Chapter XI

Wassoulo. — Manners and customs of the inhabitants. — Flourishing state of agricultural industry. — Hospitality. — Kankary. — Sambatikila. — Reflections on the sale of slaves. — Scarcity. — Description of the residence of the almamy. — Commerce. — Smiths’ work. — Bambara villages. — Arrival at Timé. — Ranges of mountains.

Wassoulo is a country inhabited by idolatrous Foulahs, who are herdsmen and agriculturists; they rear a great number of horned cattle, and some sheep, and goats. I have seen among them horses of a small breed, and incapable of supporting much fatigue. They have also poultry, on which they set a high value, and which can only be bought for gunpowder, tobacco, salt, or glass-wares. They take especial care of their young fowls, collecting them every night in a sort of round basket, and carrying them into their huts to protect them from cold, and soon after sun-rise every morning, they are again set at liberty to run about round the house; they are seldom fed with grain of any kind, but live upon insects, herbs, and the grains of rice or millet, which fly out of the mortars while pounding. The men take care of the poultry, and bring out of the fields heaps of earth swarming with termites, which the fowls immediately devour. All the inhabitants have dogs to protect their houses; but I did not see dogs’ flesh eaten in Wassoulo, as in some parts of Bambara.

The country is generally open, and diversified by a few hills; the soil very fertile, and partly composed of a rich black mould mixed with gravel: the country is watered by the Sarano, and by many large streams, which fertilise the soil; it brings forth in abundance every thing which is necessary for man in an unsophisticated state. The inhabitants are gentle, humane, and very hospitable, curious to excess, but much less teazing than the Mandingoes. Their food is very simple; they eat, like the people of Kankan, rice, tau, foigné, without pounding; to these they add a sauce made of leaves of different herbs, or of roasted pistachio-nuts. They seldom use salt, which is a great luxury, and eat meat only on feast-days; in their sauces they mix (besides gombo) the leaf of the baobab, dried and pounded; they also eat the fruit of this tree, which they steep in water or milk, and which, like nédé, is very sweet and nutritious.

The women manufacture earthen pots for their housekeeping; for this purpose they use a grey clay, which they find on the banks of the streams; they knead it, and clear it of all extraneous matter, and when of the proper consistence, it is easily worked: having brought it into the right form, they polish it by degrees with their hands, and the vessels, when finished, are placed in the shade to dry slowly, for the heat of the sun would crack them; when half dry, they are again polished with a piece of wood made for the purpose; in this way they become quite shining, and are again set to dry. Before they are completely hardened, they are exposed to a gentle sun, and eight or ten days afterwards they are piled one upon another, between two layers of millet-straw, which is set on fire to complete the baking. Vessels which are thus made come out quite glazed and of a greyish colour; they are usually round, with a little rim round the top, and no handle; they very much resemble what are made all through Fouta-Dhialon and Kankan. The amiable inhabitants of this happy country live as if they were all of one family. Each hamlet is composed of twelve or fourteen huts, or even fewer, surrounded by a clumsy and tasteless wooden palisade. In the centre of this little group of huts is a court, into which they all open; the cattle are shut up in this court at night; but the calves have a separate enclosure; it is the business of the women to milk the cows. There are usually two outer doors to this court, at each of which is a forked piece of wood, which you are sometimes obliged to stride over, as it is not always very easy to squeeze past it, and I have found it very troublesome, on various occasions, in my Arabian costume. These forks are thus placed to prevent the cattle from straying at night, and there is another entrance without this kind of barricade through which they are brought in and out.

