Thus Adorned, The Wife Or Daughter Of A Rich Shouaa Might Be Seen Entering The Market In Full Style, Bestriding An Ox, Which She Managed Dexterously, By A Leathern Thong Passed Through The Nose, And Whose Unwieldy Bulk She Even Contrived To Torture Into Something Like Capering And Curvetting.

Angornou is the chief market, and the crowd there is sometimes immense, amounting to eighty or one hundred thousand individuals.

All the produce of the country is bought and sold in open market, for shops and warehouses do not enter into the system of African traffic.

Bornou taken altogether forms an extensive plain, stretching two hundred miles along the western shore of Lake Tchad, and nearly the same distance inland. This sea periodically changes its bed in a singular manner. During the rains, when its tributary rivers pour in thrice the usual quantity of water, it inundates an extensive tract, from which it retires in the dry season. This space, then overgrown with dense underwood, and with grass double the height of a man, contains a motley assemblage of wild beasts - lions, panthers, hyenas, elephants, and serpents of extraordinary form and bulk. These monsters, while undisturbed in this mighty den, remain tranquil, or war only with each other, but when the lake swells, and its waters rush in, they of necessity seek refuge among the abodes of men, to whom they prove the most dreadful scourge. Not only the cattle but the slaves attending the grain, often fall victims; they even rush in large bodies into the towns.

Enter page number Go  Previous Next
Page 434 of 1124
Words from 118389 to 118645 of 309561