Chapter III (2)

Thursday, 23d.—I had heard various stories, at different places on the road, concerning the fate of the late unfortunate and enterprising travellers Park and Martin, none of which I considered worth relating except that which I now heard from the governor’s head man; but they all with whom I have conversed agree in asking me if I am not going to take up the vessel, which they say still remains. The head man’s story is this: that the boat stuck fast between two rocks; that the people in it laid out four anchors a-head; that the water falls down with great rapidity from the rocks, and that the white men, in attempting to get on shore, were drowned; that crowds of people went to look at them, but the white men did not shoot at them as I had heard; that the natives were too much frightened either to shoot at them or to assist them; that there were found a great many things in the boat, books and riches, which the sultan of Boussa has got; that beef cut in slices and salted was in great plenty in the boat; that the people of Boussa who had eaten of it all died, because it was human flesh, and that they knew we white men eat human flesh. I was indebted to the messenger of Yarro for a defence, who told the narrator that I was much more nice in my eating than his countrymen were. But it was with some difficulty I could persuade him that if his story was true, it was the people’s own fears that had killed them; that the meat was good beef or mutton; that I had eaten more goats’ flesh since I had been in this country than ever I had done in my life; that in England we eat nothing but fowls, beef, and mutton.

The women here are marked on the body somewhat in the manner of the lace on a hussar’s jacket: in some, where the skin has not healed properly, it looks very disgusting.

The widow Zuma has been kind enough to send me provisions ready cooked, in great abundance, ever since I have been here. Now that she has failed with Richard, she has offered Pascoe a handsome female slave for a wife, if he could manage to bring about matters with me. Not being much afraid of myself, and wishing to see the interior arrangement of her house, I went and visited her. I found her house large, and full of male and female slaves; the males lying about the outer huts, the females more in the interior. In the centre of the huts was a square one of large dimensions surrounded by a verandah, with screens of matting all around except in one place, where there was hung a tanned bullock’s hide; to this spot I was led up, and, on its being drawn on one side, I saw the lady sitting cross-legged on a small Turkey carpet, like one of our hearth rugs, a large leather cushion under her left knee; her goora pot, which was a large old-fashioned English pewter mug, by her side, and a calibash of water to wash her mouth out, as she alternately kept eating goora and chewing tobacco-snuff, the custom with all ranks, male or female, who can procure them: on her right side lay a whip. At a little distance, squatted on the ground, sat a dwarfish hump-backed female slave, with a wide mouth but good eyes: she had on no clothing, if I except a profusion of strings of beads and coral round her neck and waist. This personage served the purpose of a bell in our country, and what, I suppose, would in old times have been called a page. The lady herself was dressed in a white coarse muslin turban; her neck profusely decorated with necklaces of coral and gold chains, amongst which was one of rubies and gold beads; her eyebrows and eyelashes blacked, her hair dyed with indigo, and her hands and feet with henna; around her body she had a fine striped silk and cotton country cloth, which came as high as her tremendous breasts, and reached as low as her ankles; in her right hand she held a fan made of stained grass, of a square form. She desired me to sit down on the carpet beside her, which I did, and she began fanning me, and sent hump-back to bring out her finery for me to look at; which consisted of four gold bracelets, two large paper dressing-cases with looking-glasses, and several strings of coral, silver rings, and bracelets, with a number of other trifling articles. After a number of compliments, and giving me an account of all her wealth, I was led through one apartment into another, cool, clean, and ornamented with pewter dishes and bright brass pans. She now told me her husband had been dead these ten years, that she had only one son, and he was darker than herself; that she loved white men, and would go to Boussa with me; that she would send for a malem, or man of learning, and read the fatha with me. I thought this was carrying the joke a little too far, and began to look very serious, on which she sent for the looking-glass, and looking at herself, then offering it me, said, to be sure she was rather older than me, but very little, and what of that? This was too much, and I made my retreat as soon as I could, determined never to come to such close quarters with her again. During the night squally, with thunder, lightning, and rain.