The women, who are employed in cooking, perform their operations in the open air. The inhabitants are in general very dirty and ill-clothed; their costume resembles that of the natives of Toron; and, like them, they use tobacco and snuff. They plait their hair in tresses, wear ear-rings of small beads and necklaces, and iron bracelets on their legs and arms, like the women. They are Foulahs, but do not speak the Foulah language. Their complexion, which is lighter than that of the Mandingoes, is of a darker hue than the negroes of Fouta-Dhialon. I tried to discover whether they had any religion of their own; whether they worshipped fetishes, or the sun, moon or stars; but I could never perceive any religious ceremony amongst them, and I suspect that they are careless on the subject, and trouble themselves very little with theology: if they had any specific belief of their own, instead of encouraging Musulmans and grigris, they would scorn them, and adhere to the superstition of their country. Small hamlets are to be seen at short distances from one another all over the country. The inhabitants grow a great quantity of cotton, of which they manufacture cloth, and sell it to dealers, who carry it to Kankan. The looms which they use for weaving cloth are like ours, but smaller; the breadths are not more than five inches wide; the slays are of reed, and they have a shuttle like ours with small bobbins, which they fasten to the shuttle with a thin bit of wire, or a small piece of reed; they do not weave fast. The women sit in their courts, and spin cotton; as they do not understand carding, their thread is coarse and uneven; they use the same kind of spindle which is employed by the negresses of the Senegal.

They have in the country smiths, who make poniards, iron bracelets, and agricultural implements; these last consist chiefly of a hoe eight or ten inches long, and five broad; I did not observe any other. With this instrument they make trenches, clear away the weeds, and cultivate the ground as well as we can in Europe. They have a small axe to cut down the trees which grow in their fields, and they take care to destroy the roots, which I had not seen practised since I left the coast. The inhabitants of Wassoulo carry on little traffic, and never travel; their idolatry indeed would expose them to the most dreadful slavery if they did. Gentle and humane, they give a friendly reception to all the strangers who come among them. They grow a great quantity of tobacco; when it has run to seed, they gather the leaves, dry them in the sun, and reduce part of them to snuff, of which they consume a great quantity; the rest is reserved for smoking. They have a pair of large tongs, like a smith’s a foot long, to light their pipes with. The young men shave their heads, like the Mahometans. Most of them are very expert in the management of the bow and arrow, and I have seen them amuse themselves with shooting at a mark in a tree. The children, who are all naked, are early addicted to bodily exercises. These people have a habit of making incisions in their faces, and filing their teeth; they have several wives, like all other idolaters, who are most submissive to their husbands; a woman always drops on one knee when she hands any thing to her husband, and the same ceremony is observed to strangers of distinction. I never saw any kind of illness in the country; they are all robust and healthy. Though vegetable butter abounds amongst them they make little use of it; they prefer animal butter for culinary purposes, and reserve the vegetable for pains and wounds: they also grease their hair with it, and rub it over their bodies, which gives them a rank smell. They form a great contrast to the inhabitants of Kankan in the article of cleanliness; for they are altogether filthy and disgusting, and never wash their clothes, which are always of a black or yellow colour. They wear on their heads a cap eighteen inches in height, the top of which is very narrow, and hangs down on the back or shoulder; I could hardly guess the original colour, so completely was it always disfigured with dirt and butter; when it drops off in rags they provide themselves with a new one. The women have no other covering than a pagne, which they wrap round their loins; on their heads they wear a strip of the manufacture of the country, which serves as a head-dress. I never saw any of them smoke, but they take a great deal of snuff, and also rub it on the inside and out of their gums.

