Richmond daily register. (Richmond, Madison County, Ky.) 1917-1978, 1920-12-21
HISTORY TOLD
IN old LETTERS
Jews of the 18th Century Alone
Had Trading Posts in North j
west Africa. .
INTERESTING DISCOVERY MADE
Africa Loomed Larger in the Middle
Ages Than Modern Historians
Have ReaIized-Jews Forced s.
Out of Spain.


Observation-Disclosures preserved the
secrets of Roman civilization in Ponfi
peii; tOmbs protected the records OF
ancient Egypt's culture; and now.
there is prospect that some long
neglected letters may reveal one OF
the most fascinating chapters in the
historic trail Of the Jewish people, and
incidentally show that Africa doomed
larger in the middle ages than modern
historians have realized"
With this Introduction the National
Geographic society in bulletin makes
the first announcement in this country
OF remarkable documentary discov-
cry made by Charles de Ia Ronclere,
librarian OF the National library in
France.
Hitherto" says the librarian. Africa
has figured not at all in medieval his
tory. 1t still was a dark continent
when Stanley and Livingstone pene-
trated it less than a century ago. Yet
it would seem the Jews of the fifteenth
century had trading posts in north
west Africa and carried on a vast
| commerce with the natives from the
Sahara to the Atlantic and from Al
geria to the Niger.
Medieval Natives of Africa.
''These native peoples, who finally
resisted the inroads of Christian. Jew
and Mohammedan, possessed sources
of wealth in grain and gold. Some
tribes lived in rock salt houses. Actual
history in one case parallels the legend
airy account OF the defense of Troy.
Primitive religions and strange Gus
toms 1Ourished in common with q civ
ilizatiOn advanced enough to take &C
curate census of cities.
"Antonia Malfante, a Genoese citi-
zen, traversed this region and wrote
his descriptive letters in 1447, from
Timbu1tu- and Touat. Timbuktu was
the Chicago of the West African
plains, and TOuat the center of the
camel caravan traffic that exchanged
the wheat and barley of Egypt for
the powdered gold of Timbuktu and
the percious salt from Teghazza.
GAIL the places visited by Malfante
were so well known to the Jews of his
time that they were listed in a Catalan
atlas prepared three-quarterS of a CEN
fury earlier by Charles V, according
TO II. Ronciere. But shortly after Nal
fante's visit the Jews were driven out
of Spain, and since the Jews were the
only ones in Europe who knew of the
Nigeria country, and apparently per-
mitted no Christians to enter there ex-
cept Malfante, the Jewish knowledge
was lost to Europe. Not until DR..
Gerhard ROhlfs began his explorations
in Algeria and Morocco in 1880 did the
rest of the world form a contact with
the extensive region q Malfante's
travels. .4
Landing at pois-s west of AIgiers,
Malfante worked mis- way south to
Touat, which Rohlfs believed himself
to have been the first European to
visit. Yet Malfante dated his first let
ter from there four centuries earlier.
An African Commercial Center.
'"Tou t was an oasis, containing
from $50 to 200 villages. which togeth-
G formed a vast commercial center.
Each had a chief Travellers became
the guests &C these chiefs, and Nal
fantc reported their protection SUI
perior to that in states like Tiemcen
and Tunis. One of these towns was
Tamentit, now a decayed village,
whose people still recall the Jewish
epoch. Arabian invaders earlier had
robbed the Jews, who were masters
of the Sahara and whose empire ex-
tended south to the Niger. Tamentit,
Malfante wrote. sheltered both Jews
and Mohammedans, who lived in har-
mony.
''The native negroes valued copper
highly, MaIfante stated, and used it
for money.
Pushing on to Tfmbuktu, Malfante's
host was the brother of a captain of
desert industry, a man of great wealth
and possessed of trade information
concerning all of North Africa. From
him Malfante learned of such flour
ishing places as Teghazza, famous for
Its salt mines and unique for its
The houses were made
of rock salt. AIalfante noted that it
never rained there or the houses would
have melted away.
''To the south of the Mohammedan
kingdom were many states inhabited
solely by savages. One of these tribes
a mirror, believing that in
the reflection of their faces they saw
a deity.