the most awkward manner, to walk on its naked feet. The audience, amid shouts of laughter, called the particular attention of the Captain to this performance; which being really good, he deemed it advisable to join in the mirth.

As soon as our traveller was fixed at Eyeo, he began to negotiate in regard to the means of advancing into Houssa, anxious to pass through that country and reach Bornou before the rains should set in. The king had professed a determination to serve him in every shape; but this proved to be the very thing in which he was least inclined to fulfil his promise. All African princes seek to make a monopoly of the strangers who enter their territory. It was hinted that one journey was well and fully employed in seeing the kingdom of Yarriba and visiting its great monarch. Captain Clapperton having pleaded the positive command of his sovereign, was then informed that the direct route through Nyffe was much disturbed by civil war, the inroad of the Fellatas, and the insurrection of a great body of Houssa slaves, reports suspected at the time to have been got up merely to detain the travellers, but afterwards found to be correct. The king absolutely refused permission to proceed to Rakah, though situated on the Niger at the distance of only three days' journey; but he undertook to convey them to Houssa by a safer, though somewhat circuitous route, through the kingdom of Borgoo.

After passing through a number of smaller places, the mission arrived at Kiama, capital of a district of the same name, and containing 30,000 inhabitants. Kiama, Wawa, Niki, and Boussa, are provinces composing the kingdom of Borgoo, all

subject in a certain sense to the sovereign of Boussa; but the different cities plunder and make war on each other, without the slightest regard to the supreme authority. The people of Kiama and of Borgoo in general have the reputation of being the greatest thieves and robbers in all Africa, a character which nothing in their actual conduct appeared to confirm. Clapperton was well received at Kiama ; and the king soon visited him with the most singular train ever seen by a European. Six young girls, without any apparel except a fillet on the forehead, and a string of beads round the waist, carrying each three light spears, ran by the side of his horse, keeping pace with it at full gallop. "Their light form, the vivacity of their eyes, and the ease with which they appeared to fly over the ground, made them appear something more than mortal." On the king's entrance the young ladies laid down their spears, wrapt themselves in blue mantles, and attended on his majesty. On his taking leave, they discarded their attire; he mounted his horse, " and away went the most extraordinary cavalcade I ever saw in my life." Our traveller was visited by the principal queen, who had lost her youth and charms; but a good deal of flirtation passed between him and the eldest daughter, who, however, being twenty-five, was considered in Africa as already on the wane. Yarro, the king, was extremely accommodating, and no difficulty was found in proceeding onward to Wawa.

Wawa is a large city, containing 18,000 inhabitants, enriched by the constant passage of the Houssa caravans. The people spend the wealth thus acquired in dissolute pleasure, and have been de

nounced by our traveller the most complete set of roaring topers he had ever known. The festivities were usually prolonged till near morning, and the town resounded through the whole night with the song, the dance, the castanet, and the Arab guitar. The Wawa ladies paid a very particular and rather troublesome attention to the English party. The Captain complains of being pestered by the governor's daughter, who came several times a-day, always half-tipsy, painted and bedizened in the highest style of African finery, to make love to him; and on meeting only with cold excuses, she departed usually in a flood of tears. But the most persevering suit was that of Zuma, an Arab widow, possessor of a thousand slaves, and the second personage in Wawa. Being turned of twenty, she was considered here as past her bloom, and a too ample indulgence in the luxuries which her wealth afforded had enlarged her dimensions till they could be justly likened to those of a huge water-cask; yet she had still some beauty, and, being only of a deepbrown complexion, considered herself white, and was in the most eager search after a white husband. In this pursuit she cast her eyes first upon the servant, to whom our traveller hesitates not to assign the palm of good looks in preference to himself; and he gave Lander full permission to follow his fortune. But that sage person, unmoved by all her charms and possessions, repelled the overture in so decided a manner that the widow soon saw there was nothing to be made of him. She then withdrew her artillery from Lander, and directed it entirely against his master, the Captain, to whom she laid very close siege. At length, in a frolic, he agreed to visit her. He found her

surrounded by every circumstance of African pomp, seated cross-legged on a piece of Turkey carpet, with an English pewter mug for her goora-pot, and dressed in a rich striped silk and cotton robe of country manufacture. Her eyebrows were dyed black, her hair blue, her hands and feet red; necklaces and girdles of beads, coral, and gold, profusely adorned her person. She made a display of additional finery lodged in her repositories, leading him through a series of apartments, one of which was ornamented with a number of pewter dishes and bright brass pans. After these preliminaries, she at once declared her wish to accompany him on his journey, and proposed to send forthwith for a malem, or holy man, to read the fatha, by which their fates would be indissolubly united. Clapperton, who seems to have been completely stunned by this proposal, stammered out the best apology he could, and hastened away. His conduct, however, does not appear to have been so decisive as to deter the lady from the most ener getic perseverance in her suit. She even obtained his permission for his servant Pascoe to accept a wife from among her slaves; but he was not aware that, according to African ideas, she had thus acquired a sort of claim to himself.

Regardless of all these tender solicitations, our traveller had no sooner completed his arrangements than he set out for the Niger, leaving directions for his baggage to join him at the ferry of Comie, while he went round by way of Boussa. We shall follow him at present to the former place, where he did not find any of his baggage, but learned that the widow, having placed it under arrest, had left Wawa with drums beating and a numerous

train; and besides, that she claimed a full right to his person, because his servant Pascoe had accepted a wife at her hand. It was whispered, moreover, that she was meditating to supplant the governor,—a scheme which, aided by the personal bravery of the strangers, she might probably realize,-and afterwards she meant to invite the Captain to ascend the throne of Wawa. "It would have been a fine end to my journey indeed," says he, "if I had deposed old Mohammed, and set up for myself, with a walking tunbutt for a queen." Scarcely had he received this account when a present from the widow intimated her arrival in a neighbouring village. Our author, however, insensible to all the brilliant hopes thus opened, set off full speed for Wawa to recover his baggage. On his arrival, the governor refused to liberate it till Zuma's return,-Clapperton in vain protesting that his movements and hers had no sort of connexion However, next day, the sound of drums was heard, and the widow made her entrée in full pomp. astride on a very fine horse, with housings of scarlet cloth, trimmed with lace. The large circumfer ence of her own person was invested in a red silk mantle, red trowsers, and morocco boots; and nu merous spells, sewed variously in coloured leather, were hung all round her. She was followed by a train of armed attendants, and preceded by a drummer decked in ostrich feathers. On the whole, the scene was so splendid, that our hero's resolution seems for a moment to have wavered. However, his part was soon taken. Pascoe was directed to return his wife, and thus extinguish all claim that could be founded upon her; and having received his baggage, our countryman set forward without