A Hausa traveler's description of western European society in the 19th century. (Patreon)

"I have never seen a country where people like to smoke as much as they do in Germany. You can even meet a young boy about twelve years old with a tobacco pipe stuck in his mouth."

In 1856, a young Hausa traveler from the kingdom of Damagaram in the modern country of Niger embarked on an exploratory journey that would take him from the island of Malta, through France, England, and Prussia (Germany), before he later returned to settle in Kano (Nigeria). His story is a precious and rare eyewitness account of a 19th-century African visitor to Western Europe at a time when most travel writing of the period was done by Western travelers whose accounts were filtered through a Eurocentric perspective.

The account of the Hausa traveler Dorogu is one of the few known travelogues of African explorers in 19th-century western Europe, a region Africans had been visiting fairly regularly since the 17th century. Like the Comorian explorer of Russia, Selim Abakari, and the Ethiopian explorer of Italy, Fesseha Giyorgis, Dorugu's travelogue provides us with an African perspective of Europe and its peoples, turning the observer into the observed.

This article reproduces the complete account of the Hausa traveler's journey through Europe and provides a brief background on the politics and society in Damagaram that prompted his journey.

Drawing of the Hausa traveler Dorugu (standing) and Abbega (seated) in Hamburg, Germany, 1868

engraving of the "tobacco cabinet" of King Friedrich Wilhelm I in 1878, which resembles Dorugu's description above.

A brief background on Dorugu's early years, the Damagaram kingdom and his encounter with Heinrich Barth's travelling party.

Dorugu was born ca. 1839-40 in a small unidentified town called Dambanas, a dependency of the town of Kanche, south west of the city of Zinder, the capital of the Damagaram kingdom. Damagaram was largely populated by Hausa, Kanuri and Fulbe speakers, and the region had long been under Bornu's suzerainty but the empire's control had waned due to the ascendancy of the Sokoto empire. Damagaram was thus vulnerable to the warfare and skirmishes between Sokoto and Bornu, as well as the occasional succession conflict such as that between its kings Ibrahim and Tanimun.

Political map of west Africa in the mid-19th century, showing Kanche, Zinder, and Kukawa

Dorugu's eye-witness account about the conflict between Damagaram and Bornu, which he dates to between 1849-1851, is strikingly similar to the more popular account written by the German missionary Sigismund Koelle based on information he obtained while in Sierra Leone in 1854. With the exception that Koelle's account dates the events he describes to 1841-1843 (the timeline used in my earlier article on Zinder is based on Koelle's account, but its contested by other accounts).

Like Sigismund, Dorugu mentions the Bornu sack of Kanche, which is where Ibrahim had fled after a succession crisis with Tanimun who had briefly installed at Zinder after he recognized Bornu's suzerainty. This succession crisis pitted towns allied to Ibrahim such as Kanche (and presumably Dorugu's own town) with those on the side of Tanimun, who is in fact mentioned as failing to take Dorugu's town despite having firearms. Both the internal conflicts in Damagram and Bornu's involvement were primarily political, and were resolved through diplomacy and war, the latter of which inevitably produced war captives.

Dorugu mentions that the chief of Kanche later offered his town to Bornu to avoid [a second] war with the latter. This is likely in reference to Ibrahim's recognition of Bornu's suzerainty which allowed him to depose Tanim from Zinder, and assume the throne about a year Barth's companion, James Richardson visited the city around 1851 (Dorugu's timeline thus corroborates with Richardson's). The town of Dambanas was thereafter taken without a fight after Bornu's soldiers entered it disguised as civilians inorder to be allowed within the town walls. They sacked it and seized many captives, taking Dorugu's family to Zinder as slaves. Dorugu mentions that his father was freed in Zinder by the sultan [Ibrahim] who instructed him to free the rest of his family as well but since he couldn't find them, Dorugu remained enslaved.

Dorugu was later sold to a resident Arab in Bornu's capital Kukawa before he came into contact with Adolf Overweg (whom he called Tabib, ie; doctor), another companion of Heinrich Barth in 1851. Here's how he describes his first encounter with Overweg : "As we were sitting there, I saw a tall man come out. His face and hands were all white like paper. He had a red fez on his head, a long beard, and was wearing a white robe. He was looking me over. I was as afraid as if he were about to eat me." Overweg's Bornu servant Ibrahim would later buy Dorugu and free him after obtaining a certificate from a Bornu official, Dorugu thus joined the rest of the traveling party which included a slightly older boy named Abbega [Abubakar].

