NOUVEAU VOYAGE DANS L'INTÉRIEUR D'AFRIQUE FAIT EN 1810 : CONTENANT LES DÉTAILS DE SON NAUFRAGE SUR LA CÔTE OCCIDENTALE DE L'AFRIQUE, SA CAPTIVITÉ PENDANT TROIS ANNÉES, CHEZ LES ARABES DU GRAND DÉSERT, ET SON SÉJOUR DANS LA VILLE DE TOMBOUCTOU.
ADAMS , Robert
| Numéro d'objet: |
5092 |
| Date: |
1817 |
| Genre: |
Livre |
| Lieu: |
Paris |
| Sujet: |
Voyages |
Recherche dans "Notes":
1816. Adams Robert. – The Narrative of Robert Adams, a Sailor who was wrecked on the Western Coast of Africa in 1810 ; was detained three years in slavery by the Arabs of the Great Desert, and resided several months in the city of Timbuctoo. With a map, notes, and an appendix [by Samuel Cox and Joseph Dupuis]. 4to, pp.xxxi. And 231.
A French translation by De Frasans was published in 1817 : « Nouveau Voyage dans l'intérieur d'Afrique fait en 1810 : contenant les détails de son naufrage sur la côte occidentale de l'Afrique, sa captivité pendant trois années, chez les Arabes du grand Désert, et son séjour dans la ville de Tombouctou. » 8vo.
There is a second translation in German : « Reise in den Binnenlanden von Afrika ». Amsterdam : 8vo, 1826. An abstract also appeard in the Geographische Ephemeriden, Bd. 1.
The information given by this shipwrecked seaman is very vague, and even at the time there were strongly expressed doubts whether he had ever been actually to Timbuktu. These doubts have long ago been resolved into certainty, in the minds of every one capable of forming an instructed opinion, that Adams was a gross impostor, in spite of the zeal with which he was defended in the Quarterly Review as late even as 1829. Gråberg di Hemsö has summed up the evidence on this point so conclusively that, as it is contained in a little known periodial – the Antologia of Florence (No.197) – we may quote it, more especially as the authenticity of Adams' journey is still accepted in some auqrters : « Adams – this new Damberger, whose real name was Benjamin Rose, a native of Hudson, near New York – was as mucha t Timbuktu as Damberger had been at Haussa, or Psalmanazaar in the Island of Formosa. His narrative begins in the year 1810, and it is a matter of public notoriety that the brig Charles, was announced/ It follows that every fact and incident described by this impostor to have happened before that period in the year 1811 must be set down as completely false and invented : the more so, as two of Rose's companions in misfortune, both of them seamen in the same vesse land both Americans – viz. James Davidson [Davidson] and Martin Clarke (the latter Rose's own brother-in-law) – and an Englishman who had been shipwrecked in another vessel in the same year 1811, all unanimously swore before Consul Simpson, that Rose had always remained with them, or at a short distance, in the environs of Wad Nun, during the whole period of their slavery, and that not one of them had ever been to the south of the parallel of Cape Blanc. Consul Simpson was not the only depositary of a narrative dictated by Rose, previously to the one published in London. Charles Hall, an American merchant settled at Cadiz, with whom Rose lived as a servant during the year 1814, drew up another under his dictation, which I have also had an opportunity of comparing with the one at Tangier, and with the other printed in 1816 by Samuel Coxe [Cock], Secretary of the African Association in London, to whom he had the cunning or the good fortune to see his tinsel for gold (i suoi picchi per pappagalli) notwithstanding the doubts and cogent objections of the sagacious and venerable Sir Joseph Banks and the most learned John Barrow. [Mr. Cock, however, declares that though these eminent men were first suspicious of Adams' veracity, owing to his errors on some natural history points, « of the general truth of his narrative they did not, even at that early period, entertain any doubt. » . . . . Notwithstanding, I am far from refusing to this pseudonymous narrative every species of merit . . . . As the narrator understood and spoke Arabic tolerably well, and appears to have been endowed with an excellent memory and a certain spirit of inquiry, it is more than probable that he really collected from Moors and Negroes, who had visited Timbuktu, the information which he afterwards related at Mogadore, Tangier, Cadiz, and London . . . . Such as it is, the narrative published under his name is perhaps the best which we yet possess relative to that famous city, thanks to the notes and observations of M. Dupuis [British Vice-Consul in Mogador, who believed Adams' story and supplied many memoranda for its elucidation]. The Appendix is full of excellent geographical and ethnographical matter concerning Morocco.
Nouveau voyage dans l' intérieur de l Afrique, fait en 1810, 1811, 1812, 1813 et 1814, ou relation de Robert Adams, américain des États-Unis, contenant les détails de son naufrage sur la côte occidentale de l'Afrique, de sa captivité, pendant trois années, chez les Arabes du Sahara ou Grand Désert, et de son séjour dans la ville de Tombuctoo. Paris Michaud 1817. Carte dépliante gravée par Collin. En 1810, Robert Adams fit naufrage sur la côte occidentale d Afrique, un peu au nord du cap Blanc. Capturé par les Maures, il fut conduit en esclavage à Tombouctou, où il séjourna cinq mois.
Robert Adams, s'était embarqué à bord du Charles, navire faisant route vers les îles du Cap-Vert et qui fit naufrage le 11 octobre 1810 sur la côte du Sahara. Il fut fait prisonnier et rendu esclave par les Maures de cette région, traversa le désert jusqu'à Tombouctou où il séjourna 4 mois. Toujours captif, il traversa le Sahara occidental et arriva enfin à Goulimine, où il resta plus d'un an. Il fut racheté en août 1813 et se rendit à Mogador, où il demeura 8 mois chez le vice-consul anglais, qui était intervenu pour le libérer.
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