Page:Africa by Élisée Reclus, Volume 3.djvu/216

 174 WEST AFRICA. the sixteentli century more ivory was still exported from the Gambia than from any other African river, and European vessels have often met herds of elephants swimming from shore to shore of the estuary. The river and neighbouring creeks are also frequented by the hippopotamus and crocodiles. Inhabitants — The Mandingans. Below the Fulah and Jallonke territories most of the riverain populations belong to the Mandingan Negro family, which is most numerously represented on the western slope of the hills in this basin, but which also penetrates into the Senegal region towards Bakel and Bafulabe, and into many districts in the zone of the southern rivers. In some parts of Senegambia this nation is best known by the name of Mali'nke, or " Mali-men," recalling the empire of Mali, or Melle, which formerly embraced the whole of the Upper Niger basin. Even after its destruction by the Songhais, the mansa^ or " emperor," long retained the venera- tion of his ancient Gambian subjects. According to the national traditions, the Mande or Mandingans (Mande-ngo, Mande-nga), came from the east in the sixteenth centurj% driving before them the aborigines, and breaking them up into a multitude of small ethnical groups such as are now found on the seaboard. The Mandingans are even still advancing, and penetrating northwards into the Serer country, where the royal families belong to their race. But while encroaching in one direction they lose ground in another, and in the east the Fulahs are continually gaining on them. In 1862 the Man- dingan marabouts, formerly called hushreens, destroyed hundreds of pagan villages and even " towns " along the right bank of the Gambia, and the inhabitants, here contemptuously called Soninkes, had to accept the new faith. The Mandingans are diversely described by travellers, which is due to their diverse interminglings with other Negro peoples, or with the Fulahs, and also to their different pursuits and other causes. On the Gambia they are distinctly Negroes, rather less black than the Wolofs, with less kinky hair, but a greater degree of prognathism, and broader nose crushed at the root, and with very wide oval nostrils. The expression is stern, almost harsh, although they are really dis- tinguished by great filial affection. " Strike me, but curse not my mother," is one of their sayings, popularised by Mungo Park. Their language, comprising a great number of dialects, has no written literature, since their conversion to Islam all instruction being communicated through the Koran, and all their spells being composed in Arabic. Mandingan grammars, however, have been composed by the Christian missionaries, who class the language with Wolof, as a suffixing or agglutinating tongue. The Mandingans possess a rich treasure of national myths, tales, and songs, and as musicians they take the first rank among the people of West Africa, possessing not only several kinds of drums and iron cymbals, but also the fiddle, guitar, and lyre. It was amongst the pagan Mandingans of the Gambia that the English first met the so-called Mombo-Jombo, or village executioners, who were armed with