On the 23rd of July, at seven in the morning, we took leave of our hosts, who had given us a very good supper of rice the evening before. We directed our course E.S.E. and passed a little village, the name of which I have forgotten. At one of the cabins I asked for a little water to quench my thirst; a female slave brought me some in a calabash: she knelt down as she presented it to me. We heard distant thunder, but had no rain. We continued our progress to the S.E. for eight miles, and passed Banankodo, a large village of the Foulou, containing four or five hundred inhabitants; it is shaded by large bombaces and baobab trees. The country over which we travelled was under water, and the plain quite open: it was about noon, when, after having gone three miles more, we halted at Yonmouso, a little hamlet similar to those of the Wassoulos. Arafanba fired his piece in token of rejoicing on our arrival at this little village, where he had friends, with whom we went to seek a lodging, and they forthwith prepared a hut for us, in which we passed the night. I had met on the road a Poulh of Foulou, accompanied by his wife, who carried upon her head a breakfast of foigné and milk: as this man had questioned my guide respecting me, and was doubtless interested about me, I accepted with pleasure the breakfast which he offered to me. I wished to pay him in glass-wares, but he persisted in refusing all compensation. When I arrived at Yonmouso this man brought several of his companions to see me: he said nothing concerning his generous hospitality to me—a reserve that I admired greatly in a negro. He asked to see my umbrella; I hastened to gratify him, and it excited, as before, the admiration of all: to amuse them, I opened and shut it repeatedly. The hut was not cleared of people the whole evening; but their visits were very short, and their manners reserved: they also had recourse to wisps of lighted straw to see me the better, and liked the looks of me. Many gave me milk, and at the beginning of the night a pretty good supper of boiled yams pounded, with gombo sauce, which we seasoned with a little salt, and to which roasted pistachio-nuts were added.

The 24th of July we remained amongst these good people to rest from our fatigue. My guide gave five or six charges of powder for a kid: we ate part of it for our supper; and our host, to whom a small portion was given, presented us with some good sour milk and boiled rice for our breakfast the next morning. In the course of the day, we had a visit from a Poulh of the Fouta-Dhialon who was settled in this country. My guide presented him with a piece of kid, and I with a sheet of paper, for which he overwhelmed me with grateful acknowledgments. In the evening, many Foulahs from the neighbouring parts, attracted by the report that there was a white man in the place, paid me a visit; they lighted straw, and were very much amused at the length of my nose. They all said that I was a fine fellow, and went away very well pleased. Our host supplied us with a supper of yams, to which we added a piece of kid.

On the 25th of July, in the morning, the Foulah to whom we had given a piece of kid, sent us a plentiful breakfast of rice, besides a fowl and some milk; after making our meal we took leave of our host; my guide made him a present of a few strings of beads, and two little bits of scarlet cloth an inch and a half square. It was eight o’clock when we set off. We directed our course to the S.S.E. and travelled twelve miles in that direction without stopping; the country is generally open, but abounding in nédés and cés; the soil full of small gravel, and, in many places, of volcanic stones. We crossed several streams with well wooded banks, near which were neat cottages of the Bambaras, who were peacefully cultivating their little fields of yams; the country is not so well peopled as that of Wassoulo. We halted towards two o’clock, at Manegnan, a village inhabited by Bambaras; it contains about eight or nine hundred inhabitants; the natives call this part of the country Foulou, and like the Wassoulos they speak the Mandingo language; I did not perceive that they had any particular dialect. They are idolaters, or rather, they are without any religion; their food and clothes are like those of the inhabitants of Wassoulo; and they are equally dirty. At the entrance of the village I passed the _banankoro_, where all who are disengaged meet together to smoke their pipes and converse; I saw a number of old men there. The banankoro is a large hut, covered with straw, and open all round; the roof is supported upon stakes driven in a circle, and at equal distances. Round logs of wood are placed on the ground near one another, to serve as seats; these logs are so ancient, that they have become highly polished by use.

On reaching our lodging, I was visited by many of the old men, who had seen me pass when they were assembled; some of them gave me colats and a fowl for supper; these negroes seemed to me as gentle and humane as the Foulahs of Wassoulo, whom they resemble extremely in their countenances, their apparel, their customs and habits of life. They were never weary of looking at me, and said that they had never seen a white man; for the Moors of this country do not travel. Part of the evening was stormy, which at first prevented the inhabitants from seeing me; but they made themselves amends after the rain was over, crowding round me till eight o’clock in the evening with the same eagerness and curiosity; they also lighted straw, and paid me the same compliments as the people of Yonmouso.

