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MIGRATION,
POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY AND PUBLIC PURPOSE
DIASPORAS AND CITIZENSHIP
Pathology Diagnosis
and Social Research
New Applications and Explorations
Edited by
Neal Harris
Political Philosophy and Public Purpose
Series Editor
Michael J. Thompson, William Paterson University
New York, NY, USA
This series offers books that seek to explore new perspectives in social
and political criticism. Seeing contemporary academic political theory and
philosophy as largely dominated by hyper-academic and overly-technical
debates, the books in this series seek to connect the politically engaged
traditions of philosophical thought with contemporary social and political
life. The idea of philosophy emphasized here is not as an aloof enterprise,
but rather a publicly-oriented activity that emphasizes rational reflection
as well as informed praxis.
Pathology Diagnosis
and Social Research
New Applications and Explorations
Editor
Neal Harris
Oxford Brookes University
Oxford, UK
© The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer
Nature Switzerland AG 2021
This work is subject to copyright. All rights are solely and exclusively licensed by the
Publisher, whether the whole or part of the material is concerned, specifically the rights
of translation, reprinting, reuse of illustrations, recitation, broadcasting, reproduction on
microfilms or in any other physical way, and transmission or information storage and
retrieval, electronic adaptation, computer software, or by similar or dissimilar methodology
now known or hereafter developed.
The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc.
in this publication does not imply, even in the absence of a specific statement, that such
names are exempt from the relevant protective laws and regulations and therefore free for
general use.
The publisher, the authors and the editors are safe to assume that the advice and informa-
tion in this book are believed to be true and accurate at the date of publication. Neither
the publisher nor the authors or the editors give a warranty, expressed or implied, with
respect to the material contained herein or for any errors or omissions that may have been
made. The publisher remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps
and institutional affiliations.
This Palgrave Macmillan imprint is published by the registered company Springer Nature
Switzerland AG
The registered company address is: Gewerbestrasse 11, 6330 Cham, Switzerland
Series Editor’s Foreword
Erich Fromm once asked from the vantage point of the mid-1950s, “can a
society be sick?” The question was posed at the apex of the “affluent soci-
ety”, an age of unprecedented social wealth and post-subsistence society
was emerging. It was also a time when modern medicine, vaccines and
other modern therapies for dealing with physical maladies were reaching
unprecedented efficacy. But Fromm saw that, just as Marx had a century
earlier, that modernity was ill, that it suffered from a de-humanising
pattern of pathologies that could be diagnosed and cured. Today it is
still not difficult, when skimming newspapers and popular journals, to
discover evidence for the thesis that modern society is ill. Fromm believed
that a critical, humanistic form of reason would be able to root out
the causes of social pathology—of alienation, reification, personal psychic
suffering—and usher in a new sense of freedom and humane existence.
Although it was once at the origin of modern social science, the
concept of social pathology has fallen out of favour in recent decades.
Although thinkers such as Rousseau, Hegel, Marx and Durkheim remain
the progenitors of the idea that societies as whole entities can suffer
from pathologies, the ontological paradigms of much of mainstream social
science have marginalised thinking about macro social entities as having
distinct properties and features. As methodological individualism reshaped
the social sciences and social theory, the idea that only individuals can
suffer and that only individuals can be healed became prevalent. The idea
that the origins of individual suffering was social, that there were systemic
v
vi SERIES EDITOR’S FOREWORD
vii
viii PREFACE
xi
xii CONTENTS
Index 283
Notes on Contributors
xiii
xiv NOTES ON CONTRIBUTORS
Neal Harris
N. Harris (B)
Oxford Brookes University, Oxford, UK
e-mail: nharris@brookes.ac.uk
state capitalism and the horrors of the Nazi fascistic terror were held
to be manifestations of a deformed, ‘pathological’ irrationality. Enlight-
enment thought itself, declared Adorno and Horkheimer, with self-
conscious hyperbole, ‘has extinguished any trace of its self-consciousness’
and has become ‘ultimately self-destructive’ (Adorno & Horkheimer,
1979 [1944]: 4). Erich Fromm and Herbert Marcuse served to
inject a Freudian-Marxian synthesis to these conversations. Fromm’s
humanist Marxism (1963, 2010) spoke explicitly of the ‘insane society’
and a ‘pathological normalcy’, while Marcuse (1977 [1941]) brought
a phenomenological lens with his critique of a pathological ‘one-
dimensionality’ to the modern social experience. Walter Benjamin’s (2008
[1935], 1978) work added yet further nuance and eclecticism, intro-
ducing the concerns of temporality, redemption and the messianic. While
these theorists approached social research with differing inflections, they
all shared a strong conviction in the need to conduct a deeper form of
social criticism, to disclose the contradictions within the dominant form
of life (Honneth, 2000).