Zinder in 1929, archives nationales d'outre mer

A brief account of Dorugu and Barth's travels in West Africa, and the beginnings of his travelogue.

After Overweg's death in September 1852, his servants, including Dorugu, were retained by Heinrich Barth (whom he called Abdul Karim), from where they travelled to Sokoto. Its here that Dorugu's account begins (retrospectively) to compare his society in the Hausalands to that in England. He recalls that:

"When we left there we went to Sokoto. The Sultan provided us with a fine house. I liked it very much, but I think Abdul Karim felt differently because their houses in London are better and have better things in them than ours. But we think that they [the Sokoto houses] are the very best."

"The cattle in Africa are different from those of the English. Ours are tall and have humps and large horns. English cattle don’t have humps or long horns—their backs are like those of the buffalo.

Sokoto people, also keep sheep. I will mention one difference between our sheep and those in England. Ours are tall, whereas those of the English are fat and have a lot of hair on their backs; moreover, their tails are short and their ears are short and stand up. The sheep in Sokoto have long large ears that droop down, and long tails. Their hair is short like the hair on our heads in Africa. In England sheep have white hair, not red like that of our sheep in Africa. We are not able to make cloth with the hair of our sheep; however in Timbuktu they make cloth with the hair of their sheep since it is long like that of the sheep in England. The sheep of the Arabs also have long hair and large tails.

In Africa we have guinea fowls, which feed outside the town, as well as chickens. One guinea fowl lays fifty or a hundred eggs. Whenever she lays eggs, if there are two then you should take one and leave one. When she lays another one, you take away the one you left the previous day. And so you continue to collect eggs that way. If you don’t do that, when she has laid about twenty eggs and sees them, she won’t keep laying. I think one hen can hatch more than twenty-five chicks.

I don’t think I have ever seen a woman in Africa eat a chicken egg or an egg of a guinea fowl or of an ostrich; but in England I saw women eating eggs all the time. One thing I don’t like is to see someone eating a raw egg, for we like them hard as stones.

Similarly with the English way of cooking meat. As soon as it touches the fire, they say it is done and have it brought to the table; but we like it to stay until the fire has burned it. When we are in Africa, we do eat some raw meat, but don’t make a complete meal of it. The part we eat raw is the stomach of a cow, sheep, or goat."

Dorugu and Barth then reached Timbuktu, where "They found us an excellent house. It had a solid door with a thing for knocking on the door like they have in England. It also had a lock on the inside like the doors in England. The house had eight large rooms with a courtyard in the center.  There was an upper room that could be reached by stairs, from which you could see all of Timbuktu. Their mosque [Sankore] is tall like those in England."

Timbuktu street scene, early 20th century

After staying in Timbuktu for eight months, Dorugu and his traveling companions departed eastward through Asben (Tuareg territory between Timbuktu and Gao) destined for Sokoto, Bornu and then northward to Tripoli. On their way, Dorugu made a note of the Tuareg women that is in many ways similar to the sort of comparative observations travelers like Barth made, and that Dorugu would later make about European women. Remarking that "If you travel among the Asbens of Timbuktu you will find these women are like hippopotamuses. They are not beautiful at all. Hausa women are much more beautiful—and it is not just because they are my own people that I say this."

After passing through Sokoto and Bornu's capital Kukawa, Dorugu left Bornu in May 1855 and reached Tripoli on August 1855. Here, they embarked on a “smoke boat” [steamship] and Dorugu felt seasick, but after a day of sailing, they had arrived at the island of Malta. This is where his account of Europe begins

Dorugu's account of west Africa and Europe was narrated in his native Hausa language to the Reverend J. F. Schon in 1856. Schon was an acquittance of Barth and a pioneering Hausa linguist in Europe, he briefly hosted Dorugu and Abbega at his home in the town of Chatham, England, while Barth was writing his travel account. Schon faithfully reproduced Dorugu's account, even including a passage when the two were conversing about the account.

Europe in 1850

Dorugu's Hausa account of western Europe and its peoples.

"We slept that night on the boat. When the sun began to rise it looked to me like it was rising out of the sea. Toward evening we arrived at Malta, where we lodged in a large house.