On the 26th of July, at seven in the morning, we gave a present to our host and prepared to set off. I perceived that the village was surrounded by a wall, and that the inhabitants cultivated tobacco round their houses, for their own use. I was followed by a crowd for about half an hour; we crossed an inundated plain of indigo, which grows spontaneously, and afterwards passed over a very tottering bridge; here the villagers left us. I saw some cultivated land, but not in such good order as what I had left behind me. The husbandmen bring their fowls with them into the fields, to eat up the insects. We continued our course to the S.E.; and travelled eleven miles briskly enough; the country around us was level, and better wooded than what we had crossed for the last few days. We arrived at Nougouda a walled village, inhabited by Bambaras; and stayed there some time to change porters; we also bought a little milk and dégué to refresh ourselves. We then continued for five miles more to the south; at a considerable distance to the S.W. ¼ S. of our route, I saw three very high mountains with flattened peaks; we travelled two miles to the S.S.E. over a woody country, covered with ferruginous stones, and not cultivated. About four in the afternoon, we reached Tangouroman, a walled village which contains about three or four hundred Bambara inhabitants; we were nearly tired out, for we had travelled at a great rate, because my guide wished to reach his own home before night. The village is shaded by fine bombaces and baobabs. The poor inhabitants were unable to provide us with a fowl, or even with milk, and they found it difficult to give us a supper; they brought us a dish of foigné, with a sauce of herbs, which they had prepared for themselves, and supped on a bit of boiled yam; after which frugal repast, they fell to dancing merrily and kept it up all night. I remarked in our host’s court, many little bundles of straw supported upon stakes or large stones, to keep it from the damp, which is excessive in this country; in these magazines they store their provision of rice, millet, pistachio-nuts, and yams, which are never plundered. I have not seen a single beggar between Kankan, or indeed Baléya, and this place. Arafanba went to sleep at Sambatikila; for my part, I was so fatigued with my day’s journey, that I staid where I was, with the saracolets and a Foulah of Fouta-Dhialon. Our host made a present of a fine Barbary duck to my guide, who was considered in this country as a marabout of importance; we should have liked very well to eat it for supper, for we could find nothing to buy, but he kept it for his own private use.

On the 27th of July, at six in the morning we took leave of our host, after having paid him for our entertainment. We gave him four strings of beads, with which he appeared to be satisfied. In crossing the village I perceived that it was as dirty as its inhabitants; we were up to the ancles in mud. We directed our course to the S.S.E., and I saw nothing on my way but some poor fields of foigné, yams, and pistachios, in very bad order; I did not perceive any maize, which would be very useful to the inhabitants. The greater part of the land is a black mould intermingled with gravel; cultivation is almost entirely neglected. Twelve miles to the left of our road, we saw a chain of hills of inconsiderable height extending towards the N.E. A little way from Sambatikila, we met my guide who was coming to meet us; our host, who the evening before had given him a duck, had sent his little daughter with us to Sambatikila, and Arafanba, recollecting I suppose that this Bambara was by no means rich, sent him back his duck; I was rather surprised at this conduct in a Mahometan towards an infidel. My guide told me that the almamy was anxious to see me, and sorry that I had remained behind the evening before; I told him jokingly, that the prince would soon have the pleasure of gratifying his curiosity.

