BORNOU. 



73o 



Bornou. 



Religion. 



Govern- 

 ment. 



Method of 



electing 

 their kings. 



Bad conse. 

 quences of 

 this mode 

 of election. 



skilled. The sultan of Bornou, and his court, profess 

 the Mahometar faith ; but the majority of the people 

 adhere to the idolatrous superstitions of their fathers. 



The monarchy, as in the empire of Bathna, is 

 elective ; but the election is confined to the royal 

 family. On the death of a sovereign, the privilege 

 of chusing a successor among his sons, without re- 

 gard to priority of birth, is conferred by the na- 

 tion on three of the most distinguished men, whose 

 age and character for wisdom are denoted by their 

 title of elders, and whose conduct has entitled them to 

 the public esteem. Limited in their choice by no 

 other restriction than the necessity of electing the 

 most worthy, they retire to an appointed place, the 

 avenues to which are carefully guarded by the peo- 

 ple ; and during their deliberations, the princes are 

 confined in separate chambers of the palace. When 

 their choice is determined, they proceed to the apart- 

 ment of the sovereign elect, and conduct him in si- 

 lence to the place where the corpse of his father, 

 which cannot be interred till this awful ceremony is 

 passed, awaits his arrival. There they expatiate 

 freely on the character of his departed parent, and 

 conclude with this awful warniug, " You see before 

 you the end of your mortal career ; the eternal which 

 succeeds to it, will be miserable or happy, in propor- 

 tion as your reign shall have proved a curse or a bles- 

 sing to your people." The new sovereign is then 

 brought back to the palace, amidst the loud acclama- 

 tions of the multitude, and is invented by the electors 

 with all the slaves, and two-thirds of all the lands and 

 cattle of his father ; the remaining third being al- 

 ways kept as a provision for the other children of the 

 deceased monarch. ' 



Fatal dissensions in the royal family, arc the almost 

 inevitable consequences of this mode of election. As 

 soon as the sovereign is invested with the ensigns of 

 royalty, such of his brothers as have reached the age 

 of manhood, prostrate themselves at his feet, and rising, 

 press his hands to their lips in testimony of their alle- 



fiance. If their sincerity be doubted, either by the 

 ing or the elders, they are either removed by death, 

 or doomed to perpetual imprisonment : when they are 

 not suspected, they receive from the reigning monarch 

 a liberal allotment of lands and cattle from the pos- 

 sessions of their father, together with presents of 

 slaves. Such of the princes as are too young to re- 

 ceive their proper portion of their father's property, 

 are educated in the palace, till they arrive at the years 

 of maturity, at which time their respective shares of 

 land and cattle are assigued them. It often happens, 

 however, that the most popular, or the most ambi- 

 tious of the rejected princes, veiling his designs under 

 the affectation of zealous attachment, creates a pow- 

 erful party, and, assured of foreign aid, prepares in se- 

 cret the means of revolt. " But stained with such 

 kindred blood," says the writer who has drawn up 

 the account of Bornou from Mr Lucas's communi- 

 cations, " the sceptre of the victorious rebel is not 

 lastingly secure one revolution invites and facilitates 

 another ; and till the slaughter of the field, the sword 

 of the executioner, or the knife of the assassin, has 

 left him without a brother, the throne of the sove- 

 reign is seldom firmly established." 



In Bornou, as in every Mahometan empire, the 



2 



administration of the provinces is committed to go- 

 vernors appointed by the crown ; and the expences of 

 the sovereign are defrayed partly from his hereditary 

 lands, and partly by taxes levied on the people. The 

 monarch of Bornou is not, like the sovereign of many 

 neighbouring kingdoms, the .executioner of the cri- 

 minals whom his own voice has condemned ; but com- 

 mits the care of executions to the cadi, who directs 

 his slaves to strike off the head of the prisoner. 



The military force of this empire consists chiefly 

 of cavalry, armed with the sabre, the lance, the pike, 

 and the bow, and defended by shields of hides. 

 Fire arms, though not entirely unknown to them, are 

 too difficult to be procured for common use. When 

 the sultan levies an army for the purpose of taking 

 the field, he is said to have a custom of causing a 

 date tree to be placed as a threshold to one of the 

 gates of his capital, and commanding his horsemen to 

 enter the town one by one, that the parting of the 

 tree in the middle, when worn through by the tramp- 

 ling of the horses, may serve as a signal that the 

 levy is complete. 



The inhabitants of Bornou, though composing so 

 many different nations, are alike in their appearance, 

 having a black complexion, but features different 

 from those of the negroes. Their dress consists of 

 a girdle for the waist, a turban, consisting of a red 

 woollen cap, surrounded by folds of cotton, together 

 with a loose robe of coloured cotton, of a coarser 

 kind. 



The only manufactures known in Bornou are coarse 

 linen, made from the hemp of the country, and cal- 

 licoes and muslins woven in pieces of about nine 

 inches in breadth, and varying in length from fifteen 

 to twenty yards. These cotton manufactures, when 

 enriched with the blue dye of the country, whicli is 

 preferable to that of the East Indies, are valued more 

 highly than silk. They also manufacture a species 

 of carpet, which they use as a covering for their 

 horses ; and a coarse cloth from wool, mixed with 

 the hair of goats and camels, of which they make 

 tents for the use of the army. The little silver they 

 have is converted by their own artists into rings ; 

 and from native iron ore they fabricate, though un- 

 skilfully, such tools as are employed in their rude 

 husbandry. Their articles of exportation are gold- 

 dust, slaves, horses, ostrich-feathers, salt, and civet ; 

 in return for which they receive copper and brass, 

 which arc brought to them from Tripoli, and are 

 used as the current species of Bornou ; imperial dol- 

 lars, which are likewise brought from Tripoli by the 

 merchants of Fezzan, and are converted by the ar- 

 tists of Bornou into rings and bracelets for their wo- 

 men; red woollen caps, which are worn under the 

 turban ; check linens ; light coarse woollen cloths ; 

 baize, barakans, small Turkey carpets, and plain 

 Mebiirata carpets. See Proceedings of the African 

 Association, chap. vi. and xii. ; Discoveries in Africa ; 

 and Browne's Travels in Africa, (k) . 



BORNOU, the capital of the above empire, is 

 situated about 600 miles south-east of Morzouk, 

 and 420 miles west of Sennaar. It is a town of greater 

 extent than Tripoli ; but the houses are so irregular- 

 ly placed, that the spaces between them have no ap- 

 pearance of streets. The king's palace, surrounded 



Military 

 force. 



Appear- 

 ance and 

 dress of 

 the inha- 

 bitants. 



Manufac- 

 tures and 

 commerce. 



