INTERIOR COUNTRIES OF AFRICA. 179 



peregrinations, which began February 1, 1790, terminated at Mesu- 

 rata on February 7. 



'Deprived of visiting Fezzan, and the other inland districts of Af- 

 rica, Mr. Lucas solicited the information of his fellow travellers, and 

 transmitted to the society the result of his conferences with a shereef 

 Imhammed, who described the kingdom of Fezzan to be a small cir- 

 cular domain, placed in a vast wilderness, as an island in the midst of 

 the ocean, containing near a hundred towns and villages, of which 

 Mourzook is the capital, distant, south from Mesurata, about three 

 hundred and ninety miles. In this kingdom are to be seen some ve- 

 nerable remains of ancient magnificence, some districts of remarka- 

 ble fertility, and numerous smoking lakes, producing a species of 

 fossil alkali called irona.' We shall presently give a more circumstan- 

 tial and authentic account of this country, from the description of it 

 by Mr. Horneman, a later traveller under the patronage of the Afri- 

 can society, who was at Mourzook, and resided there several months 

 in the years 1798 and 1799. 



' The narrative proceeds to state, that south-east of Mourzook, at 

 the distance of one hundred and fifty miles, is a sandy desert, two 

 hundred miles wide; beyond which are the mountains of Tibesti, 

 inhabited by ferocious savages, tributary to Fezzan. The vallies be- 

 tween the mountains are said to be fertilised by innumerable springs, 

 to abound with corn, and to be celebrated for their breed of camels. 

 The tribute of the Tibestins to the king of Fezzan is twenty camel- 

 loads of senna. 



' This kingdom is inconsiderable, when compared with the two 

 great empires of Bornou and Cashna, or Kassina, which lie south of 

 Fezzan, occupying that vast region which spreads itself from the 

 river of the Antelopes for twelve hundred miles westward, and in- 

 cludes a great part of the Niger's course. Cashna, or Kassina, we 

 are informed, contains a thousand towns and villages ; and in Bornou, 

 which is still more considerable, thirty languages are said to be 

 spoken. The latter is represented as a fertile and beautiful country ; 

 its capital being situated within a day's journey of the river Wod-el- 

 Gazel, which is lost in the sandy waters of the vast desert of Bilma, 

 and is inhabited by herdsmen, dwelling, like the old patriarchs, in 

 tents, and whose wealth consists in their cattle.* (Bornou, or Beetnoa, 

 is a word signifying the land of Noah ; for the Arabs conceive, that, 

 on the retiring of the deluge, its mountains received the ark.) Though 

 they cultivate various sorts of grain, the use of the plough is unknown ; 

 and the hoe is the only instrument of husbandry. Here grapes, apri- 

 cots, and pomegranates, together with limes and lemons, and two 

 species of melons, the water and the musk, are produced in large 

 abundance ; but one of the most valuable of its vegetables is a tree 

 called kedeyna, which in form and height resembles the olive, is like 

 the lemon in its leaf, and bears a nut, of which the kernel and the 

 shell are both in great estimation, the first as a fruit, the last on ac- 

 count of the oil which it furnishes when bruised, and which supplies 

 the lamps of the people of Bornou with a substitute for the oil of 

 olives (p. 133.) Bees, it is added, are so numerous, that the wax is 

 often thrown away as an article of no value in the market. Many 



* Horses and horne'l cattle, goats, sheep, and camels, are the common animal?, 

 a: the country. 



