fruit of any description can be found in the whole kingdom. Date trees there are none south of Woodie, four days north of Kouka, where they are sickly, and produce but an indifferent fruit. Onions are to be procured near the great towns only, but no other vegetable. The people indeed have nothing beyond the bare necessaries of life ; and are rich only in slaves, bullocks, and horses. Their dress consists of one, two, or three tobes, or large shirts, according to the means of the wearer : a cap of dark blue is worn on the head by persons of rank. Others, indeed generally all, go bare-headed ; the head being kept constantly free from hair, as well as every other part of the body. They carry an immense club, three or four feet in length, with a round head to it, which they put to the ground at every step, and walk with great solemnity, followed by two or three slaves: they have what we should call a rolling gait. Red caps are brought by the Tripoli and Mesurata merchants; but are only purchased by sultans and their immediate attendants. They are Mus- selmans, and very particular in performing their prayers and ablutions five times a day. They are less tolerant than the Arabs; and I have known a Bornouese refuse to eat with an Arab, because he had not sully d (washed and prayed) at the preceding appointed hour. They seldom take more than from two to three wives at a time, even the rich, and divorce them as often as they please, by paying their dower. The poorer class are contented with one. The women are particularly cleanly, but not good-looking: they have large mouths, very thick lips, and high foreheads. Their manner of dressing the hair is also less becoming than that of any other Negro nation I have seen: it is brought over the top of the head in three thick rolls; one large, one in the centre, and two smaller on each side, just over the ears, joining in front on the forehead in a point, and plastered thickly with indigo and bees’ wax. Behind the point it is wiry, very finely plaited, and turned up like a drake’s tail. The Scar in, or tattoos, which are common to all Negro nations in these latitudes, and by which their country is instantly known, are here particularly unbecoming. The Bornouese have twenty cuts or lines on each side of the face, which are drawn from the comers of the mouth, towards the angles of the lower jaw and the cheek-bone ; and it is quite distressing to witness the torture the poor little children undergo who are thus marked, enduring, not only the heat, but the attacks of millions of flies. They have also one cut on the forehead in the centre, six on each arm, six on each leg and thigh, four on each breast, and nine on each side, just above the hips. They are, however, the most humble of females, never approaching their husbands except on their knees, or speaking to any of the male sex, otherwise than with the head and face covered, and kneeling. Previous to marriage, there appears to be more jealousy than after. Adultery is not common : the punishment is very severe, if caught in the fact, and secured on the spot ; and this is the only evidence on which conviction is granted. The guilty couple are bound hand and foot, cast on the ground, and their brains dashed out by the club of the injured husband and his male relations. Girls rarely marry until they are fourteen or fifteen; often not so young. The age of puberty does not arrive here at so early a period as in Barbary ; females there not unfrequently becoming mothers at the age of twelve, and even eleven. In Bornou, such a circumstance is unknown : for a woman to have twins is extremely rare ; and to make them believe that more were ever brought into the world at one time, in any country, would be difficult. The domestic animals are dogs, sheep, goats; cows, and herds of oxen, beyond all calculation. The! Shouaas on the banks of the Tchad have probably 20,000, near their different villages ; while thè shores of the great river Shary could furnish double that number. They also breed multitudes of horses, with which they furnish the Soudan market, where this animal is very inferior.
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