Notes taken during travels in Africa / By the late John Davidson.

  • John Davidson
Date:
1839
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Notes taken during travels in Africa / By the late John Davidson. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    ‘For four days we neither ate nor drank, and have sworn by all that is sacred to be revenged. Whenever the Harib are to be found, in their tents or on the road, our tribe shall plunder and kill them. : ** As regards the property of the Tibbib, if any articles remain in the hands of the Tajacanths, they will reach you. God knows how much we have grieved about him, but, God be praised, we did not leave anything undone for the safety of the Tibbib. We did not think the Harib would turn traitors to any person sent by us. This has been done by the traders of Tafilélt, who had bribed the Harib to kill him. God’s will be done: the facts will be known when the two horsemen return, whom we have despatched to Tajacanth, and which will be sent to you.—Peace.”’ “© Mogadore, 14th February, 1837. ‘¢ Str,—I had the melancholy duty, on the 1st instant, to make you acquainted with the distressing intelligence which had reached me regarding Mr. Davidson. I am grieved at heart to inform you that all the accounts I have received since confirm the melancholy tidings. “The most circumstantial account I have heard, I derived from a Jew trader of the name of Jacob Ben Cohen, who arrived here from Draha on the 2d instant, and re- ported to me that Mr. Davidson had been robbed on the 29th or 30th of Shaban* (thirty-two or thirty-three days after Mr. Davidson started from Wadnoon), by the tribes of Idowlet and Ait Atta, in the district of Hameda, four days’ journey from Tatta, who, receiving from Mr. Davidson eight doubloons and one hundred dollars, and a loaded camel, allowed the party, consisting of eighteen persons, to proceed on their route towards Timbuctoo; Wold Hamdan+ and Eborria, of Idowlet, and Wold Henna aud Wold Aboo, of the tribe of Ait Atta,{ he mentioned as the names of the robbers. My informant stated, that, eight or ten days after, a marauding party of 100 horsemen of the tribe of El Harib, who were returning from plundering a place called Bous- beyah,§ met Mr. Davidson’s party a little to the south of Egueda, whom they imme- diately robbed, and shot Mr. Davidson, who received eight balls, and when dead, every one discharged their muskets at his body as a meritorious act. At El Mehamdee,|| a town distant six days from Tatta,4] where my informant was living, he saw in the pos- session of the Arabs and Jews various articles which had belonged to Mr. Davidson, * Sha’ban, the eighth month; a.u. 1252, 29 Sha’ban = 8 December, 1836, + Wold or Auléd Hamdan, an Arab tribe. t Ait-Ata. § Bu Sebé-iyah (a place) belonging to the tribe of Abu Seba. M. D’Avezac writes Buzebayat, following probably Ibnu-ddén: an unsafe guide. || El Mohammedi, the Mahometan. 4 The situation of Tata has been determined with great probability by M. D’Avezac, in his Etudes de Géographie sur l’Afrique Septentrionale. See also Bullétin de la Société de Géographie, vii. 112.
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