First-generation Critical Theory enabled incisive social critique, yet
Adorno’s increasing emphasis on philosophical negativity, and his belief
in the emancipatory potential of abstract art, failed to resonate with the
dynamic political activism of the late 1960s (see Jarvis, 1998: 90–123;
124–147). As Fromm and Marcuse moved to develop Critical Theory
in directions more in keeping with the zeitgeist, first-generation Critical
Theory’s metaphysics seemed increasingly antiquated and paralysing. In
this context, Jürgen Habermas (1972, 1984) attempted to offer radi-
cally new theoretical and normative foundations, forging what has since
become known as the ‘second generation’ of Critical Theory. Developed
in Knowledge and Human Interests (1972 [1968]) and extended in his
Theory of Communicative Action (1984 and 1987 [1981]), Habermas
offered a new grounding for Critical Theory, anchored less explicitly
in left-Hegelianism. Synthesising insights from pragmatics, hermeneu-
tics, analytic philosophy and developmental psychology, Habermas sought
an unambiguously post-metaphysical Critical Theory (see Rasmussen,
1991). With Habermas, Frankfurt School social research increasingly
focused on identifying pathologies of systematically distorted commu-
nication; instances where systemic logics overdetermine the possibili-
ties for communicative exchange and deliberation within the lifeworld.
While Habermas served to rehabilitate pathology diagnosing, normatively
undergirded social research, his account was comparatively distanced
1 INTRODUCTION: SOCIAL PATHOLOGY AND SOCIAL RESEARCH 5
1 By this rather ungainly term, borrowed from Bourdieu, McNay (2007) means that
recognition theorists risk distorting their conception of the social world in order to
retain the validity of their ‘recognition’ approach. For McNay, instead of admitting the
obvious reality, that a monistic recognition lens is unviable, recognition theorists alter
their understanding of the social world to fit within the parameters of their heurism.
1 INTRODUCTION: SOCIAL PATHOLOGY AND SOCIAL RESEARCH 7
…the supply and demand for different types of labor; the balance of power
between labor and capital; the stringency of social regulations, including
the minimum wage; the availability and cost of productivity enhancing
technologies; the ease with which firms can shift their operations to loca-
tions where wage rates are lower; the cost of credit; the terms of trade; and
international currency exchange rates. (Fraser & Honneth, 2001: 215)
3 The Structure
and Contribution of This Volume
It is within this context that this volume was conceived of as an oppor-
tunity to showcase the enduring merits of pathology diagnosing social
research, notwithstanding the very real areas of reflexive analysis that
are undeniably warranted. As the contributors demonstrate, now is a
crucial time to advance a normative, post-liberal form of social research,
focusing on the forms of rationality manifest within the social world. This
volume thus seeks to showcase the contemporary relevance of pathology
diagnosing social criticism as much as its analytic potency. The chapters
gathered here demonstrate that the rise of authoritarian neoliberalism
and widespread defacement of critical consciousness can be powerfully
engaged through a pathology diagnosing, dialectical imagination.
The volume is divided into three parts, grouping together applied
research (Part I), philosophical reflections (Part II) and conscious
attempts at forging new relationships between pathology diagnosing
critique and other schools and traditions (Part III). The contributors
also represent a diverse demographic; ranging from established profes-
sors from the Global South, North America and Europe, to early-career
academics from across Scandinavia, the Netherlands, Turkey, France and
the UK. The diverse spread of ideas and positions offers a chance to unite
10 N. HARRIS
The precise form that Critical Theory will take, in ten, twenty or fifty
years’ time is extremely uncertain. The hope embedded in this volume is
that it will contribute towards the safeguarding of a form of social research
16 N. HARRIS
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PART I
Gerard Delanty
1 I would like to acknowledge helpful comments from Neal Harris and a reviewer on an
earlier version of this chapter. My thanks too to William Outhwaite and Patrick O’Mahony
for comments. This chapter, it should be noted, was written in early 2020, just before
the pandemic, with which Brexit was to become intermeshed.