Friday, 24th.—Amongst my numerous visitors this morning, I had a travelling musician, attended by two boys. His instrument was a violin made of a gourd, with three strings of horse hair, not in single hairs, but a number for each string untwisted; the bow the same; the body of the violin was formed of half a long gourd; the bridge, two cross sticks; the top, the skin of a guana stretched tightly over the edges; the neck was about two feet long, ornamented with plates of brass, having a hollow brass knob at the end. To this instrument was hung a diminutive pair of sandals to denote his wandering occupation, a piece of natron, strings of cowries, and stripes of cloth. He said he would take any thing that was given to him. The boys had hollow gourds with stones or beans in them, with which they kept time by holding them in one hand and beating them against the other. The musician himself was past the middle age, his beard being tinged with gray, and neither too long nor too short; his face inclining more to long than oval, with a nose slightly hooked; his forehead high; his eyes large, bright, and clear, with a kind of indefinable expression of half rogue and half a merry fellow, and when he sang he sometimes looked sublime; his mouth and teeth were good; his voice clear and melodious; his stature about the middle size, and spare form; his dress was a white turban and large sky-blue tobe or shirt. He accompanied his instrument with his voice, the boys joining in chorus. His songs were extempore. I should have taken one down, but found they were all about myself; and a number of visitors coming in, I gave him fifty cowries and sent him away rejoicing. Received a present of a sheep, yams, milk, eggs, and a goat, from the governor.

I went outside the town with Yarro’s messenger to see the kongkonie tree which I have before mentioned, and from the seeds of which they are said to extract the poison for their arrows. The tree is a parasite (meaning probably a creeper), about the thickness of a man’s thigh at the root, from which shoot up several stems, that ascend the large tree at the root of which it grows, twisting itself round the stem and branches to the top of the tree; the bark of the young branches is like the darkest of the hazel; the stem and older branches smooth and whitish, like the bark of the ash; the flower, which is now fading, has five leaves tapering to a point, from which they have a string about two inches in length hanging; they are about the size of our primrose, but of a darker yellow; the leaves of the tree are rough and furry, exuding a gum that sticks to the fingers; the part which grows from the flower and contains the seeds is about a foot and a half in length, and one and a half or two inches in circumference in the thickest part; the seeds are like caraway seeds, and are surrounded by a silky substance; they are boiled until they turn into a paste, when they are fit for use, and put on the arrows. I had a present of five alligators’ eggs sent me by the governor; they are only eaten by the principal people, and considered a great delicacy: they were brought from the banks of the Quorra. The taja called upon me, but he appeared still to shuffle off coming to any arrangement, saying he could not say for how much he would carry me to Kano, until he saw whether I was to go with him or not. I observed to him it was very easily said, and that until he told me how much, I would not ask the governor to go with him. He said he wanted half the money here. To which I replied, “You must go with this understanding in all future affairs between you and I, that I will not give you one farthing until I arrive in Kano, when, the day after I arrive there, you shall have every cowrie of the money. If you come to any bargain with me, it must be with the understanding that I have no money here.” “Well,” says he, “I will call to-morrow and see your things, and then come to a written agreement with you—half the money here.” This taja must take me for a fool; I will sooner stay here all the rains, than let him have the money and leave me in the lurch.

Saturday, 25th.—Clear and warm. At noon the taja visited me, when, after a great deal of unnecessary palavering and manœuvring on his part, we came to the following bargain,—that he is to carry all my baggage and stores to Kano for 200,000 cowries. I also found out that he does not go to Boussa, but crosses the Quorra at a place called Comie, and goes to Koolfu in Nyffé, where he stops for a few days. I am therefore to ask the governor here to carry my baggage to Koolfu, where the taja will find bullocks. I must however go out of the way to visit the sultan of Boussa, as all this part of the country is nominally under him. The sultan of Niki is next to him, and equal to him in power. My baggage, therefore, and stores with my servants must proceed to Koolfu without me, as I have no other alternative but to take this route or that of Youri. After the taja left me, I went to the governor, and acquainted him with the agreement I had come to with the taja, who immediately promised to send a messenger with myself to Boussa, and another with my servants and baggage to see them safe to Koolfu. I would not on any account miss the opportunity of going to Boussa, being most anxious to see the spot where Park and Martin died, and perhaps get their papers. If I am detained, my servants go on with the taja; and I have left directions with them how to proceed in the event of my death or other accidents.

Sunday, 26th.—On inquiring to-day of the same person, the governor’s head man, concerning the fate of Park and Martin, he said the natives did shoot arrows at them, but not until guns had been fired from the boat: in all other parts of the story he agreed with what he had told before, adding, that the boat was to be seen above water every Sunday. They all treat the affair with a great deal of seriousness, and look on the place where the boat was wrecked with awe and superstition, telling some most marvellous stories about her and her ill-fated crew. I also learnt from this man their manner of burial in Borgoo, which is as follows: they dig a deep round hole like a well; the corpse is put in the hole in a sitting posture, with the wrists bound tight round the neck, the legs bent, and the thighs, legs, and arms, bound tight round the body. The grave is made in the floor of the deceased’s house, and his horse and dog, if he has any, are killed to serve him in the next world. The Mahometans bury in their usual fashion, and have a burying-ground on the east side of the town, inside the walls.