When Abbega and I saw the houses in Malta, we were astonished because they build their houses so beautifully. Their streets are swept and the market we saw—we did not want to look at it anymore; it was impossible to make up our minds because we wanted too many things. I won’t be able to tell you the names of the things in their market because all the things were new to me.

When it was time to eat they called us. We killed the chickens in the way that is customary among Moslems. We took a knife and cut off the chicken’s neck and threw it away. It kicked until the life went out of it. After they pulled off the feathers, they cooked it and brought it just for the two of us, Abbega and me. We sat down and were pleased that we were eating according to Islamic custom. If they had brought us any other kind of meat we wouldn’t have eaten it because it would be haram rather than halal.

Abdul Karim told us not to leave our shirts out like we did among the Arabs, but to tuck them into our trousers. Once when I went into his room, part of my shirt was hanging out behind me, although I thought that I had tucked it all in. When Abdul Karim saw it, he tugged at it and the rest began to come out. He said, “Is this how you dress yourself?” I answered, “I didn’t know that I had left part of the shirt hanging out.”

He took us to the house of the governor of the town. It was a fine house with large rooms without even the least amount of sand, unlike our houses, which are in a dusty place.

I saw a woman passing by. She had a full dress but her body was small. If you put your two hands around her waist, they would touch. Her hair was braided and hung down her back, and her face was white as chalk. I can’t remember now what she was wearing. When we went out for a breath of fresh air, we saw a cannon and cannonballs. We commented, “This town is strong.” Then we returned Home.

Malta in the late 19th century

We stayed in Malta for five days, or perhaps not exactly that. We boarded another steamboat, which was full of people, although not soldiers I think. When we left Malta, I began to feel nauseous again. I asked Abdul Karim to see if he could find a lemon for me. He said, “This is a boat. Where can we get any lemons?” He went and asked a crewman and he gave him a lemon which he brought to me. I divided it and gave half to Abbega because he wasn’t feeling well either.

After three days, we came to another town whose name I didn’t catch at all [Marseille, France], since it was as if I were deaf to those people. We saw a large number of horses. One man was leading two horses and riding on the back of another one. We lodged in a fine house, although I can’t describe its appearance. I think it was an inn. At that place, a woman gave me money because she was pleased to see a black person in her house.

When it was time to eat, they would ring a bell. When we went for a meal, we didn’t know how to hold the knife and fork. A fork is a metal thing like a spoon, but it is split like three fingers of a person, though with one handle. We had trouble cutting up our meat to eat when we weren’t able to mash it with the back of the fork.

When it grew dark, we took our belongings and went to a place where there were a lot of lamps. We saw people entering small rooms. We saw Abdul Karim rushing from one place to the next, sticking in his head. Finally, we also entered a room that was crowded with people. After a while, we felt some motion under us, and so we began to travel in the night until the sun began to appear. Abbega said to me, “What is pulling us?” I answered him, “The horses that we saw are pulling us.” Abbega said, “If they’re the same horses tomorrow morning, we’re going to find some of them dead.”

During the night, they stopped at a few places. I was feeling very thirsty. I heard a sound like white ants in an anthill and I thought it was water I could drink [this was the sound of escaping steam]; but when I went out I didn’t see any. I was afraid to go far away because I might get lost, so I returned to Abbega. He said to me, “Go farther on. Are you afraid that you’re going to get lost?” I said, “No, I’m not going to go any farther than this.” And so we left that town.

In the morning, I stuck my head out to see what was pulling us. I saw a long piece of iron going forward and backward. I called out, “Abbega, come take a look!” When he put his head outside, he said, “I told you that we weren’t being pulled by horses.”

We never seemed to tire of riding with our heads outside. When we entered some rooms, which we called “dark rooms” [tunnels], I said, “The people in this country are clever. Look how they dig under the earth like squirrels!”

When we stopped again at another place, he asked, “Why do we stop so often?” I said, “Perhaps they want our bags to catch up with us.” In saying this, I was thinking that our bags were coming in horse wagons, because they didn’t allow us to carry our bags right with us. But they were following right behind us like the tail of a dog.

We got out at one place to walk around and we went into town, where we had something to eat. I can say that Europeans are kind, because wherever we went they quickly prepared food for us. When we left there, we asked Abdul Karim the name of the thing that was pulling us. He said, “Victoria’s horse.” I said, “Very well.”