2 See Fromm (1941, 1963 [1955], 2010 [1991]). See also Burston (1991) and Harris
(2019).
G. Delanty (B)
Sociology and Social & Political Thought, The University of Sussex,
Brighton, UK
e-mail: g.delanty@sussex.ac.uk
order to make sense of societal regression. There are relatively few studies
on the pathogenesis of political modernity. Klaus Eder (1985) wrote a
classic one on Germany. The idea of modernity engendering pathologies
has been central to the critical theory of the Frankfurt School, but has
been rarely, if at all, developed in relation to current trends. In making
this claim, I am not suggesting that there is a normal condition from
which the pathological is a departure. Indeed, it can be the case that
pathologies themselves become normalised.
In this context, I am interested in major political pathologies, which are
related to socio-cultural pathologies. The example I am taking is Brexit,
which I argue is an event of considerable historical significance and that
it can be seen as a political pathology that has nurtured a wider socio-
cultural pathology.3 I would like to make a strong claim and place Brexit
in the context of the pathogenic formation of British political modernity.
It is not my claim that Brexit was inscribed within the course of modern
British history, but that certain historical conditions made it possible.
The outcome was contingent in the end on specific circumstances, but
it cannot be taken on its own as an aberrant event. I also argue that
Brexit is not a specifically British phenomenon. While having British-
specific features, it can be related to trends towards authoritarianism in
other democracies, most notably the election of Trump in the USA.
To this end, in order to try to understand it theoretically, I draw on
one of the major works of social and political analysis in critical theory,
namely the monumental Authoritarian Personality, published in 1950 as
part of the Studies in Prejudice programme (Adorno et al., 2019 [1950]).
I also draw on the work of Erich Fromm, who was closely associated with
Horkheimer’s circle in New York in the late 1930s and wrote key works
on social pathology (see Harris, 2019). One of my key arguments is that
Brexit is a pathology of democracy: it is an elite-led project that disguises
itself by populist rhetoric as the will of the people. It is also an example
of a pathology of entrapment. One of the basic questions is this: why did
an advanced democracy allow an event to take place that has inflicted
major economic, social and political damage? The main argument for
Brexit reflects a deep pathology, namely that Brexit must be implemented
simply on the grounds that it was supposedly decided to do so and should
3 For a wider analysis on Brexit see Evans and Menon (2017), Haseler (2017) and
Outhwaite (2017).
2 THE PATHOGENESIS OF BREXIT: PATHOLOGIES … 25
was expunged from the country that invented it. Henceforth it was asso-
ciated with foreign and anti-colonial movements. Paradoxically, England
imported its monarchies from abroad: France, Holland, Hannover. The
1534 Act of Supremacy can be seen as England’s break with the conti-
nent, with which it has been so closely imbricated in the middle ages
(Black, 2019). If a break occurred, it was later with the need born of
political necessity to repress the memory of republican regicide. However,
the relation between Britain and Europe is much more complicated (see
also Simms, 2017).
The result of the ‘English Revolution’ and the subsequent constitu-
tional arrangement—and the convenient absence of a written constitu-
tion—was that England entered the modern age with revolution silenced
and disguised by the nascent Whig theory of history and the fiction of
ancient liberties. There was never any questioning of this myth of parlia-
mentary greatness since Britain was never defeated in war or occupied
by a foreign power and therefore never forced to recreate its political
institutions. Instead it did the occupying. The doctrine of parliamentary
sovereignty, it should be noted, does not pertain only to the House of
Commons but to the two houses of parliament and thus preserves the
monarch as the sovereign. It meant in practice that the Ancien Regime
was preserved and only had to accommodate demands from civil society.
This historical background is key to the pathogenesis of Brexit, which
was predicated on the basis of a myth of sovereignty and a parliamen-
tary tradition that was ill-equipped to deal with changed notions of what
sovereignty means. Parliamentary sovereignty, adhered to for centuries,
came face to face with calls for popular sovereignty and what resulted
was a dysfunctional mixture of both, as reflected in the use of the arcane
ritual of the prorogation of parliament and the royal prerogative to deal
with parliamentary opposition to the government’s Brexit plans. British
Eurosceptics rightly or wrongly criticise the political institutions of the
EU, but fail to see the flawed design of their own political institutions.