Monday, 27th.—Received a present of a goat, two fowls, yams, and milk, from the brother of the governor, who has got a sore leg, and wishes me to cure it. In the afternoon we had thunder, lightning, and rain. I took this opportunity of waiting on the governor to press my departure, as the taja is rather too slack for me. I asked him if he would not send me to Koolfu to-morrow, as he saw now that the rains were close at hand. “Oh,” says he, “they will not set in these two months, yet it is always thus before the rains.” I told him that no one knew the seasons better than I did; and that, if I travelled as slow as I had done of late, I would be caught by the rains in Houssa, and I might as well have a sword run into my breast. He said he would send for the taja to-night, and give me into his charge. I said, I must go to Boussa, and make a present to the sultan; that if I did not, he would say, a white man has passed through my country without paying his respects to me, or bringing a present: it would be going out of the country like a thief, not like the messenger of the king of England. “Very well,” says he, “I will despatch a messenger with you to request he will not detain you. You must send all your things up to my house; I will give them and your servants in charge of the taja, and all will go well; my messenger shall accompany them to Koolfu”—(sometimes pronounced Koolfie and Koolfa). He then began asking me if Englishmen would come into the country. “Yes,” says I, “if you use them as well as you have done me: there is now a doctor on his way to join me from Dahomey.” He said he would be very glad to see him, and would forward him on to me. I asked him if this country or Borgoo owed any allegiance to Yourriba: he said, none; and laughed at the idea. He said he owed allegiance to Boussa, as Kiama, Niki, and Youri did; that he was separated from Kiama by the brook I halted at the second day I left that place, and that the province of Wawa extended as far south as Rakah; that Kiama owed no allegiance to Yourriba, but was a province of Borgoo, subject to the sultan of Borgoo, who was the head of all: he added, the sultan of Boussa could take Yourriba whenever he chose, but, says he, the Fellatas will take it now. I asked him if he thought the sultan of Boussa would give me the books that were found in the boat belonging to the white men lost there. He said, if there were any, he would certainly give them to me, as they were of no use to him, he could not read; and he then related to me the same story nearly that his head man had told me of that affair, and asked me if the unfortunate people were not my countrymen, and had great riches: I said they were, but that they were not rich, but honest men like myself; that one, the head man, was a doctor.

Tuesday, 28th.—This morning I visited the governor’s brother who has got the sore leg, as he had sent a fee, and could not come and see me. His left ankle was dreadfully ulcerated and swelled, and had been in the same state since the last rainy season. The leg was thin and wasted; and he complained of suffering much pain. He could move his toes very well; and inquiring if it was the effect of a hurt, he said no, that it had come on at the beginning of the last rains. I directed him to wash it clean night and morning with warm milk and water, to apply poultices night and day until the swelling was reduced, and on no account to drink spirits or palm wine: an advice which he did not at all admire, as he said when he drank it eased his pain and gave him sleep. I desired moreover that when the swelling in his leg was reduced by the poultices, he should put clean fat on a soft rag and lay over it, and on no account to drink any thing stronger than water. After my return home he sent me a present of a sheep, four fowls, eggs, milk, and honey. I now began to prepare for starting to Boussa in the morning at daybreak, but the taja is working against me, and I doubt being able to get off, as I have just learned that he does not leave this until Saturday next, and wishes to detain me also. The sky being clear, before the moon rose I was able to get the meridian altitude of the star Dubbe in the Great Bear, which gave the latitude of my house in Wawa, 9° 53′ 54″ north. Its longitude I calculate to be 5° 56′ east.

Wednesday, 29th.—Wawa is the capital of a province of the same name in the kingdom of Borgoo; it is in the form of a square, and may contain from eighteen to twenty thousand inhabitants. It is surrounded by a good high clay wall and dry ditch; and is one of the neatest, most compact, and best walled towns between this and Badagry. The streets are wide, spacious, and airy, the houses of the coozie, or circular hut form; the huts of each house being connected by a wall, forms an airy and open space inside, and does not take away from the regular appearance of the houses. One of the coozies next the street has two doors, which forms an entrance into the interior, into which the other coozies open. The plan of the one in which I lived may serve for all, except the governor’s and that of the widow Zuma. This plan will afford a fair specimen of the accommodations of Wawa. The governor’s house is surrounded by a clay wall, about thirty feet high, in the form of a square, having large coozies, shady trees, and square clay towers inside.

c. Little houses for holding grain.