It was nearly nine o’clock in the morning, when we made our appearance at Sambatikila, which is surrounded by a double wall, ten or eleven feet high, and ten inches thick. We proceeded immediately to the almamy’s, and were ushered into an ante-room, where we waited till some one went to announce us. The chief admitted us immediately to his presence, and we found him reclining under a little shed in his court; he raised himself and extended his hand to me with the customary salutations, _salam alécoum; alécoum salam; enékindé; a kindé_; after having touched me, he rubbed his hand upon his face and chest, to communicate the salutary effect; for he is very religious, and has much faith in the sanctity of the Arabs. He was extremely polite, and told me that he was happy to receive a man whose country was so near Mecca. I told him that I meant to go thither; and he put many questions to Arafanba, who was eager to tell him all he had heard about me at Kankan. This old chief was dressed in the Arabian fashion; his clothes were exceedingly clean; he wore a turban of a red and white striped stuff manufactured in the country. Our visit was very short; he lodged me in one of his son’s houses, together with the two saracolets and the Foulah; the son appeared to me very poor, but he gave us a neat habitation, and took great care that we should have warm water wherewith to perform our ablutions before prayer. I expected that the king would provide for our support, but he left us the whole day without food, presuming that my guide would take care of us; the guide sent us a breakfast of boiled yams, and sauce without salt. After this frugal repast, which we ate with considerable appetite, as it was then late in the day, I sent to my guide for the goods of mine which he had brought the night before; to reward him for the attention which he had paid me on the journey, I made him a small present of cloth, a pair of scissors, and some paper, with which he was delighted and thanked me heartily. He had been kind enough to pay all my expenses on the way, and never asked for any compensation. In the course of the day I was visited by many Mandingoes, who live at Sambatikila; one of them gave me some milk, which is not quite so plentiful here as in Wassoulo. It rained all the afternoon; I went, nevertheless, to the mosque to show the inhabitants that I was a zealous Musulman. At nightfall my guide sent us a small supper of rice, with which we contented ourselves, because we could get nothing else.

On the 28th of July, the almamy, recollecting, I suppose, that it was his duty to feed the strangers, sent us a dish of rice without salt, with a sauce of _zambala_,[54] and a supper of yams with a similar sauce.

On the 29th of July, we had nothing to eat the whole of the day; I bethought myself of calling upon the almamy, who seemed to have forgotten that he had strangers at his dwelling, or thought that they were accustomed to fasting. He did not hurry himself however, for it was six o’clock in the evening when he sent us some yams, boiled and pounded, with a little bad sauce; and we were unluckily obliged to share this light repast with a Mandingo, who happened at that moment to be prowling about our hut; he came and sat down by us, and needed no pressing, for he had probably tasted nothing since the evening before. I have often been obliged in the same way to share the little food I could get with these hungry and idle parasites, who would rather starve than work for themselves. As our host neglected us so completely, we went out to procure some rice and yams for ourselves; but we could find nothing in the village, for the devout almamy had forbidden the customary market twice a week, under pretence that it interfered with prayers. We sent to a neighbouring village, but were equally unsuccessful; so we were forced to be content with the small portion which our host allowed us. We were informed that provisions were scarce, that there was not enough to last till next harvest, and that the scarcity extended to the neighbouring country.

On the 30th of July, a caravan of saracolet merchants arrived at Sambatikila, on their way to Foulou to purchase slaves, whom they sell again in Foulou or Kankan. All the goods which are sold at the European settlements on the coast are destined for this infamous traffic; the slaves are not exported, it is true, but they are no better off than if they were. Slavery may perhaps be abolished in civilized Europe, but the wild and covetous African will long continue the barbarous custom of selling his fellow-creatures. It is so pleasant to live in idleness, and to enjoy the fruit of the labours of others, that every negro does all in his power to become a slave owner; their ambition is limited to the possession of twelve or fifteen slaves, whom they employ entirely in agricultural labour. These poor creatures are ill-clothed, and work very hard; but I never saw them ill-treated. They are commonly obliged to provide for their own support, and have a field to themselves, which they cultivate for this purpose; they grow maize and cassava round their huts, and find them a great resource. In the evening the almamy of Sambatikila sent us nothing, and we had made up our minds to fast, when we were agreeably surprised, about seven o’clock, by the sight of a dish of boiled rice without salt, which was sent by my guide, Arafanba, who knew that I was suffering from scanty diet. In truth, I could not be too grateful to this generous negro, who deprived himself for my sake of part of his supper, at a time when he found it very difficult to provide for his family. Provisions were so scarce and so dear in the village, that nobody thought of eating more than one meal a day, and the night was chosen for the purpose, because the negroes would rather go without food all day than retire to rest without supper.