As we were traveling, we passed many towns whose names I don’t know, nor can I remember what they were like. If Abbega were here, he could help me. At night, I didn’t know what town we entered, although we stayed in a well-built house. In the morning, I don’t know who it was who told me the name of the town—perhaps it was Abdul Karim himself, I don’t remember—but the name of the town was London."

London in the mid-19th century

"The house we stayed in was an inn, since travelers to different places stop in houses like it. We do not have any houses like these and this is the reason: our travelers stop outside a town. If they want to lodge in a good house they come and look for one, and then when they have found it, they go there with all their baggage. But in London you don’t wait for anything; you just go and throw yourself into one of these rooms.

They have plenty of servants and they have bells hanging up all around. If you want to call a servant, you ring one of these bells and very soon you will see a young man come up and ask you what you want. And another thing, when it is time to eat, they beat a large gong and everyone who hears it comes to the meal.

An English dinner is pleasant. Perk up your ears and hear about the pleasantness of an English dinner. They have a large table, five feet long, four feet wide, and three feet high. The first thing they do is to set the table just right. They spread a white linen cloth on it and put knives, forks, spoons, and napkins close together all around the table. They have chairs at every place where they put the knives. A man sits at the end of the table and a woman sits at the head. The wife is seated first. Then the master of the house, on sitting down, says to the boys and girls, “Be seated.” He has a large platter in front of him, if it is meat; but if it is something soft, it is placed in front of his wife.

Men in London don’t like to see their wives hurt in any way. If one of their women hits her hand on the table, her husband will say, “Oh, my dear, what is the matter?” When you see them doing this you can’t keep from laughing, but if you laugh they say, “How rude you are!”

Up to now, I’ve still not forgotten how they eat their food. They use dishes, some of which are silver, and some little things, gold. Their plates are more beautiful than ours. (I will tell you about it when the time comes.) When they start to eat, you don’t know when there will be an end to it. They slice meat for you and have a servant bring you a plate of it.

He also brings you potatoes, but they’re not as tasty as ours. Then they bring you gravy, which is better than ours. In ad dition, they bring bread, rice, and many other things besides, but I cannot tell you the names of all of them because they have more types of food than we do. I think they eat every kind of leafy vegetable.

They take away this meat and bring something else that is white as can be, and since it is soft, they put it down on the table in front of the wife. Even if you don’t know what it is, you will eat it because it looks nice and clean. They have something else called “pie” which I think is made entirely of sugar. I like it very much. When you have finished eating these, they take them away. Then knives are brought for every one of you and they bring cheese and bread. The head of the house cuts some, then a servant takes it from him and carries it around to all the people. When you have finished that, they take it away. Then they bring small bowls of glass, which, however, you cannot see your face in. They set them on plates and put them in front of you. They bring nuts and wine of different kinds, and something similar to limes and some dried grapes. When you have finished eating, you dip your hands and wash them and dry them on a white napkin.

When you see them eat all this food, you don’t know where they are putting it, so you imagine that what they are eating is actually being taken away from them. The young ladies only eat small amounts of this food. I suppose that is why their waists are so thin.

After eating, the women leave the dining room and go to the living room. That is the largest room in the whole house. When they leave, the men drink up the rest of the wine, stroke their moustaches or beards, and converse casually with one another.

When they finish, they join the ladies, who are playing an instrument called “piano.” It sounds something like a sarewa [Hausa flute] but even better. They have a book they put in front of them, and they sing while they play. If you want to ask them anything you must say, “If you please,” because if you don’t, they will say, “Rude young man.” But when you understand the type of playing they do, you enjoy it. Some of the men dance with the ladies and drink more wine. Also, some read newspapers.

They read about news from every country, and they will show you printed pictures of people. When the time comes to leave, you go home.

'Christmas dining'  in London from the illustrations of Don Quixote by George Cruikshank, 1843 

---

This paragraph was left in by Schon, in which Dorugu talks with him after dictating his experiences. It provides a glimpse of Dorugu’s perception of Schon and of his own attitude toward being a linguistic informant, he later continues his account with some comparative commentary on the differences between English and Hausa table manners:

"Now I have told you many stories. Do you like them, you lover of the Hausa language? Have you discovered any new words? If you find a new word, you jump for joy. As far as I’m concerned, if I got gold I would jump for joy because gold has value, but what value have words? I am tired of talking; I am going to sleep. Isn’t your hand tired from writing yet? I am going to sleep. If I talked the whole night, you would keep on writing throughout the night. Sleep well, you lover of the Hausa language. Tomorrow morning, if I get a lot of money, I will tell you many stories.