F. House of entrance.

B. Stables.

D. Houses of the slaves.

4. Places for cooking.]

The marriages of the Wawanies are very simple. The pagans make up matters with the girl first, give the father or mother a present, and all is right. The Mahometans read the fatha, and make a present; read it again, and part, when tired of one another. The virtue of chastity I do not believe to exist in Wawa. Even the widow Zuma lets out her female slaves for hire, like the rest of the people of the town. Neither is sobriety held as a virtue. I never was in a place in my life where drunkenness was so general. Governor, priest, and layman, and even some of the ladies, drink to excess. I was pestered for three or four days by the governor’s daughter, who used to come several times in a day, painted and bedizened in the highest style of Wawa fashion, but always half tipsy; I could only get rid of her by telling her that I prayed and looked at the stars all night, never drank any thing stronger than _roa-in-zafir_, which they call my tea,—literally hot water: she always departed in a flood of tears. Notwithstanding their want of chastity, and drunkenness, they are a merry people, and have behaved well to me. They appear to have plenty of the necessaries of life, and a great many of the luxuries, some of which they would be better without; this being the direct road from Bornou, Houssa, and Nyffé, to Gonja, Dahomey, and Jannah. Since the war between the Fellatas and people of Yourriba, they are able to procure plenty of European articles, such as pewter jugs and dishes, copper pans, earthenware, Manchester cottons, &c. Their fruits are limes, plantains, bananas, and several wild fruits in the season. Their vegetables are yams, calalou, or the leaves of a plant which they use in their soups, as we do greens or cabbage; grain, doura, Indian corn, and millet. Fish they procure in great plenty from the Quorra and its tributary streams: those I have seen were all smoked, and principally a kind of catfish. Their best and largest horses come from Bornou: the native breed are small, like the Shetland ponies, hardy, active, and generally of a brown or mouse colour. Oxen are in great plenty, principally in the hands of the Fellatas; sheep and goats are also plentiful; domestic fowls plenty and cheap; honey and bees’ wax abundant; ivory and ostrich feathers they say are to be procured in great plenty, but they can get no sale for them. The country abounds in wild animals of all the different kinds to be found in Africa. Slaves are numerous: the males are employed in weaving, collecting wood or grass, or on any other kind of work; some of the women are engaged in spinning cotton with the distaff and spindle, some in preparing the yarn for the loom, others in pounding and grinding corn, some cooking and preparing cakes, sweetmeats, natron, yams, and _accassons_, and others selling these articles at the markets; the older female slaves are principally the spinners. The mere labour is very light, and a smart English servant would accomplish their hardest day’s work in one hour: but if their labour be light their food is also light, being confined to two meals a day, which almost invariably consist of paste of the flour of yams, or millet, in the morning about nine o’clock, and a thicker kind, approaching to pudding, after sunset, and this only in small quantities; flesh, fowl, or fish, they may occasionally get, but only by a very rare chance. Their owners, in fact, fare very little better: perhaps a little smoke-dried fish, or some meat now and then; principally only a little palm oil, or vegetable butter, in addition to their paste or pudding; but they indulge freely in drinking palm wine, rum, and bouza.

Of the slaves for sale I can say but little, and a stranger sees very little of them. In fact when not going on a journey to some slave mart, or sent out to the wells or rivers in the mornings to wash, they are seldom seen. Even then they are fastened neck to neck with leather thongs; and when this duty is over, they are confined closely in the houses until they are marched off. When on their march, they are fastened night and day by the neck with leather thongs or a chain, and in general carry loads; the refractory are put in irons, in addition to the other fastening, during the night. They are much afraid of being sold to the sea coast, as it is the universal belief that all those who are sold to the whites are eaten; retorting back on us the accusation of cannibalism, of which they have perhaps the greatest right to blame us. The slaves sold to the sea coast are generally those taken in war, or refractory and intractable domestic slaves. Nyffé at present is the place that produces the most slaves, owing to the civil war raging in that country.

The people of Wawa would take beads in exchange for any articles their country might produce; also brass bracelets for the arms and legs; brass, copper, pewter, and earthenware dishes; Manchester cottons of gaudy colours, and calicoes. Their arms are bows and poisoned arrows, and light spears. They say they do not like war, but appear to be very tenacious in not permitting interference with their country; and they like the Fellatas better than their neighbours of Kiama, of whom they are very jealous. They have a good character for honesty; are cheerful, good-natured, and hospitable; and no people in Africa that I have met with are so ready to give information about the country as they are; and, what is very extraordinary, I have not seen a common beggar amongst them. They deny their Borgoo origin, and say they are descended from the people of Nyffé and Houssa. Their language is a dialect of the Yourriba: but the Wawa women are very good-looking, and the Youriba women are not: the men are strong and well made, but have a debauched look. Their religion is partly a loose Mahometanism, and partly pagan. The most pious of the former can only say a few prayers, or go through the necessary forms, and are called Malem, or learned: the latter are called Kaffirs; and what they worship it is hard to tell; every man choosing his own god, which they pray to that he may intercede with the Supreme Being for them; and they offer sheep, dogs, and sometimes a bullock, according to the benefit they expect. A woman is sent to the market and sold, if, when she has a child at the breast, she is known to go with a man, and, in addition, loses her child, and is flogged.