On the 31st of July, at six in the morning, the almamy, recollecting probably that he had given us nothing the day before, sent us some rice for breakfast. A good saracolet, belonging to the caravan which had just arrived, and who had travelled often to Jenné, brought me some rice and milk, which he begged me to accept: I gave him some glass ware in return for his present. He was acquainted with many Moorish merchants at Jenné, and assured me I should be well received by them. This negro spoke a little Arabic; he told me, that on my road to Jenné I should find provisions very scarce, salt in particular. The son of the almamy came every now and then to see us, and to inquire whether we wanted warm water for our ablutions; he took care that we should never be short of _water_, but as to provisions, he did not inquire very particularly, and I suspect that the poor devil was little better off than ourselves; I noticed that he passed the whole day without food, as if it had been the Ramadan, and at night, after prayer, he ate a little tau with four other negroes. In spite of these compulsory fasts, they all seemed very merry, and never failed to go every morning to chant the Koran; the almamy himself also chanted from time to time. His son came sometimes to offer me his scanty supper, which I always refused, knowing that he had nothing else for himself.

On the 1st of August, I went with one of my companions to pay a visit to the almamy. We entered an apartment, which served the double purpose of stable and bedchamber, with the royal bed at the further end; this bed was a platform, six inches high, six or seven feet long, and five or six wide, upon which was spread an ox-hide, with a dirty musquito-curtain to keep off the insects. The room might be thirty or thirty-five feet long, and ten or twelve wide; it is constructed of earth, which they have not taken the trouble to make into bricks; the walls are seven, or seven feet and a half high, and a foot thick; the roof is supported upon wooden posts, planted within the side walls, and covered with straw; there are three entrances, the doors of which are also formed of straw. No furniture is visible in this royal apartment; but there were two saddles hanging up against the wall from the posts, a great straw hat, a drum, which is only used in time of war, some lances, a bow, quiver, and arrows; these were all its ornaments, excepting a lamp, formed of a piece of iron, supported upon another piece of the same metal, stuck into the ground: vegetable butter, which has not consistency enough to be made into candles, is burnt in this lamp. Two other apartments, of the same dimensions, serve as magazines for the produce of the fields and other valuables. The large inner enclosure contains several common huts, in which I saw some looms like those employed on the coast. The old prince was lying down on his bed, and he made us sit by him. He was saying his prayers, and held in his hand a rosary two feet and a half long, the beads of which were as large as bullets; he appeared very attentive. He addressed his conversation to me, and begged me to make his compliments to the elders of Mecca and Medina when I arrived there; after which he asked me to wait a moment. He went out into the court and returned immediately followed by a slave carrying on her head a calabash of rice, with some disagreeable herb sauce, which he gave me; he then dismissed me, promising that he would soon find me an opportunity for me to go to Jenné. The absence of salt rendered this rice unpleasant; but I had now ceased to be dainty, for hunger is sauce to all sorts of food, as I have often experienced in the course of my travels. Shortly after a Mandingo sent me an excellent dish of rice cooked with milk.

Since the 27th of July the rain had been incessant; the weather was still cold and damp. In the evening of the 1st of August, the almamy sent a man to tell me, that there was an opportunity for going to Jenné, and that if I liked to take advantage of it, he would furnish me with a guide to Timé, whence the caravan would start. I had a wound on my left foot which I was doctoring with lint, and could not heal; but I preferred suffering on the road, painful as my wound was, to remaining any longer in a place where there would soon be a horrible scarcity. I sent word to the chief that I wished to set off as early as possible.