Sleep well. I cannot add another word now."

---

Dorugu continues his narration:

"An African [Hausaland] meal is a pleasant thing. When your wife makes tuwo and miya [this food combination is a staple Hausa delicacy made from maize, millet, rice and served with butter and gravy] she makes them in separate pots. She makes the miyafrom baobab leaves and adds salt and pepper. When she makes that miya, if an Englishman were to taste it his mouth would burn up because of the pepper. She puts the tuwo in a dish and arranges the miya all around it. She carries the dish and brings it to her husband. She kneels and puts it down for him. If her husband has any friends with him, they eat together. His wife stays in the cooking room and eats with her children.

Men in Africa do not like to eat with their wives. I don’t know the reason why, so if you want to know, you must go and ask them. After the men have eaten, a child takes away the dishes and carries them to his mother, who says, “Thank you, my child.” Then she takes water to her husband. We eat with our hands. Children get burnt because the tuwo is hot, but men are used to the heat—or maybe it is because men’s hands are tough from work like the skin of an elephant.

When we work, our women also go to the farm to help their husbands. When we eat, we don’t sit on chairs (because we don’t have any), rather we sit on the ground, where some people spread mats or skins to sit on. We eat our meal in the evening at sunset. After eating, we go to sleep. In the morning the leftover food is mixed up in one pot and cooked, and when it is cooked it is taken out. It is more delicious than any kind of food in England. They [Europeans/English] think that since we sleep on the ground we don’t appreciate good things. After eating this meal, we don’t have anything for the rest of the day except fura [balls of cooked flour dipped in sour-milk]. Then in the evening we have a meal. Children who do not like fura go into the bush and eat fruit in the cool shade of a tree. Toward evening, they bring home wood to cook the food.

While living in that house, I received a small flower on a box. I pulled it but it would not come off. I said to Abbega, “Look at this flower; it won’t come off.” He said, “Bring it to me so I can tear it off.” I gave it to him and he pulled at it. When he found that it wouldn’t come off, he bit it. He discovered that it was cloth that had been sewn on.

The maidservants in the house gave us something with bristles to clean our teeth. When we ate with them in the kitchen, if we wanted something they would say, “Say ‘if you please.’ ” Since we didn’t know English, we would just stare at them and they would stare back at us. They used to ask, “What happened to your hair?” We explained, “We had our heads shaved in Tripoli.”

We left London and went to Hamburg, a city in Germany where Abdul Karim’s father lived. When we arrived at the gate of his father’s house, he opened the door of the carriage and ran into the house. You could hear a lot of noise in the house. When Abbega and I went into the house, they took us upstairs. We put away our luggage, rolled up our dirty clothes, put on some clean ones, and came back downstairs. They brought us coffee and black bread and butter. I didn’t enjoy eating that bread because it was dry and tough.

I met Abdul Karim’s mother, father, and grandmother. That day many people visited there and drank tea. We were outside in the hallway eating and drinking, so I don’t know what they did inside. When they finished, Abdul Karim called me to sing something for them.

I sang one of Dan Karama’s songs called “Is Dan Dauda at Home or Isn’t He?”:

'When he had a question,

He gave a little call for the Prince.

The Prince felt no fear.

Enter without mercy,

The battle is tomorrow.

Song and drums of the night before dawn,

Kande wails her cry.

A crocodile skin,

Death to your sacrificial ram.'

When I finished they clapped their hands. I didn’t understand why they did that until Abdul Karim explained that it was a sign of appreciation. While I was singing, he was in his room alone. On returning, he said, “That’s enough.” So I left. In the morning, he called in a shoemaker to make shoes for Abbega and me, and a tailor to make short gowns for us. They were heavy so as to be adequate for us in Germany, for it is very cold there. If you cut your finger— and I’m not lying to you—not a drop of blood comes out.