In this country, as well as in all others I have passed between this and the sea, I have met with tribes of Fellatas, some of whom are not Mahometans, but pagans. They certainly are the same people, as they speak the same language, have the same features and colour, except those who have crossed with the negro. They are as fair as the lower class of Portugueze or Spaniards, lead a pastoral life, shifting from place to place, as they find grass for their horned cattle, and live in temporary huts of reeds or long grass.

Thursday, 30th.—Having had every thing prepared last night for starting this morning at day-break, I went and took leave of the governor, who repeated his promises of sending my baggage on to Koolfu. On my return from the governor, I met a messenger of the sultan of Boussa, who had been sent expressly for me. He said he would just wait on the governor, and deliver a message, and follow me. I left Wawa, mounted on an old red roan mare of the governor’s, on a good road, leading through a woody country, with numerous plantations of yams, and Indian corn. At 8.30 A.M. passed a village about a quarter of a mile from the south side of a range of low rocky hills, running in a direction from east-south-east to west-south-west by compass. The rocks were composed of pudding-stone, the white quartz pebbles of which were square, not rounded, and imbedded in a gray substance. At the end of an opening in the range was a beautiful sugar-loaf mountain, overlooking all the rest, and bearing from the village east-south-east, distance half a mile. This I presumed to call Mount George, after his present majesty George the Fourth. After passing the village and entering amongst the hills, I found the valleys well cultivated, and planted with yams, corn, and maize, but the road winding and rocky. At 10 A.M. came to the village of Injum, the first belonging to the province of Boussa. Here I halted, until the messenger, who had joined me some time before, got his breakfast. This village is on the north-east side of the hills. Amongst the number of people who came to look at me was a woman, whose face, neck, right breast, and part of her right arm, were covered with a scurf, like a person very ill with the small pox: the borders of the scurf were bare, raw, and inflamed. This is the disorder the young man’s mother died of, to whom I gave the medicines at Kiama. When the disease reaches the toes and fingers, they first contract, and then drop off; when, in a short time after, the unfortunate person is relieved by death, as they have no cure for it, nor do they attempt any. I called the woman, and asked her if she suffered much pain: she said no, nor did it itch. She sent for some yams, and offered them, as she said my looking at her would do her good.

At 10.30 the messenger having finished his breakfast, we left Injum. He gave me his horse to ride, as I could not get the old Wawa mare to go on without a great deal of beating. At noon halted at the side of a brook, to water the horses. Here end the hills and the pudding-stone of which they are composed, and the rocks are now a dark gray slate, which moulders away with the rains, the soil a strong blue clay, with deep gullies formed by the rains. At 1 left the brook: the country thickly wooded with tall trees, amongst which are a number of the acacia or mimosa, many of them thrown down by the elephants, for the purpose of feeding on the upper and tender branches. The traces of elephants, buffaloes, and the larger kind of antelopes called in Bornou _corigum_, are numerous. At 2.40 halted at a village of the Kumbrie, or Cambrie, a race of Kaffirs inhabiting the woods, on both sides of the river. They made a great difficulty in procuring me a drink of water, so I mounted and left them, and at 3.30 arrived at a branch of the Quorra, called the Menai, close to its junction with a second branch. The Menai is about twenty yards in breadth, and about two fathoms in depth; the current hardly perceptible, and the water dark and muddy; that of the branch into which it runs being about thirty yards in breadth, with a strong current, about three or four knots, throwing a back-water up the Menai. The island on the other side of it is low and swampy, and covered with high reeds; the colour of both the streams red and muddy, as if in flood; but the messenger, on my asking if this was the case, said no, that the river was now at its lowest mark, and pointing to a place on the opposite bank of the Menai, about fifteen feet above the present level, said the river rose to that height during the rains. The trees on both banks were close down to the water’s edge, and the branches were in the stream, and every now and then a branch would be broken off, and washed away by the strength of the current. From this, and the muddiness of the water, I concluded it was rising; but certainly the inhabitants must know best: had I not made inquiry, I should certainly have said it was rising. The canoe being on the other side of the Menai, the messenger stripped off his tobe, and swam over for it. After crossing and swimming the horses over, in about a quarter of an hour’s ride I entered the walls of Boussa, by the western gate. The walls appeared very extensive, and are at present under repair. Bands of male and female slaves, accompanied by drums and flutes, and singing in chorus, were passing to and from the river with water, to mix the clay they were building with. Each great man has his part of the wall to build, like the Jews when they built the walls of Jerusalem, every one opposite his own house.

