merchants as "a country of fever," it would have been exceedingly imprudent for me to have gone further without a good stock of medicines.
From recent conversations, it appears there is no great danger in attempting Timbuctoo, but I have resolved on the route of Kanou, because my object is not so much a journey of discovery, as to collect a statistical account of the slave-trade, and see whether there are any practicable legitimate means for extinguishing the odious traffic.
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