One day, a man came and Abdul Karim told us to put on our white robes. We did so and went to his room. Abbega sat on a chair while I stood next to him with one hand close to my pocket. I saw that the man had a pen, and when he looked at us he would lower his head toward the white paper he had in front of him. When he finished we went away. I didn’t know what he was doing but Abbega thought he was making a portrait of us.

Original 1857 woodcut of Abbega and Dorugu,” in Hamburg, Germany, published in Barth's travels.

Abdul Karim’s father took us to a church, but men were working there. There were many chairs inside all set up in rows. We left that church and went to another place near the water where we passed some fine houses and shops. We entered a certain house which was full of people. I think all of them were smoking tobacco and they had small pieces of paper in their hands. We were up above, but when they saw us they all lifted up their heads. All of them had white faces but I don’t know why they were all wearing black caps. Then we returned home.

Some days many people milled around us, in fact they frequently did this. Once I snatched a stick from a boy and hit at them with it; then they all ran away. Abbega came and grabbed the stick from me and gave it back to the boy. On another occasion when we were going to Abdul Karim’s brother’s farm, adults and children crowded around the door like a swarm of bees until we got in the carriage, rode away, and left them behind.

When Abdul Karim saw a house that had been built for the common man, he said to us, “That gift for the common man is much better than the one the Sultan of Sokoto gave me.” This is because the Sultan of Sokoto had only given him a small horse. The house looked good from the outside but I didn’t go inside it. When we arrived at the house, some of his friends gave us silver money.

We left his father’s house and went to his brother’s farm in a carriage. His brother is married but doesn’t have any children. On his farm he has dogs, cattle, and horses. When his servants were churning cream we helped them. As we were leaving, Abdul Karim gave me one of his brother’s coats. It was heavy as armor, but even though I’m not too strong I took it with me.

After leaving his house we arrived in Gotha where we stopped at an inn. In the morning we went to the kitchen and spent the whole day there. We went out for a walk with a servant so he could show us new places, and we came to a place where there was water rising in the air. I just stood and looked at it. We went on and came to a large road, close to which there was a church.

Abdul Karim has a friend named Petermann, who took us to the house of a woman named Dorothea Baker. We found children playing there and we too played with them.

She gave me a book entitled Naturgeschichte, which contained pictures of monkeys, hedgehogs small and large—if you come close to one it turns its head in, then you can’t pick it up quickly because it has bristles like a porcupine— bats, hyenas, lions, mice, monitor lizards, elephants, wild boars, male and female hippopotamuses, camels, giraffes, owls, ostriches, storks, tortoises, chameleons, crocodiles, snakes, scorpions, and crickets, date trees (anyone who travels in Arab countries gets tired of eating dates), cotton plants, tobacco plants, and many more kinds of things which I don’t know the names of. We thanked her and went home.

I don’t think that I know any other man like Petermann. He is truly a good man. Sometimes he tried to speak Hausa with us but he couldn’t do it. He gave me a book of the world and wrote in Hausa, “Friend Petermann to his friend Dorugu.” I don’t know what is in the book because I can’t read or write [Dorugu later learned to write while in England] but I took it to have something to remember him by.

When we left Gotha, we went to Berlin where we stayed in a large inn. There Abdul Karim took Abbega somewhere with him. I didn’t go but Abbega told me about the things he saw. He said they went to the house of a great man who wore a coat covered with gold and a sword down to the ground. [this was Kaiser Frederick Wilhelm, before he became King of Prussia r. 1888-1918]

Kaiser Wilhelm II

Abdul Karim greeted him and gave him a beautiful Kano pouch. When the women came, the young men would take their shawls from their shoulders.

In Berlin I saw soldiers every day. The buildings there are beautiful, tall, and strong. When they want to call a carriage man they blow a little thing like a whistle. Whenever a coachman hears it he looks around. The man who blew the whistle raises his hand, and when the coachman sees him he goes to him.

In Germany I saw the father of Tabib, my former master who had set me free. He was old but still strong, and his height was like that of a well-grown man. He was not too fat. His hair was white, or perhaps gray, and he wore a black hat. His face was drawn. Abdul Karim said, “That is the man whose son gave you your freedom.”

While we were traveling in Germany we asked Abdul Karim, “What is that white thing?” He said, “Sugar.” When we arrived at the inn, Abbega said, “If that’s sugar, I am going to fill up one of their ships with it and take it to our country.” When we had settled in the inn, I saw that white thing on the roof, so I went and tasted it. He asked, “Is it sweet?” I said, “Come here and eat some.” When he tasted it, he said, “It’s nothing but water.” I laughed and said, “Abdul Karim fooled us.”