One consequence of what was a relic of the early modern period is the
absence of a modern written constitution. The British Constitution (in
effect a medley of documents and Acts of Parliament) did not provide
what all modern constitutions provide, namely a written statement of the
rights of the individual and a recognition of the people as the source
of sovereignty. By investing sovereignty with parliament, British political
modernity located the source of sovereignty in the crown, as represented
2 THE PATHOGENESIS OF BREXIT: PATHOLOGIES … 27
4 See Hechter (1975) for the original theory. See also Bartlett (1993).
28 G. DELANTY
5 See George Orwell’s poetic portrait of the English and Englishness. See in particular
the essay, written in 1941, ‘England Your England’.
2 THE PATHOGENESIS OF BREXIT: PATHOLOGIES … 29
off various kinds of class resentment. 52% voted Remain and 48% voted
Leave, with the majority of the Leave vote in England (Clarke et al.,
2017; Evans & Menon, 2017). It did not need to be called in the first
instance. It was a high-risk calculation of the then Prime Minister, David
Cameron, as a way to end dissent in the Conservative Party. However, it
received parliamentary approval without extensive scrutiny and an act of
parliament passed without any consideration of what might happen were
the Leave Vote to win. The main parties canvassed, without great enthu-
siasm, for Remain, confident that the masses would be obedient and heed
the advice of the elites to vote remain. Although it was a consultative
Referendum, the government and opposition regarded it as legislative,
though there was no constitutional reason to do so. Within months after
the outcome, there was swift silencing of the legal status of the Refer-
endum as consultative. It was repackaged as something that had to be
implemented. Since it was consultative, the Act of Parliament did not
define the vote share required for a determinate majority. The majority of
3.8% (c 1.2 m) was very small but was deemed to be decisive and ‘the will
of the people’ and thus had to be implemented, despite no definition of
what was to be implemented. Leaving the EU has multiple meanings and
many adverse implications. Deadlock in the political system arose after an
election, which left the governing party without a majority and dependent
on support from a far-right Unionist party in Northern Ireland.
Over a three-and-a-half-year period, until the general election of
December 2019, a process of radicalisation took place in both the political
system and in the wider society, especially in England. In this sense, Brexit
was as much a cause of change as a consequence of changes that had
occurred. Brexit became the mantra of the right and underwent ever new
and darker interpretations as to what it might mean. Leaving the EU in
2016 could have meant a so-called ‘soft Brexit’, but due to the variety of
interpretations as to what this might be, and the ascent of new and more
radical interpretations, no consensus was reached. Meanwhile, the tide of
opposition grew; but this was divided on the question of the preferred
method to stop Brexit. There was a fierce debate between factions on
whether a second Referendum was desirable. Those who favoured a
second Referendum could not agree when it should be staged, or agree
on the precise wording of the question posed. The Liberal Democratic
Party’s proposal of a direct, unilateral revocation of Art. 50 triggered
further divisions.
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above my hips, and fell down at the foot of a tree on the other side.
About a quarter of an hour’s halt took place here for the benefit of
stragglers, and to tie poor Boo-Khaloom’s body on a horse’s back, at
the end of which Maramy awoke me from a deep sleep, and I found
my strength wonderfully increased: not so, however, our horse, for
he had become stiff, and could scarcely move. As I learnt
afterwards, a conversation had taken place about me, while I slept,
which rendered my obligations to Maramy still greater: he had
reported to Barca Gana the state of his horse, and the impossibility
of carrying me on, when the chief, irritated by his losses and defeat,
as well as at my having refused his horse, by which means, he said,
it had come by its death, replied, “Then leave him behind. By the
head of the Prophet! believers enough have breathed their last to-
day. What is there extraordinary in a Christian’s death?” “Raas il
Nibbe-Salaam Yassarat il le mated el Yeom ash min gieb l’can e mut
Nesserani Wahad.” My old antagonist Malem Chadily replied, “No,
God has preserved him; let us not forsake him!” Maramy returned to
the tree, and said “his heart told him what to do.” He awoke me,
assisted me to mount, and we moved on as before, but with tottering
steps and less speed. The effect produced on the horses that were
wounded by poisoned arrows was extraordinary: immediately after
drinking they dropped, and instantly died, the blood gushing from
their nose, mouth, and ears. More than thirty horses were lost at this
spot from the effects of the poison.
