Leo Africanus (33 page)

‘Two gold dinars and five silver dirhams! I have counted them over and over again, weighed them and shaken them. That's all that is left of my huge fortune, all I have left to cross the Sahara as far as the land of the Nile and to begin my life again!'

Hiba met my repeated lamentations with an inscrutable smile, mischievous, mocking and gentle at the same time, which only stirred up my anger.

‘Two gold dinars and five silver dirhams!' I cried again. ‘And not even an animal to ride, and no clothes to wear except for these which the journey has made filthy!'

‘And what about me, don't I belong to you? I'm certainly worth fifty pieces of gold, perhaps more.'

The wink which accompanied this remark emptied it of the slightest trace of servility, as well as the landscape in front of us which Hiba was indicating with a lordly air, a field of indigo plants on the banks of the river Dara, at the entrance to the village where she was born.

Some urchins were already running towards us, and then it was the turn of the chief of the tribe, black-skinned, with fine features, his face surrounded with a white beard, who recognized my companion immediately in spite of ten years' absence, and hugged her to him. He spoke to me in Arabic, saying that he was honoured to offer me the hospitality of his humble dwelling.

Hiba introduced him as her paternal uncle; as for me, I was her master, which was certainly true but of no significance in the circumstances. Was I not alone, impoverished, and surrounded by her people? I was about to say that as far as I was concerned she was no longer a slave, when she silenced me with a frown. Resigning myself to saying nothing further, I found myself taking part, with as much surprise as delight, in the most extraordinary scene.

I had gone with Hiba and her uncle into her uncle's house, and we were sitting in a long low room on a woollen carpet, around which about twenty people were assembled, the elders of the tribe, their expressions showing no rejoicing at the reunion they were supposed to celebrate.

Hiba began to speak. She described me as an important notable of Fez, well acquainted with the Law and with literature, described the circumstances in which she had been given to me by the lord of Ouarzazate, and gave a graphic and moving account of the snowstorm which had brought about my ruin, finishing with these words:

‘Rather than selling me to some passing merchant, this man undertook to bring me back to my village. I have sworn to him that he will not regret it.'

With an outrageous impudence, she called out to one of the elders:

‘You, Abdullah, how much are you ready to pay to buy me back?'

‘Your worth is beyond my means,' he answered in confusion. ‘But I can contribute ten dinars.'

She cast her eyes around the company, looking for her next victim:

‘And what about you, Ahmad?'

The one called Ahmad rebuked Abdullah disdainfully before declaring:

‘Thirty dinars, to cleanse the honour of the tribe.'

And she continued to go around the room in this fashion, cleverly making use of jealousies and quarrels between families and clans in order to obtain a larger contribution each time. The figures were
adding up in my head. My two wretched dinars became twelve, forty-two, ninety-two . . . The last person to be appealed to was Hiba's uncle, who, as chief of the tribe, had to vindicate his rank by going higher than the most generous of his subjects.

‘Two hundred dinars!' he called out proudly to the assembled company.

I could not believe my eyes, but in the evening, as I was lying down in the room where the chief had invited me to spend the night, Hiba came to see me with the entire amount, more than one thousand eight hundred dinars:

‘By the God which has made you so beautiful, Hiba, explain it to me! What on earth is this game? How can the people of this village have so much money? And furthermore, why should they give it to me?'

‘To buy me back!'

‘You know very well that they could obtain your freedom without handing over the smallest copper coin.'

‘To make amends as well.'

When I continued to show the most utter incomprehension, she finally condescended to explain:

‘For generations, my tribe were nomads on the west of the Sahara, until the time when my grandfather, enticed by the prospect of profit, began to cultivate indigo and sell it. Hence this village earns far more money than it needs to spend, and there is more gold buried in the ground under each little hut than in the finest residence in Fez. But, in choosing the sedentary life, my relatives lost all their warrior virtues. One day, when I was just coming to maturity . . .'

She sat down beside me, leaning her head back, before continuing:

‘A large number of us, young and old, men and women, had gone to make a pilgrimage to the tomb of a
wali
about a day's journey from here. Suddenly, some riders from the guard of the lord of Ouarzazate swooped down upon us. There were four of them, while there were about fifty of us, including more than twenty men bearing arms. But none of my companions thought of using them. All of them ran away without exception, giving each of the four horsemen the opportunity to carry off the girl of his choice. During the strange ceremony in which you have just taken part, the elders of the tribe have done no more than pay their debt, atoning for the shame of themselves and their sons.'

She rested her head on my shoulder:

‘You can take this money without shame or remorse. No other man deserves it as much as my beloved master.'

So saying, she had brought her lips close to mine. If my heart was thumping, my eyes glanced uneasily towards the thin curtain which separated us from the adjoining room where her uncle was.

Without the slightest embarrassment Hiba undid her dress; offering her carved ebony body to my gaze and my caresses, she whispered:

‘Until now, you have taken me as a slave. Today, take me as a free woman! For one last time.'

