with the skins of particular animals when their husbands visit them; and never fail to predict the fate and fortune of a child, in consequence of these arrangements. A panther or a leopard's skin is sure to produce a boy, or nothing. Should the father be a soldier, and a chief, the boy will be a warrior, bold, but bloody. A lion’s skin is said to prevent child-bearing altogether; yet exceptions to this rule sometimes occur. I t is then always a boy, and a wonderful one. He puts his foot on the necks of all the world, and is alike brave, generous, and fortunate. Leather cushions of various colours, and fancifully ornamented, are brought from Soudan, and are used as pillows by persons of superior rank; who also have a small Turkey carpet, on which they sit or sleep, and the price of which is a young female slave. The amusements of the people consist in meeting together in the evening, either in the court-yard of one of the houses of the great, or under the shades formed with mats, which are in the open places of the town, where prayers are said at the different appointed hours by the Iman or priest. Here they talk, and sometimes play a game resembling chess, with beans, and twelve holes made in the sand. The Arabs have a game similar to this, which they play with camels’ dung in the desert; but the Bornouese are far more skilful. Like the birds, their day finishes when the sun goes down ; but very few, even of the great people, indulge'in the luxury of a lamp, which is made of iron, and filled with bullocks’ fat. They have no oil. A few jars are brought by the Tripoli merchants from the valleys of the Gharian, as presents only. Soap is also an article they are greatly in want of. An oily juice, which exudes from the stem of a thorny tree, - called Kadahnia, or mika dahniah, resembling a gum, enables the people of Soudan to make a coarse soap, by mixing it with bullocks’ fat and trona. I t is something like soft soap, and has a pleasant smell. This is brought in small wooden boxes, holding less than half a pound, which sell for seven rottala each, two-thirds of a dollar. From this tree is also procured a nut, from which'a purer oil is extracted, which they burn in Soudan, and is also used by the women, to anoint their heads and bodies. This tree is not found in Bornou. The skin of their sheep is covered with a long hair; wool therefore they have none. Brass and copper are brought in small quantities from Barbary. A large copper kettle will sell for a slave. The brass is worked into leglets, and worn by the women. A small brass basin tinned is a present for a sultan, and is used to drink out of. Four or five dollars, or a Soudan tobe, will scarcely purchase one. Gold is neither found in the country, nor is it brought into it. The Tuaricks are almost the only merchants visiting Soudan who trade in that metal, whieh they carry to Barbary and Egypt. I t is said the sheikh has a store, which is brought him directly from Soudan. Iron is procured in the Mandara mountains, but is not brought in large quantities, and it is coarse. The best iron comes from Soudan, worked up in that country into good pots and kettles. The money of Bornou is the manufacture of the country. Strips of cotton, about three inches wide, and a yard in length, are called gubbuk; and three, four, and five of these, according to their texture, go to a rottala. Ten rottala are now equal to a dollar. The government of Bornou has ever been, until during the last fifteen years, an elective absolute monarchy, the brother sometimes succeeding, to the exclusion of the son. Achmet Ali, who, descended from a royal line of ancestors, was sultan in 1808, contended for several years with a powerful people from the westward, called the Felatah. These people had gradually been increasing in power for more than half a century, had established themselves firmly in Soudan ; where Bello their chief, assuming the government, dictated laws to a numerous and powerful black population. Soon after the conquest of Bornou by the Felatahs, El Kanemy
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