In this way we continued our retreat, and it was after midnight
when we halted in the sultan of Mandara’s territory. Riding more than
forty-five miles, in such an unprovided state, on the bare back of a
lean horse, the powerful consequences may be imagined. I was in a
deplorable state the whole night; and notwithstanding the irritation of
the flesh wounds was augmented by the woollen covering the Arab
had thrown over me, teeming as it was with vermin, it was evening
the next day before I could get a shirt, when one man who had two,
both of which he had worn eight or ten days at least, gave me one,
on a promise of getting a new one at Kouka. Barca Gana, who had
no tent but the one he had left behind him with his women at Mora,
on our advance, could offer me no shelter; and he was besides so ill,
or chagrined, as to remain invisible the whole day. I could scarcely
turn from one side to the other, but still, except at intervals when my
friend Maramy supplied me with a drink made from parched corn,
bruised, and steeped in water, a grateful beverage, I slept under a
tree nearly the whole night and day, of the 29th. Towards the evening
I was exceedingly disordered and ill, and had a pleasing proof of the
kind-heartedness of a Bornouese.
Mai Meegamy, the dethroned sultan of a country to the south-west
of Angornou, and now subject to the sheikh, took me by the hand as
I had crawled out of my nest for a few minutes, and with many
exclamations of sorrow, and a countenance full of commiseration,
led me to his leather tent, and, sitting down quickly, disrobed himself
of his trowsers, insisting I should put them on. Really, no act of
charity could exceed this! I was exceedingly affected at so
unexpected a friend, for I had scarcely seen, or spoken three words
to him; but not so much so as himself, when I refused to accept of
them:—he shed tears in abundance; and thinking, which was the
fact, that I conceived he had offered the only ones he had,
immediately called a slave, whom he stripped of those necessary
appendages to a man’s dress, according to our ideas, and putting
them on himself, insisted again on my taking those he had first
offered me. I accepted this offer, and thanked him with a full heart;
and Meegamy was my great friend from that moment until I quitted
the sheikh’s dominions.
We found that forty-five of the Arabs were killed, and nearly all
wounded; their camels, and every thing they possessed, lost. Some
of them had been unable to keep up on the retreat, but had huddled
together in threes and fours during the night, and by showing
resistance, and pointing their guns, had driven the Felatahs off. Their
wounds were some of them exceedingly severe, and several died
during the day and night of the 29th; their bodies, as well as poor
Boo-Khaloom’s, becoming instantly swollen and black; and
sometimes, immediately after death, blood issuing from the nose and
mouth, which the Bornou people declared to be in consequence of
the arrows having been poisoned. The surviving Arabs, who had
now lost all their former arrogance and boasting, humbly entreated
Barca Gana to supply them with a little corn to save them from
starving. The sultan of Mandara behaved to them unkindly, though
not worse than they deserved, refused all manner of supplies, and
kept Boo-Khaloom’s saddle, horse-trappings, and the clothes in
which he died. He also began making preparations for defending
himself against the Felatahs, who, he feared, might pay him a visit;
and on the morning of the 30th April we left Mora, heartily wishing
them success, should they make the attempt.
Boo-Khaloom’s imprudence in having suffered himself to be
persuaded to attack the Felatahs became now apparent, as
although, in case of his overcoming them, he might have
appropriated to himself all the slaves, both male and female, that he
found amongst them; yet the Felatahs themselves were Moslem,
and he could not have made them slaves. He was, however, most
likely deceived by promises of a Kerdy country to plunder, in the
event of his success against these powerful people, alike the
dreaded enemies of the sheikh and the sultan of Mandara.
My wounded horse, which had been caught towards the evening
of the fight by the Shouaas, and brought to me, was in too bad a
state for me to mount, and Barca Gana procured me another. My
pistols had been stolen from the holsters; but, fortunately, my saddle
and bridle, though broken, remained. Thus ended our most
unsuccessful expedition; it had, however, injustice and oppression
for its basis, and who can regret its failure?
