The Martyrdom of Man by Winwood Reade (mini ebook reader .TXT) π
The Egyptians were islanders, cut off from the rest of the world by sand and sea. They were rooted in their valley; they lived entirely upon its fruits, and happily these fruits sometimes failed. Had they always been able to obtain enough to eat, they would have remained always in the semi-savage state.
It may appear strange that Egypt should have suffered from famine, for there was no country in the ancient world where food was so abundant and so cheap. Not only did the land produce enormous crops of corn; the ditches and hollows which were filled by the overflowing Nile supplied a harvest of wholesome and nourishing aquatic plants, and on the borders of the des
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The Tuaricks of the Sudan were merely the ruling casts, and were much
darkened by harem blood, but they communicated freely with their
brethren of the desert, who had dealings with the Berbers beyond the
Atlas. When the Andalusia of the Arabs became a polite civilised land
crowds of ingenious artisans, descended from the old Roman craftsmen
or from the Greek emigrants, or from their Arab apprentices, took
architecture over to North Africa. The city of Morocco was filled with
magnificent palaces and mosques; it became the metropolis of an
independent kingdom; it was called the Baghdad of the west; its doctors
were as learned as the doctors of Cordova, its musicians as skilful as the
musicians of Seville. A wealthy and powerful Morocco could not exist
without its influence being felt across the desert; the position of Timbuktu
in reference to Morocco was precisely that of Meroe to Memphis or to
Thebes. The Sahara, it is true, is much wider across from Morocco to
Timbuktu than from Egypt to Ethiopia, but the introduction of camels
brought the Atlas and the Niger near to one another. The Tuaricks, who
had previously lived on horses, under whose bellies they tied water-bottles of leather when they went on a long journey, had been able to
cross the desert only at certain seasons of the year; but now, with the aid
of the camel, which they at once adopted and from which they bred the
famous Mehara strain, they could cross the Sahara at its widest part in a
few days. A regular trade was established between the two countries, and
was conducted by the Berbers. Arab merchants, desirous of seeing with
their own eyes the wondrous land of ivory and gold, took passage in the
caravans, crossed the yellow seas, sprang from their camels upon the
green shores of the Sudan, and kneeling on the banks of the Niger with
their faces turned towards Mecca, dipped their hands in its waters and
praised the name of the Lord. They journeyed from city to city and from
court to court, and composed works of travel which were read with eager
delight all over the Moslem world, from Spain to Hindustan.
The Arabs thronged to this newly discovered world. They built factories;
they established schools; they converted dynasties. They covered the
river with masted vessel; they built majestic temples with graceful
minaret and swelling dome. Theological colleges and public libraries
were founded; camels came across the desert laden with books; the
negroes swarmed to the lectures of the mullahs; Plato and Aristotle were
studied by the banks of the Niger, and the glories of Granada were
reflected at Timbuktu. That city became the refuge of political fugitives
and criminals from Morocco. In the sixteenth century the Emperor
dispatched across the desert a company of harquebusiers who, with their
strange, terrible weapons, everywhere triumphed like the soldiers of
Cortes and Pizarro in Mexico and Peru. These musketeers made
enormous conquests not for their master but for themselves. They
established an oligarchy of their own; it was afterwards dethroned by the
natives, but there yet exist men who, as Barth informs us, are called the
descendants of the musketeers and who wear a distinctive dress. But that
imperial expedition was the last exploit of the Moors. After the conquest
of Granada by the Christians and of Algeria by the Turks, Morocco,
encompassed by enemies, became a savage and isolated land; Timbuktu,
its commercial dependent, fell into decay, and is now chiefly celebrated
as a cathedral town.
The Arabs carried cotton and the art of its manufacture into the Sudan,
which is one of the largest cotton-growing areas in the world. Its
Manchester is Kano, which manufactures blue cloth and coloured plaids,
clothes a vast negro population, and even exports its goods to the lands of
the Mediterranean Sea. Denham and Clapperton, who first reached the
lands of Haoussa and Bornu, were astonished to find among the negroes
magnificent courts; regiments of cavalry, the horses caparisoned in silk
for gala days and clad in coats of mail for war; long trains of camels
laden with salt and natron and corn and cloth and cowrie shellsβwhich
form the currencyβand kola nuts, which the Arabs call βthe coffee of the
negroes.β They attended with wonder the gigantic fairs at which the
cotton goods of Manchester, the red cloth of Saxony, double-barrelled
guns, razors, tea and sugar, Nuremberg ware and writing-paper were
exhibited for sale. They also found merchants who offered to cash their
bills upon houses at Tripoli, and scholars acquainted with Avicenna,
Averroes, and the Greek philosophers.
The Mohammedan religion was spread in Central Africa to a great extent
by the travelling Arab merchants, who were welcomed everywhere at the
negro or semi-negro courts, and who frequently converted the pagan
kings by working miraclesβthat is to say, by means of events which
accidentally followed their solemn prayers, such as the healing of a
disease, rain in the midst of drought, or a victory in war. But the chief
instrument of conversion was the school. It is much to the credit of the
negroes that they keenly appreciate the advantages of education; they
appear to possess an instinctive veneration and affection for the book.
