Lancer of the Sultan of Begharmi
This engraving shows an cavalryman holding a lance in quilted armor sitting on a horse also in quilted armor. Denham described how the horseman was "clothed in a yellow wadded jacket, with a scarlet cap, and mounted on the horse. . . [which] was one of the finest horses I had seen; and covered with a scarlet cloth, also wadded" (p. 279). Begharmi was on the eastern shores of Lake Chad in the Central Savanna. This engraving is based on a sketch by Denham of a soldier who served the Sheikh of Bornu. Dixon Denham (1786–1828) was an English soldier and explorer. After serving in the Napoleonic Wars, Denham volunteered in 1821 to join Walter Oudney and Hugh Clapperton on an official expedition across the Sahara from Tripoli to in the Lake Chad basin of the Central Savanna region. After enduring danger and privation, they arrived at Kuka, the capital of Bornu, in 1823. While Clapperton and Oudney set out on a journey westward, Denham traveled the shores of Lake Chad and the lower courses of the Waubé, Chari and Logone rivers. After returning to England in 1825, Denham became the superintendent of Liberated Africans in Freetown in 1827, and the year after, he became governor of Sierra Leone.
Image Title
Lancer of the Sultan of Begharmi
RegID
SI-OB-824
Date
1822-1824
Title
Lancer of the Sultan of Begharmi
Source
Dixon Denham, Narrative of Travels and Discoveries in Northern and Central Africa, in the years 1822, 1823, and 1824 (London: John Murray, 1826), facing p. 279.
Language
English
Item sets
Pre-Colonial Africa: Society, Polity, Culture
Spatial Coverage
Africa--Central Savanna
Researchers
Jerome Handler; Michael Tuite; Henry B. Lovejoy Graduate Research Assistants: Tiffany Beebe; Travis May
Last Updated
5-Apr-16; 21-Aug-19
Identifier
Denham003