On the 2d of August, at six in the morning, the almamy sent me some rice and a piece of a sheep which had been killed the day before, which I shared with my companions. About eight o’clock Arafanba came to me, and we went together to take leave of the chief. He called me to his store-house, and opened a little door, so low that a man must stoop double to enter; one of his women then drew out a bracelet wrapped in rag, of which he made me a present; it was silver and worth about three francs; I had brought him a pretty present of coloured muslin, paper, and strings of beads. Arafanba, my former guide, told him that I had very little merchandise with me and was sorry I could not offer him a more suitable present; he smiled and accepted it with pleasure. The old man again desired me not to forget him when I should be among the venerable sheiks of Mecca; I promised that I would not and took my leave. A minute or two afterwards he came to the hut where I lodged to return my visit; he was on horseback, and had on his head a straw hat large enough to serve for an umbrella. He was going to his ourondé to look after his slaves; he told me he was sorry he had not thought in time of having a grigri made by the hand of an Arab; he wished me a good journey and left me. About ten o’clock, my new guide came to tell me it was time to set off; it had been raining all the morning and the rain was not yet over, but we did not stop for it. Before I proceed, however, I must give some account of the fine country which I am leaving.

Sambatikila is a large village surrounded by a double wall; it is independent and inhabited by Mandingo Musulmans. It is much larger than Kankan, but not so well peopled; there are many large vacant places in the interior of the village; the streets are narrow, crooked, and, at this season of the year, full of mud. The soil, composed in some places of black mould, and in others of grey sand mixed with earth, is very fertile, but very little cultivated; the country is covered with cés and nédés. The inhabitants are engaged entirely in commerce; they go a few days’ journey to the south of their village to buy colat-nuts, and these they carry to Jenné and barter for salt; this traffic is not very lucrative, because the journeys are long and troublesome, and they have to purchase food on the road, and to pay for lodgings and transit-duty in all the villages.

A small quantity of very handsome cloth is manufactured in this neighbourhood, from cotton purchased from the Bambaras. The average price of a slave in these parts is thirty bricks of salt (a brick is ten inches long, three wide, and two or two and a half thick: there are larger and smaller bricks, and the value varies accordingly) a barrel of powder and eight parcels of beads of a bright chesnut colour; or, a gun and four yards of rose-coloured taffeta are also the price of a slave. The trade of Sambatikila is not brisk; and is far from equal to that of Kankan; the want of a market injures it greatly, and the inhabitants are poor. Their crops are not sufficient to last from one year to the next, and they are forced to buy rice from the Bambaras, paying for it with salt, which the others cannot procure in any other way. The Mandingoes would rather go without food part of the day than work in the fields; they pretend that labour would take off their attention from the Koran, which is a very specious excuse for their laziness.

Their flocks, which are not numerous, consist of sheep and goats; they also rear poultry; the few horses they have are of a very small breed. The son of the almamy with whom I lodged had performed several journeys to Jenné; he told me without any fear of compromising his dignity, that he had carried a load of colat-nuts on his head, as well as his companions. I questioned him as to the length of the journey; and he told me that it took two months and a half or three months to get thither, and that it was not possible to make more than two journeys in a year.

The title of almamy, or king, is hereditary; the eldest son of the sovereign always succeeds. He has usually four wives and a great number of children. He is the only chief at Sambatikila, and if disputes arise the elders assemble at the almamy’s house, or at the mosque, to administer justice. Guns are not as common in this village as at Kankan, for I saw nothing but bows and arrows hanging up in the houses which I visited.

About ten in the morning, we commenced our journey; Arafanba, the two saracolets, and the Foulah, conducted me as far as the bank of a rivulet, which the natives call Oulaba, and which waters the neighbourhood of Sambatikila; we crossed in a wretched canoe, which was nearly upset more than once: it was made out of a single tree, but was now old, broken, and patched with pieces of rotten pagne, which would not keep out the water; fortunately the stream was not very wide, and we arrived at the right bank without accident. Arafanba accompanied me for a mile, and parted from me with great regret, after charging my guide to take care of me. Arafanba was the most amiable and agreeable Mandingo I had seen; and (what even now surprises me when I think of it) he never asked me for any thing, and appeared quite contented with the very moderate present which my means allowed me to make. We travelled E.S.E. for two miles, over a very fine black mould, intermingled with gravel; I saw only a few poor fields of foigné not yet in flower, though the harvest was over in Wassoulo; we crossed a tottering bridge, and arrived at Cagnanso, a little walled village which we did not enter. I noticed a shop belonging to some smiths, who were not better lodged than those which were on the coast; they make, however, agricultural implements, poniards, bracelets, and barbs for their arrows; the iron they use comes from Fouta-Dhialon. The environs of this village, which are inhabited by Bambaras, are uncultivated, but thickly studded with large trees, and covered with straw, which last impeded my progress greatly, causing me terrible pain, by fretting my wound and rubbing off the plaster; this, added to the water which covered the roads, and the rain which fell in torrents, fatigued me extremely. I longed to find a shelter where I might rest myself; we nevertheless continued our journey towards the S.S.E. After walking seven miles, we passed Coro, another walled Bambara village, which contains about four or five hundred inhabitants; the environs are no better cultivated than those of Cagnanso. We proceeded six miles further to the south; the country is woody and flat, and the road covered with gravel, which rendered walking very fatiguing. I saw no signs of cultivation, and we crossed several marshes. About three o’clock we halted, thoroughly fatigued, at Timicoro, a small Bambara village. The environs are woody, and covered with high straw; the fields are five or six miles from the huts, whether on account of the soil being better, or to save the grain from the ravages of goats and poultry, I know not. My guide took me to the house of one of his acquaintance, who supplied us with a small, damp, and dirty lodging. I had a good fire lighted immediately to dry my coussabe and my breeches; for the rain had been pelting at our backs all day; it continued through the night, and it was a small constant rain, which rendered the air cold. At this village I saw many goats and fowls, but the inhabitants have no horned cattle. At nightfall, the men came home from work; they were all nearly naked, having nothing but a tight cotton band which they pass between their thighs. I remarked that these men had necklaces on their necks, ear-rings of glass beads, and a great many amulets, such as goat’s horns, sheep’s tails, &c. All these things supply the place of grigris, in which they have great faith. They gave us a supper of tau, with herb-sauce, but no salt; I ate a little of this dish, but the sauce was so bad that I could not relish it.

In the evening a dispute arose between two men of the village, who began to fight, and would even have used their poniards, if the inhabitants had not collected round them to make peace. Nothing was heard but the shrieks of the women, who made great lamentations, and the crowd was immense; all spoke at once, and shouted to make themselves heard, so that there was a tremendous uproar. My guide informed me, that the chief of the village was blind, otherwise he would have come to the spot and restored order. I never could learn what was the cause of this scuffle, which took place precisely in the court where we lodged, and lasted a very long time, though the rain was pouring in torrents.

On the 3rd of August, in the morning, my guide cooked a small yam on the coals, and I roasted a few pistachio-nuts, which we ate together; after having presented our host with some small glass beads, we proceeded on our journey; it was then about nine o’clock. It still rained hard, and my umbrella was of little use, because the high grass, and the bushes which covered the road, wetted me as much as the rain. We travelled towards the south; at some distance from Timicoro, I saw a few poor fields of foigné and yams in a bad state of cultivation; the owners had not even taken the trouble to grub up the bushes. We passed the village of Yango-Firé, situated near a rivulet, where I saw plenty of poultry. We proceeded at first to the south, and then towards the east. We passed Brokhosso; to the S.E. of which I perceived a large hill, which appeared to be entirely destitute of vegetation. After crossing some fields of foigné, and others of french-beans, the first that I had seen since I left the coast, we arrived about half-past one in the afternoon, at the neat little village of Timé, inhabited by Mandingo Mahometans; it is shaded by a number of enormous bombaces, and by a few baobabs; we had travelled about ten miles. Three or four miles to the east of Timé, we noticed a chain of mountains, which were probably eighteen hundred or two thousand feet high; this range stretches from north to east. That which faces the village is more elevated, and covered with fine vegetation, except on the summit, which is very bare.