We returned with great expedition, considering the wretched state
we were in. On the sixth day after our departure from Mora, we
arrived in Kouka, a distance of one hundred and eighty miles: the
wounded Arabs remained behind, being unable to keep up with the
chief, and did not arrive until four days after us. I suffered much, both
in mind and body, but complained not; indeed all complaint would
have been ill-timed, where few were enduring less than myself. My
black servant had lost mule, canteens, and every thing, principally
from keeping too near me in the action; and, by his obeying implicitly
the strict orders I had given him not to fire on the Felatahs, he had
narrowly escaped with his life. Bruised and lame, he could render me
no assistance, and usually came in some hours after we had halted
on our resting-ground. In the mid-day halts I usually crept under Mai
Meegamy’s tent; but at night I laid me down on the ground, close to
that of Barca Gana, in order that my horse might get a feed of corn. I
always fell into a sound sleep at night, as soon as I lay down, after
drinking Maramy’s beverage, who had supplied me with a little bag
of parched corn, which he had procured at Mora; and about midnight
a slave of the chief, whose name was, most singularly like my own,
Denhamah, always awoke me, to eat some gussub, paste, and fat,
mixed with a green herb called meloheia in Arabic. This was thrust
out from under Barca Gana’s tent, and consisted generally of his
leavings: pride was sometimes nearly choking me, but hunger was
the paramount feeling: I smothered the former, ate, and was
thankful. It was in reality a great kindness; for besides myself and the
chief, not one, I believe, in the remnant of our army, tasted any thing
but engagy, parched corn and cold water, during the whole six days
of our march. On the night of the 4th of May we arrived at Angornou.
The extreme kindness of the sheikh, however, was some
consolation to me, after all my sufferings. He said, in a letter to Barca
Gana, “that he should have grieved had any thing serious happened
to me; that my escape was providential, and a proof of God’s
protection; and that my head was saved for good purposes.” He also
sent me some linen he had procured from our huts at Kouka, and a
dress of the country; and the interest taken by their governor in the
fate of such a kaffir, as they thought me, increased exceedingly the
respect of his servants towards me. The next morning we arrived at
the capital.
I presented Barca Gana with a brace of French ornamented
pistols, and with pink taffeta sufficient for a tobe, which he received
with great delight. The sheikh sent me a horse in lieu of the wounded
one which I had left at Merty, with but small hopes of his recovery;
and my bruises and wounds, which were at first but trifling, got well
so surprisingly quick, from the extreme low diet I had from necessity
been kept to, that I was not in so bad a condition as might have been
expected. My losses, however, were severe; my trunk with nearly all
my linen, my canteens, a mule, my azimuth compass, my drawing-
case, with a sketch of the hills, were also lost, although I obtained
another sketch the morning of our quitting Mora. Such events,
however, must sometimes be the consequence of exploring
countries like these. The places I had visited were full of interest, and
could never have been seen, except by means of a military
expedition, without still greater risk. The dominions of the sheikh, in
consequence of his being so extraordinarily enlightened for an
inhabitant of central Africa, appear to be open to us; but on looking
around, when one sees dethroned sultans nearly as common as
bankrupts in England; where the strong arm for the time being has
hitherto changed the destiny of kings and kingdoms; no discoveries
can be accomplished beyond this, without the greatest hazard both
of life and property.
The sheikh laid all the blame of the defeat upon the Mandara
troops, and assured me that I should see how his people fought
when he was with them, in an expedition which he contemplated
against Munga, a country to the west. I told him that I was quite
ready to accompany him; and this assurance seemed to give him
particular satisfaction.
Of the Mandara chain, and its surrounding and incumbent hills,
though full of interest, I regret my inability to give a more perfect
account. Such few observations, however, as struck me on my
visiting them, I shall lay before the reader. It is on occasions like this,
that a traveller laments the want of extensive scientific knowledge. I
must therefore request those under whose eye these remarks may
come to regard them in the light they are offered, not as pretensions
to knowledge, but merely very humble endeavours at communicating
information to the best of my ability.