I was much surprised, after entering the gate, to see only clusters of huts here and there, and no regular town, as I had been led to expect. I remained under the shade of a tree until the messenger went and acquainted the sultan of my arrival. On his return I accompanied him up to the sultan, whom I found sitting under a small projection of the verandah of one of his coozies: his midaki, or principal wife, sitting alongside of him. To this personage I had been advised by the widow Zuma to pay particular attention, as she was every thing with the sultan. He received me very kindly, and said the sultan of Youri had kept seven boats waiting for me for these last seven days to take me up the river to Youri. I said I was much obliged to the sultan of Youri, but that I did not intend going that way, as the war with the Fellatas had shut up the communication between Bornou and Youri; that with his permission I would go by the way of Koolfu and Nyffé, where there was no war. He said I was right, and that it was good for me that I had come to see him; that I should take what path I chose.

We then parted, he ordering his head man to take me to a house. He would have come with me himself, but the midaki pulled him back; she had acted, during the time I was there, as prompter. The sultan is a fine looking young man, about twenty-five or twenty-six years of age, five feet ten inches high, with a high forehead, large eyes, Roman nose, decent lips, good teeth, short chin covered with about an inch and a half of beard, more of a spare than robust make. He was dressed in a white tobe, striped Moorish kaftan, with a red Moorish cap on his head. The midaki appears somewhat older, below the middle size, with nothing remarkable about her but her voice, and a winning womanish way, sitting on his left side, a little behind him, with her arm half around his neck. His house does not differ from those of other people, except the huts being a little larger, and surmounted by ostrich eggs. I found my house a very good one, with three rooms or huts, and a shade for the heat of the day; and the sultan and midaki sent me a sheep, yams, fish, milk, honey, and eggs.

Friday, 31st.—This morning I waited on the sultan with my present, which consisted of eight yards of red cloth, eight yards of blue, eight yards of silk, a blue silk umbrella, an African sword, three pair of white cotton stockings, three pair of gloves, two phosphorus boxes, three clasp-knives, and three pair of scissars, a mock-gold chain, beads, and coral; for the midaki, pictures of the king, and royal family, &c. I displayed my present to the best advantage, and explained the uses of the different articles. The sword he was delighted with, and the chain, I saw, had won the midaki’s heart. She first put it around her own neck, then taking it off, and putting it around the sultan’s, looked up in his face with as sweet an expression of countenance as ever I saw. Upon the whole, my present appeared to have the effect I wished. After giving me a great many thanks, and the presents were taken away, he began again about Youri: said, that Yarro of Kiama had informed him that I was going there. I said, I meant to have gone there, but that I should now defer my visit until my return; that the rains were now at hand; that by the way of Youri there was war, and I could not get to Bornou before the rains; that remaining in Youri or Houssa during that season would kill me, and they had better put a sword through me at once than detain me. He said there was no sultan between Koolfu and Guari. I told him the taja had engaged to find me bullocks to carry my baggage to Kano. He then asked me when I wished to go away. I replied, “To-morrow.” “Well,” says he, “you shall go in the afternoon.” I said I would prefer daybreak, as I wished to make observations at the river side, and see my baggage safely over. I had some apprehension that the king of Youri, should he hear that I am going by the way of Koolfu, might outwit me; on which account I mentioned my preferring to travel in the morning. “Well,” says he, “you shall go when you please.”

This point being settled, I asked him to lend me a horse and saddle, which he promised to do. I next inquired of him after some white men who were lost in the river near this place twenty years ago. He seemed rather uneasy at this question, and I observed that he stammered in his speech. He assured me he had nothing belonging to them; that he was a little boy when the event happened. I said, I wanted nothing but the books and papers, and to learn from him a correct account of the manner of their death; and that with his permission, I would go and visit the spot where they were lost. He said no, I must not go; it was a very bad place. Having heard that part of the boat still remained, I asked him if it was so: he replied, that such a report was untrue; that she did remain on the rocks for some time after, but had gone to pieces and floated down the river long ago. I said if he would give me the books and papers it would be the greatest favour he could possibly confer on me. He again assured me that nothing remained with him, every thing of that kind had gone into the hands of the learned men; but that if any were now in existence he would procure them and give them to me. I then asked him if he would allow me to inquire of the old people in the town the particulars of the affair, as some of them must have seen it. He appeared very uneasy, gave me no answer, and I did not press him further. In the afternoon the sultan came galloping up in front of my house, a man running after him, holding the umbrella I had given him; but the bearer could not keep up with the horse, or hold it over his head.

