In The Widow Laddie's House, No Fewer Than Twenty-One Of These Female Merchants Were Lodged At The Same Time That Clapperton And Lander Took Up Their Abode With Her, And It May Be Easily Supposed, That The Europeans Led A Most Pleasant Life Of It.

An African hut is by no means at any time an abode which an European would covet, but in

Addition to the suffocating heat, the mosquitoes, and many other nameless inconveniences, to be congregated with twenty or thirty females, not carrying about them the most delicious odour in the world, and making the welkin ring again with their discordant screams, there denominated singing, is a consummation by no means devoutly to be wished. In addition to other nuisances, the organ of amativeness, as the phrenologists would have it, was strongly developed in some of the skulls of the ladies, and displayed themselves in their actions towards the Europeans, who not being disposed to return their amorous advances, often made a precipitate retreat out of the hut, not being aware at the time that by avoiding Sylla, they ran a great risk of failing into Charybdis. The widow Laddie, although huge, fat, and deaf, was by no means of a cold, phlegmatic or saturnine disposition - many a wistful look she cast towards Lander, but he either would not or could not comprehend their meaning, and to punish him for his stupidity, she took care that he should not comprehend any of the significant glances, which were cast towards him by the more juvenile portion of the community. To protect him from this danger, the kind widow attended him whithersoever he went, to the great annoyance of Lander, who, in order to escape from such a living torment, betook himself to a more distant part of the town, or explored its vicinity, although very little presented itself to attract his immediate attention.

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