كمال الجزولي: هل صحيح أن الزبير باشا كان تاجر رقيق؟!

Quote: “Journey to the Nyam-Nyam Country 1859: "While I was in the land of Golo, I learnt that there was a vast tract of country to the south-west that abounded in buffaloes and elephants, which were so many in number that ivory was reckoned of little worth. The Sultan was said to be a just ruler named Tikma, so I packed up my bales and went forth a twenty-five days' journey to the Sultan of the Nyam-Nyams, taking a sumptuous present with me. Now when first we arrived at Dar Tikma, we were amazed to find that his compound was surrounded with a palisade of elephants' tusks, some three or four thousand in number. So we asked permission from the Sultan to trade in his country, and were given leave to do so in the land of the cannibals, the land where there are no graves. But he understood not how it was that we set such store by ivory, and we told him that it was simply in order to convert it into powder: so it was that, when we returned the following year, we found that the Nyam-Nyams had burnt all the tusks, for as much as the Sultan thought that we were desirous of cheating him. While we continued at Dar Tikma, we all lived in a compound near that of the Sultan. This was of an enormous size, and there lived in it some of his wives* in a kind of semi-circle round an open space in the centre. One night, it chanced that one of our donkeys escaped, and made its way into the compound of the Sultan, where it began to eat the ######### of some Indian corn that had been left unconsumed by the people from the evening before. Now it happened that the Nyam-Nyams had never before seen a donkey, a camel, or a horse, and when the women espied this strange creature they were moved to excitement, thinking it to be a man of exceptionally fine physique : so too thought the Sultan, who was so 'enraged that he ordered the animal to be killed. He then had the nogara, or war drum, sounded, and called out all his warriors to fight against us. So I sent Nur Angara with a present of two rifles and forty rounds of ammunition, but Tikma turned his back on him; and when he again tried to greet him face to face, he once more turned his back to mark his displeasure. Nur Angara then said, "Why are you angry, Sultan, when you know that it is I who have so often shot monkeys and other delicacies for your feast؟" The Sultan replied, "Have I not reason when you send a man by night to enter the quarters of my wives ؟" But he assured him that the ####### was no man, but merely such another animal as an eland or a buffalo, and finally the Sultan was pacified with a gift of six rifles. Now the king had four hundred wives and four hundred sons and daughters, the eldest of whom he gave me in marriage. She was named Ranbu, and her lips were sweeter than hone and her face was like the full moon at its rising. My marriage with her exalted me in the eyes of the people of that country, so that my trade increased and I quickly collected a large store of ivory, rhinoceros horn, and other things. Now, the Nyam-Nyams are notorious cannibals, and the different cannibal tribes can be distinguished by the several ways in which they conduct their feasts: some, for instance, eat only those whom they capture in war; in other cases, where a member of the family is ill or advanced in years, the relatives cut him up that thus they may save him the trouble of a lingering death. The head Sultan of the Nyam- Nyams only eats virgins and youths who have not arrived at puberty. They have long bamboo stakes, on which, after a meal, they fix the jaws of those whom they have consumed, and then boast to their friends of the number that they have consumed, which may amount in certain cases to three or four hundred, so that a man's spirit is judged by the number of jaw bones that he can display. We too were wont to profit by the devouring of a victim, inasmuch as the cannibals place the man they purposed to eat upon a pile of wood which they then set on fire, and we used to put our corn upon the wood and underneath the body, so that the corn might be nicely roasted. The cannibals did not eat the nails of their victims, but removed them as we remove the talons of a chicken. When the Sultan dies, his sons dig a large pit and place in it his Makunga, or hooked sword, his long pipe, shield, and his best loved wife, who has her hands and feet broken. A little fire is then placed in the hole, which is next filled in by the sons. When this has been finished, each of the sons rushes back to the Sultan's compound, when he sticks his spears into some special house, the girl inside becoming his bride unless she chance to be his own mother.”