The elevation gradually increases in advancing towards the
equator; and the soil, on approaching Delow, where the
northernmost point of the Mandara chain commences, is covered
with a glittering micaceous sand, principally decomposed granite,
which forms a productive earth. The hills extend in apparently
interminable ridges east-south-east, south-west, and west; while to
the south several masses or systems of hills, if I may so express
myself, spread themselves out in almost every picturesque form and
direction that can be imagined. Those nearest the eye apparently do
not exceed 2500 feet in height; but the towering peaks which appear
in the distance are several thousand feet higher. They are composed
of enormous blocks of granite, both detached and reclining on each
other, presenting the most rugged faces and sides. The interstices
and fissures appeared to be filled with a yellow quartzose earth, in
which were growing mosses and lichens: trees of considerable size
also grow from between them. On almost all the hills that I
approached, clusters of huts were seen in several places towards
the centre, and sometimes quite at the summit; generally on the flats
of the ridges. At the base of these mountains, and also at a
considerable elevation on their sides, are incumbent masses of what
appeared to be the decomposed fragments of primitive rocks
recompounded, and united anew by a species of natural cement. At
some distance from the base of those which I ascended from the
valley of Mora, were collections of quartzose rocks, of great variety
and colour; fragments of hornblende, and several large abutments of
porphyroidal rocks. About one hundred yards above the spring which
I have before mentioned, in a space between two projecting masses
of rock, were numerous shells, some petrified and finely preserved,
while others were perforated by insects, worm-eaten, and destroyed:
they were confusedly mixed with fragments of granite, quartz, sand
and clay; and in some cases adhered to pieces of the composition
rocks: the greater part were of the oyster kind. Various specimens of
these, with pieces of every variety of the structure of the hills, I had
collected, but they were all lost in the general confusion of the battle;
and on the return of the army I was unable to do more than procure
a few specimens of the northernmost part of the mountains; and the
half of these were lost by my negro.
Of the extent of this chain, or rather these groups of mountains, I
can form no idea, except from the information of the Mandara
people. I have met with a man who (by the way) wanted to persuade
me that he was a son of Hornemann by his slave, although, from his
appearance, he must have been born ten years before that
unfortunate traveller entered this country. He said he had been
twenty days south of Mandara, to a country called Adamowa, which
he described as being situated in the centre of a plain surrounded by
mountains ten times higher than any we could see; that he went first
to Mona or Monana, which was five days, and then to Bogo, which
was seven more; and here, for one Soudan tobe, the sultan gave
him four slaves. After eight days’ travelling from this latter country, he
arrived at Adamowa. These people, he says (that is, the Kerdies on
the hills; for Adamowa itself is occupied by Felatahs), eat the flesh of
horses, mules, and asses, or of any wild animal that they kill: nobody
but the sultans and their children are clothed; all the rest of the
nation go naked; the men sometimes wear a skin round the loins, but
the women nothing. This man, who was called Kaid-Moussa-ben-
Yusuf (Hornemann’s name), spoke to me of several extensive lakes
which he had seen in this journey, and also described with great
clearness a river running between two very high ridges of the
mountains, which he crossed previous to arriving at Adamowa. This
river he declared to run from the west, and to be the same as the
Quolla or Quana at Nyffe, Kora, and at Raka, but not the same as
the river at Kano, which had nothing to do with the Shary, and which
ran into the Tchad; but the main body of the water ran on to the
south of Begharmi, was then called the D’Ago, and went eastward to
the Nile. Kaid-Moussa was a very intelligent fellow, had visited Nyffe,
Raka, Waday, and Darfur; by which latter place also, he said this
river passed. He was most particularly clear in all his accounts, and
his statement agreed in some points with the information a Shouaa
named Dreess-boo-Raas-ben-aboo-Deleel had given me; therefore I
was the more inclined to pay attention to it. To the south of this river,
the population is entirely Kerdy, until the Great Desert. This desert is
passed several times in the year by kafilas with white people, not
Christians, who bring goods from the great sea: some of these reach
Adamowa. He himself saw white loaf sugar, such as the merchants
brought here from Tripoli to the sheikh, and a gun or two, with metal
pots and pans, and arrack (rum). The inhabitants were unanimous in
declaring these mountains to extend southward for two months’
journey; and in describing them, Yusuf called them “kou kora, kora,
kantaga,”—mountains large, large, moon mountains. And from the
increased love of enterprise apparent in our rising generation, we
may one day hope to be as well acquainted with the true character of
these stupendous mountains as with the lofty peaks of the Andes.
The extreme southern peak which I could discern was that called
Mendify, which rose into the air with singular boldness. It was said to
be a distance from Musfeia of two long days’ journey,—say thirty-five
miles. At that distance, it had all the character of an alpine peak, of a
most patriarchal height. I could perceive with a glass other
mountains extending from its sides, the forms of which bore a
tranquil character, compared with the arid and steep peaks which
overlooked them. It resembled very much in appearance “Les
Arguilles,” as they appear looking at them from the Mer-de-Glace.
The following outline may serve to show their shape and character.
FOOTNOTES: