Travels Of Richard And John Lander Into The Interior Of Africa For The Discovery Of The Course And Termination Of The Niger By Robert Huish
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Then
The Women, Who Attend The Market, Prepare Their Wares For Sale, And
When Ready, Set Off, Ten Or Twelve In A Party, And Following Each At
A Stated Distance.
Many of these trains are seen, and their step is,
so regular, that if they had been drilled by a sergeant of the
foot-guards in England, they could not perform their motions with
greater exactitude.
The elderly women prepare, clean, and spin cotton
at home, and cook the victuals; the younger females are generally
sent round the town, selling the small rice balls, fried beans, &c.,
and bringing back a supply of water for the day. The master of the
house generally takes a walk to the market, or sits in the shade at
the door of his hut, hearing the news, or speaking of the price of
natron or other goods. The weavers are daily employed at their trade;
some are sent to cut wood, and bring it to market; others to bring
grass for the horses that may belong to the house, or to take to the
market to sell. A number of people at the commencement of the rainy
season, are employed in clearing the ground for sowing the maize and
millet, some are sent on distant journeys to buy and sell for their
master or mistress, and they very rarely betray their trust. About
noon, they return home, when all have a mess of the pudding called
tvaki, or boiled beans. About two or three in the afternoon, they
return to their different employments, on which they remain until
near sunset, when they count their gains to their master or mistress,
who receives it, and puts it carefully away in their strong room.
They then have a meal of pudding, and a little fat or stew. The
mistress of the house, when she goes to rest, has her feet put into a
cold poultice of the pounded henna leaves. The young then go to dance
and play, if it be moonlight, and the old to lounge and converse in
the open square of the house, or in the outer coozie, where they
remain until the cool of the night, or till the approach of morning
drives them into shelter.
The majority of the inhabitants of Koolfu are professedly
Mahommedans; the rest are pagans, who once a year, in common with the
other people of Nyffee, repair to a high hill in one of the southern
provinces, on which they sacrifice a black bull, a black sheep, and a
black dog. On their fetish houses are sculptured, as in Youriba, the
lizard, the crocodile, the tortoise, and the boa, with sometimes
human figures. Their language is a dialect of the Youribanee, but the
Houssa is that of the market. They are civil, but the truth is not in
them; and to be detected in a lie is not the smallest disgrace; it
only causes a laugh. The men drink very hard, even the Mahommedans
and the women are not particularly celebrated for their chastity,
although they succeeded in cheating both Clapperton and Lander; they
were not, however, robbed of a single article, and they were
uniformly treated with perfect respect. The people seem, indeed, by
no means devoid of kindness of disposition. When the town of Bali was
burned down, every person sent next day what they could spare of
their goods, to assist the unfortunate inhabitants. In civilized
England, when a fire takes place, thieving and robbery are the order
of the day, but during the conflagration at Bali, not an article was
stolen.
To their domestic slaves, they behave with the greatest humanity,
looking upon them almost as children of the family. The males are
often freed, and the females given in marriage to free men, or to
other domestic slaves. The food of the slave and the free is nearly
the same. The greatest man or woman in the country is not ashamed, at
times, to let the slaves eat of the same dish; but a woman is never
allowed to eat with a man. With a people, who have neither
established law nor government, it is surprising that they are so
good and moral as they are; it is true, they will cheat if they can,
but amongst the civilized nations, who have both laws and government,
cheating is by no means a rare occurrence, and by those too, who are
the loudest in the professions of their honesty and integrity.
The country round Koolfu is a level plain, well cultivated, and
studded with little walled towns and villages along the banks of the
May Yarrow, and of a little river running into it from the north.
Between the walled towns of Bullabulla and Rajadawa, the route passed
through plantations of grain, indigo, and cotton; the soil clay mixed
with sand, with here and there large blocks of sandstone, containing
nodules of iron and veins of iron-stone.
At five days from Koolfu, the route entered at the town of Wazo, or
Wazawo, the district of Koteng Koro, formerly included in Kashna; and
for another five days' journey through a rich and beautiful valley,
and over woody hills, the travellers reached Womba, a large walled
town, where the caravans both from the east and the west generally
halt a day or two, and where, as at Wazo, a toll is levied on
merchandise. The town stands on a rising ground, at the eastern head
of a valley watered by a small stream, having three bare rocky hills
of granite to the north, east, and south. The inhabitants may amount
to between ten and twelve thousand souls. The travellers were here
objects of much kindness; the principal people of the place sent
presents, and the lower ranks sought to obtain a sight of them by
mounting the trees which overlooked their residence. The Koran does
not seem to have much embarrassed these people; their only mode of
studying it was to have the characters written with a black substance
on a piece of board, then to wash them off and drink the water; and
when asked what spiritual benefit could be derived from the mere
swallowing of dirty water, they indignantly retorted, "What!
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