In the evening I was visited by the sultan and midaki, and the king of Youri’s messenger with them. The messenger said his master had sent provisions and every thing for my voyage up the river to Youri. I told him I could not but feel much obliged to the king of Youri for his kindness; but that the rains were close at hand, and the road between Youri and Bornou shut up by the war; that on my return, after the rains, I should certainly visit the king, for his kindness on this occasion. The sultan of Boussa said I should be making an enemy of the king of Youri if I went away without seeing him or sending him a present. I said I really had nothing here to give; that if the messenger of the king of Youri would accompany me to the ferry where my baggage was, I would give him as good a present as I was able; but that I had now very little to give. The Youri messenger was very anxious that I should go with him; but the midaki, whose heart the gold chain has won, fairly beat him off the field, and it was decided that I am not to go to Youri. The sultan made a great many inquiries about England, and asked me two or three times if I had not come to buy slaves. I laughed in his face, and told him there was nothing we so much abhorred in England as slavery; that the king of England did every thing to prevent other nations buying slaves; that the slave trade was the ruin of Africa; that Yourriba presented nothing but ruined towns and deserted villages, and all caused by the slave-trade; that it was very bad to buy and sell men like bullocks and sheep. It was now nearly dinner-time, and he said he would come and see me at night.

At eight in the evening the sultan came, accompanied by the midaki, and one male slave. He began again about Youri; but I repeated what I had said before. He then asked me if the king of England was a great man. “Yes,” I said, “the greatest of all the white kings.” “But,” says he, “you live on the water?” “Oh no,” I said, “we have more land than there is between Boussa and Badag (as they call Badagry), and more than five thousand towns.” “Well,” says he, “I thought, and always have heard, that you lived on the water. How many wives has the king?” “Only one wife,” I said. “What!” says he, “only one wife?” “Yes,” says I; “no man is allowed more than one wife, and they hang a man if he has two at one time.” “That is all very good for other men,” says he; “but the king having only one wife is not good.” When I told him, if the king had a daughter and no son, she would rule the kingdom at her father’s death, he laughed immoderately, as did the midaki, who was apparently well pleased with the idea of only one wife, and a woman ruling. I asked him who were the first people who inhabited this part of the country. He said the Cambrie; that his ancestors were from Bornou; that the sultan of Niki was descended from a younger branch of his family; that his ancestors and people had come into this country a long time ago; that his family were descended from the sultans of Bornou; and that they had paid the latter tribute until, of late years, the road had been shut up; but that he would pay it all up whenever the road was open; that the sultans of Youriba, Niki, Kiama, Wawa, and Youri, paid tribute to Bornou. I then asked him at what place the river entered the sea. He replied he did not know: but he had heard people say it went to Bini, which is the name they give to Bornou. I asked if he had ever seen any of the Bini people, or if they come up as far as this by the river. He said, no, he had never seen any of them; that he understood they never came higher up the river than Nyffe or Tappa (as they call Nyffe). He remained with me until near morning, and when he was gone, finding I could not sleep, and hearing the sound of sweet-toned instruments, I sent for the musician, and made him play and sing to me. On sending him away, I desired him to call in the morning and I would pay him, and to bring his instrument with him.

Saturday, 1st April.—Morning cool and cloudy, with a little rain. The Houssa musician came to his appointment, and I made him play and sing. I made a sketch of his instrument, which I asked him to sell to me; but he said he had played on it to his father and mother, and they were pleased with it; they were now dead, and he would not part with it. My servant Ali was cooking a fowl for my breakfast, and having occasion to call him, he came with a knife in his hand; on seeing which, the musician started, and ran as if he had been going to be put to death instantly. The women in the house, when they saw him run, rolled on the ground, and laughed at the poor man’s fright. After breakfast I visited the sultan, and asked him to be allowed to depart, as my baggage was to have been at the river-side yesterday. He said I must not leave him to-day, and that when I came back I must stay forty days with him. I was visited by a great number of people, amongst which were many Fellatas, the chief of whom sent me a sheep, honey, and milk. The sultan, when I inquired of him again to-day about the papers of my unfortunate countrymen, said that the late imam, a Fellata, had had possession of all the books and papers, and that he had fled from Boussa some time since. This was a death-blow to all future inquiries here; and the whole of the information concerning the affair of the boat, her crew, and cargo, which I was likely to gain here, I have already stated. Every one in fact appeared uneasy when I asked for information, and said it had happened before their remembrance, or that they did not see it. They pointed out the place where the boat struck, and the unfortunate crew perished. Even this was done with caution, and as if by stealth; though, in every thing unconnected with that affair, they were most ready to give me what information I asked; and never in my life have I been treated with more hospitality or kindness.