Wherever Mohammedans settled the sons of chiefs were placed under
their tuition. A Mohammedan quarter was established; it was governed
by its own laws; its sheikh rivalled in power and finally surpassed the
native kings. The machinery of the old pagan court might still go on; the
negro chief might receive the magnificent title of sultan; he might be
surrounded by albinos and dwarfs and big-headed men and buffoons; he
might sit in a cage, or behind a curtain in a palace with seven gates, and
receive the ceremonial visits of his nobles, who stripped off a garment at
each gate and came into his presence naked, and cowered on the ground,
and clapped their hands, and sprinkled their heads with dust, and then
turned round and sat with their backs presented in reverence towards him,
as if they were unable to bear the sight of his countenance shining like a
well-blacked boot. But the Arab or Moorish sheikh would be in reality
the king, deciding all questions of foreign policy, of peace and war, of
laws and taxes and commercial regulations, holding a position resembling
that of the Gothic generals who placed Libius Severus and Augustulus
upon the throneβof the mayors of the palace beside the Merovingian
princes, of the Companyβs servants at the court of the great Mogul. And
when the Mohammedans had become numerous, and a fitting season had
arrived, the sheikh would point out a well known Koran text and would
proclaim war against the surrounding pagan kings. And so the movement
which had been begun by the school would be continued by the sword.
It may, however, be doubted whether the Arab merchants alone would
have spread Islam over the Niger plateau. On the east coast of Africa
they have possessed settlements from time immemorial. Before the
Greeks of Alexandria sailed into the Indian Ocean, before the Tyrian
vessels, with Jewish supercargoes, passed through the straits of Bab-el-Mandeb, the Arabs of Yemen had established factories in Mozambique
and on the opposite coast of Malabar, and had carried on a trade between
the two lands, selling to the Indians ivory, ebony, slaves, bees-wax, and
gold-dust brought down in quills from the interior by the negroes, to
whom they sold in return the sugar beads, and blue cotton goods of
Hindustan. In the period of the caliphs these settlements were
strengthened and increased, in consequence of civil war, by fugitive tribes
from Oman and other parts of the Arabian peninsula. The emigrants
made Africa their home; they built large towns which they surrounded
with orchards of the orange-tree and plantations of the date; they
introduced the culture of tobacco, sugar-cane and cotton. They were
loved and revered by the negroes; they made long journeys into the
interior for the purposes of trade. Yet their religion has made no
progress, and they do not attempt to convert the blacks. Their towns
resemble those of the Europeans; they dwell apart from the natives, and
above them.
The Mohammedans who entered the Niger regions were not only the
Arab merchants but also the Berbers of the desert, who, driven by war or
instigated by ambition, poured into the Sudan by tribes, seized lands and
women, and formed mulatto nationalities. Of these the Fulahs are the
most famous. They were originally natives of Northern Africa; having
intermarried during many generations with the natives, they have often
the appearance of pure Negroes, but they always call themselves white
men, however black their skins may seem to be. In the last century they
were dispersed in small and puny tribes. Some wandered as gipsies
selling wooden bowls; others were roaming shepherd clans, paying
tribute to the native kings and suffering much ill-treatment. In other parts
they lived a bandit life. Sometimes, but rarely, they resided in towns
which they had conquered, pursued commerce, and tilled the soil. Yet in
war they were far superior to the Negroes: if only they could be united the
most powerful kingdoms would be unable to withstand them. And finally
their day arrived. A man of their own race returned from Mecca, a
pilgrim and a prophet, gathered them like wolves beneath his standard,
and poured them forth on the Sudan.
The pilgrimage to Mecca is incumbent only on those who can afford it,
but hundreds of devout Negroes every year put on their shrouds and beg
their way across the continent to Massowah. There, taking out a few
grains of gold-dust cunningly concealed between the leaves of their
Korans, they pay their passage across the Red Sea and tramp it from Jidda
to Mecca, feeding as they go on the bodies of the camels that have been
left to die, and whose meat is lawful if the throat is cut before the animal
expires. As soon as the Negroesβor Takrouri, as they are calledβarrive
in the Holy City they at once set to work, some as porters and some as
carriers of water in leather skins; others manufacture baskets and mats of
date leaves; others establish a market for firewood, which they collect in
the neighbouring hills. They inhabit miserable huts or ruined houses in
the quarter of the lower classes, where the sellers of charcoal dwell and
where locusts are sold by the measure. Some of these poor and
industrious creatures spread their mats in the cloisters of the great
Mosque, and stay all the time beneath that sacred and hospitable roof.
They are subject to the exclamatory fits and pious convulsions so
common among the Negroes of the Southern States. Often they may be
seen prostrate on the pavement, beating their foreheads against the stones,
weeping bitterly, and pouring forth the wildest ejaculations.
The Great Mosque at Mecca is a spacious square surrounded by a
colonnade. In the midst of the quadrangle is the small building called the
Caaba. It has no windows; its door, which is seldom opened, is coated
with silver; its padlock, once of pure gold, is now of silver gilt. On its
threshold are placed every night various small wax candles and
perfuming pans filled with aloeswood and musk. The walls of the
building are covered with a veil of black silk, tucked up on one side, so as
to leave exposed the famous Black Stone which is niched in the wall
outside. The veil is not fastened close to the building, so that the least
breath of air causes it to wave in slow, undulating movements, hailed
with prayer by the kneeling crowd around. They believe that it is caused
by the wings of guardian angels who will transport the Caaba to paradise
when the last trumpet sounds.
At a little distance from this building
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