When I left Hiba, I had only one object in view: to find some memory of her in Timbuktu, perhaps even to find some trace of her in that room which witnessed our first kiss. The building was still there. Although it belonged to the ruler of the city who kept it for important visitors, a dinar served to open its doors for me. So that on the evening of my arrival I was leaning out of the same window, inhaling the air from outside to recapture the ambergris which had once perfumed it, waiting for the rhythms of the negro orchestra, which I was certain would soon be resounding in the street. Then I would turn round to face the middle of the room, where I would see the shadow of my Hiba dancing once again. A strong gust of wind lifted the curtain which began to flutter and whirl round gracefully.

Outside, the sound of running feet and cries drifted closer. The orchestra of my memories, perhaps? But why was it making such a noise? My bewilderment was alas short-lived; the market place suddenly became alive as if it was broad daylight, invaded by a crazed and motley crowd which filled the heavens with its cries. How could I not be overwhelmed with fear? I called down from my window to an old man who was running more slowly than the others. He stopped and uttered a few breathless words in the language of the country. Seeing that I had not understood him at all, he ran off again, making a sign that I should follow him. I was still hesitating to do so when I saw the first glows of the blaze in the sky. Making sure that my gold was securely about me I jumped out of the window and ran.

I spent at least three hours wandering in this fashion, submitting to the moods of the panic-stricken crowd, picking up news of the disaster more from gestures than from words. More than half Timbuktu had burnt down, and it seemed that nothing could stop the fire, fanned by the wind, from spreading across the countless thatched huts, each dangerously close to the other. I had to get away as quickly as possible from this gigantic inferno.

I had heard the previous evening that a caravan of merchants of diverse origins had collected outside the city, ready to leave at dawn. I caught up with it. The forty of us travellers spent the whole night standing up on a hillock, fascinated by the sight of the fire and by the fearful clamour that rose from the flames, in which we could faintly discern the terrible screams of people burning to death.

I shall never recall Timbuktu without that image of hell coming back to me. When we were about to leave, a cloud of mourning veiled its face, and its body was racked with endless crackling. My most treasured memory was consumed in flames.

When our geographers of old spoke of the land of the Blacks, they only mentioned Ghana and the oases of the Libyan desert. Then came the conquerors with veiled faces, the preachers, the merchants. And I myself, who am only the last of the travellers, know the names of sixty black kingdoms, fifteen of which I crossed one after the other that year, from the Niger to the Nile. Some have never appeared in any book, but I would not be telling the truth if I would claim to have discovered them myself, since I only followed the ordinary route of the caravans which left from Jenne, Mali, Walata or Timbuktu for Cairo.

It took us no more than twelve days, following the course of the Niger, to reach the town of Gao. It had no defensive wall, but no enemy dared to go near it, so great was the renown of its sovereign, Askia Muhammad, the most powerful man in all the land of the Blacks. The merchants in the caravan were delighted to stop there. They explained that the citizens of Gao had so much gold that the most mediocre cloth from Europe or from Barbary could be sold there for fifteen or twenty times its value. On the other hand, meat, bread, rice and marrows were available in such quantities that one
could purchase them extremely cheaply.

The next stages of the journey took us across several kingdoms, among which I will mention those of Wangara, Zagzag and Kano, as well as Bornu, which was far more important than the others, but where we did not linger. In fact, as we entered the capital city, we met another group of foreign merchants who hastened to tell us of their misfortunes, as I have reported in my
Description of Africa
. The king of this country had some extremely strange habits. He took such pleasure in displaying his wealth that all the harnesses of his horses were made of gold, as well as all the dishes in his palace. The leashes of his dogs were all made of fine gold, I have confirmed it with my own eyes! Having been attracted by so much luxuriousness, and, to their misfortune, having confused generosity and ostentation, these merchants had come from Fez, Sous, Genoa and Naples, with finely chased swords encrusted with jewels, tapestries, thoroughbreds and all kinds of precious goods.

‘The king seemed delighted,' one of these unfortunates told me. ‘He took everything immediately without even discussing the price. We were overjoyed. Since then, we have waited to be paid. We have now been at Bornu for more than a year, and every day we go to the palace to complain. We are answered with promises, and when we insist we are answered with threats.'

That was not the behaviour of the sovereign whom we visited next, the master of Gaoga. I was in his palace paying my respects to him when an Egyptian merchant from the town of Damietta came and presented the king with a fine horse, a Turkish sabre, a coat of mail, a blunderbuss, several mirrors, some coral beads and some chased knives, worth altogether some fifty dinars. The sovereign accepted this gift politely, but in return he gave the man five slaves, five camels, about a hundred huge elephants' tusks, and, as if all this were not enough, he added the equivalent of five hundred gold dinars in the money of his country.

After leaving this generous prince, we came to the kingdom of Nubia, where the great city of Dongola is situated, standing on the bank of the Nile. I was considering hiring a boat to take me to Cairo, but I was told that the river was not navigable at this point, and that I should follow the river bank as far as Aswan.

The very day of my arrival in that town, a sailor offered to take me on his
jarm
. He was already taking a large quantity of grain and livestock in this flat-bottomed vessel, but he could still manage to
clear a very comfortable place for me.