The place pointed out to me, where the boat and crew were lost, is in the eastern channel: the river being divided into three branches at this place, not one of which is more than a good pistol-shot across. A low flat island, of about a quarter of a mile in breadth, lies between the town of Boussa and the fatal spot, which is in a line, from the sultan’s house, with a double-trunked tree with white bark, standing singly on the low flat island. The bank is not particularly high at present, being only about ten feet above the level of this branch, which here breaks over a gray slate rock, extending quite across to the eastern shore: this shore rises into gentle hills, composed of gray slate, thinly scattered with trees; and the grass at this season gives it a dry and withered appearance.

The city of Boussa is situated on an island in the river Quorra, and is in latitude 10° 14′ north, longitude 6° 11′ east. The course of the Quorra here is from north-north-west to south-south-east by compass; and, as they informed me, is full of islands and rocks as far up the river as they were acquainted with it, and the same below. Boussa stands nearest the westernmost branch, which is called by the natives the river Menai; the other two branches have no other name than the Quorra. The Menai’s stream is slow and sluggish; those of the other two strong, with eddies and whirlpools breaking over rocks, which in some places appear above water. Boussa island, as I shall call it, is about three miles in length from north to south, and a mile and a half in breadth at the broadest part. A ridge of rock, composed of gray slate, runs from one end of the island to the other, forming a precipice from twenty to thirty feet high on the eastern side, and shelving gently down on the west: below this precipice extends a beautiful holm or meadow, nearly the whole length of the island, and about three hundred yards broad, to the banks of the river, where there are several rocky mounds, on which villages to the number of four are built. The wall of Boussa is about a quarter of a mile from the banks of the Menai, and unites with the two extremities of the rocky precipice, where they fall in with the banks of the river; and may be about three quarters of a mile or a mile in length. The houses are built in clusters, or forming small villages, inside the wall, not occupying above one-tenth of the ground enclosed. Outside the walls, on the same island, are several villages, with plantations of corn, yams, and cotton. The language of the people of Boussa is the same as the other states of Borgoo, and appears to be a dialect of the Yourriba: but the Houssa language is understood by all classes, even by the Cambrie. I should not think that the whole of the inhabitants living between the wall and the river amounted to more than ten or twelve thousand; but I was informed that the state of Boussa was more populous than all the other provinces of Borgoo; and that, next to Houssa, the sultan of Boussa, from that state alone, could raise more horse than any other prince between Houssa and the sea. The inhabitants, with a very few exceptions, are pagans, as is the sultan, though his name is Mohamed. Milk is his fetish, and which he, therefore, does not taste. This I learnt when he drank tea with me. They eat monkeys, dogs, cats, rats, fish, beef, and mutton; the latter only on great occasions, or when they sacrifice. This morning when I was with the sultan, his breakfast was brought in, which I was asked to partake of. It consisted of a large grilled water-rat with the skin on, some very fine boiled rice, with dried fish stewed in palm oil, and fried or stewed alligators’ eggs, and fresh Quorra water. I eat some of the stewed fish and rice, and they were much amused at my not eating the rat and the eggs. Their arms are, the bow, sword, spear, and a heavy club of about two feet and a half in length, bent at the end and loaded with iron: their defensive armour is a tanned leather shield, of a circular form, and the tobe or large shirt gathered in folds round the body, and made fast round the waist with a belt.

From the front of the Sultan’s house they pointed out to me a high table-topped mountain, bearing by compass north-north-east, distant from twenty-five to thirty miles. On the south-west side of this mountain they say Youri lies; and the Quorra runs past the west end of the mountain.

When I went to take leave of the sultan and midaki, the latter made me a present of a fine young native horse; his brother, a fine young man, accompanied me; the head man, or, as he is called, the _avoikin sirka_ and the principal people of Boussa, also accompanied me to the banks of the Menai, when I crossed and took leave of them; the messenger of the sultan of Boussa, and a messenger of the king of Youri, to whom I had promised to deliver a present for his master when I got to the ferry, attending me. Thus ended my visit to Boussa.