This is a woodcut by the interesting German explorer Heinrich Barth who travelled through the area in the 1840s on behalf of the British government. The scene could have changed little to the time Charles Orr was writing about similar slave raiding activities.
"Heinrich Barth, a German of enormous physical strength, lacked the flamboyant optimism of the early adventurers, but he prepared himself with rigid self-discipline for his exacting journey to the Niger. With another German, Adolf Overweg, and James Richardson, the English leader of the expedition, Barth was sent by the British government to investigate the internal African slave trade, and in December, 1849, the trio left Tripoli for Mourzouk. At one point on the journey Barth spent 28 hours in the desert without water - keeping himself alive by sucking his own blood. Richardson died close to Lake Chad and Overweg some 18 months later. Barth, with unwavering loyalty to his employers, pressed on alone, interviewing chiefs, discussing treaties and compiling detailed reports with meticulous attention to detail. Once taken for a Turkish spy - because of his habit of writing everything down - and at other times for a rain-maker, a charm-writer and an angel, he was the first to record the existence of two highly developed empires- Gwandu and Hamd-Allahi - and he showed that the Beime, a tributary of the Niger, did not flow out of Lake Chad. His reports on the geography, history and peoples of the regions he visited constitute the most authoritative documents on 19th- Century north-central Africa, though his ponderous style denied him the fame he deserved.
Charles Orr's Memoirs Volume 5