We met a young man there who spoke Arabic to us, and we answered him. The first thing he said was “A sallama alaikum” and we answered him, “Malaikum masallam,” which is the normal Arab greeting. He invited us to his room and we sat with him. He was smoking tobacco and said to Abbega, “Take one.” The kind of tobacco they smoked was rolled like a finger. Abbega loved tobacco. Whenever he got any, he smoked it just like he ate food.

I have never seen a country where people like to smoke as much as they do in Germany. You can even meet a young boy about twelve years old with a tobacco pipe stuck in his mouth. They gave me tobacco but I wouldn’t smoke it. I would take it and give it to Abbega.

The tobacco college of King Friedrich Wilhelm I, German engraving ca. 1878 

At one place where we had gone in a railroad carriage I said to Abbega, “Come look at the road.” When he came, he didn’t think that there was any glass in the window, so as he started to stick his head out he shattered the glass and the whole think broke. I began to laugh. He reproached me

in Kanuri, “Aviro kasutu dimin?” which means, “Why are you laughing?” I said, “Because the glass broke.” A man came up to us with a fur coat and a fur cap. If you looked at the cap it appeared to have ears. He laughed. Abbega said, “That laugh sounds bad.” Abdul Karim gave him some money on account of the glass. When Abbega broke it, he jumped back and stood still. He opened his mouth and eyes wide and said, “Oh, I didn’t know there was glass there.” When the glass fell to the ground, it sounded, kilin, kilin, like when you tap a dish. Whenever we went in a railway carriage after that, Abdul Karim would say, “Be careful of the glass.”

I forgot to mention that Abdul Karim’s father took us to a place in Hamburg with many seats and lamps and with people sitting around on all sides. [A circus]

The first thing they did was to bring out a horse. A man was in the center of the ring with a whip in his hand. When he cracked the whip the horse would run. It ran around the ring five times, then they put it back. When they rang a bell, another horse came out with a saddle on its back. A girl came and they put her on it.

I said to Abbega, “That’s not a real person.” Abbega said, “Yes, she’s real.” I said, “Look at her and see for yourself. Her legs are no bigger than three fingers.” She dismounted, then she and the horse went out.

After that, a monkey came out riding on the back of a dog. He had a sword hanging down like a soldier and wore a tall cap which hung down in the front and the back. He galloped round the ring with his sword drawn. A man was chasing the dog. This man loaded a little gun and handed it to the monkey. I said, “Today, we are seeing something marvelous!” The monkey stood over there and the man stood facing it. He was a man who makes people laugh. He said something in German, whereupon the monkey put the gun to his shoulder and fired it. The man fell down and all the people laughed. To the accompaniment of music above, the monkey and his horse (the dog) left the ring.

An elephant came out and they made it lie down like a camel. A man mounted it, then it walked around the ring and lifted him down. They brought something to it in a cup. It took the thing and swallowed it. When it took the cup, I thought it was going to swallow it too, but it gave it back to the man. There were some bells near it. Whenever it ate up something,

it rang the bells for them to bring it more. We didn’t see the end, for we left. That night, we enjoyed ourselves because we saw wonderful things that we had never seen before.

When we left Germany we boarded a boat and then a train. We arrived in London and lived there. I shall tell you about London by and by. I have told you many things. What are you going to give me now? Ah, you have given

me many things, for which I thank you. Till another time. This ends the life and travels of Dorugu.

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Dorugu would later return to west Africa in 1864 after an 8-year long stay in England, taking a steamer to the coastal town of Lokoja where he reunited with Abbega who had returned 7 years earlier. Having been baptized in 1857, they were both active in the missionary work but eventually moved north to Hausaland just before it was colonized by the British. Abbega reconverted to Islam, while Dorugu remained Christian "in his own fashion", according to a eulogy by one colonial officer's wife. Dorugu lived his later years in Kano as a schoolmaster, married to a Muslim wife, and died in 1912.

Palmyre Annato at the Cirque des Champs-Elysées (1840)

References:

West African Travels and Adventures. Two Autobiographical Narratives from Nigeria., by Anthony Kirk-Greene and Paul Newman.

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