The slave market is held in two long sheds, one for males, the other for females, where they are seated in rows, and carefully decked out for the exhibition ; the owner, or one ofhis trusty slaves, sitting near them. Young or old, plump or withered, beautiful or ugly, are sold without distinction; but, in other respects, the buyer inspects them with the utmost attention, and somewhat in the same manner as a volunteer seaman is examined by a surgeon on entering the navy: he looks at the tongue, teeth, eyes, and limbs, and endeavours to detect rupture by a forced cough. I f they are afterwards found to be faulty or unsound,-or even without any specific objection, they may be returned within three days. When taken home, they are stripped of their finery, which is sent back to their former owner. Slavery is here so common, or the mind of slaves is so constituted, that they always appeared much happier than their masters; the women, especially, singing with the greatest glee all the time they are at work. People become slaves by birth or by capture in war. The Pelatahs frequently manumit slaves at the death of their master, or on the occasion of some religious festival. The letter of manumission must be signed before the cadi, and attested by two witnesses; and the mark of a cross is used by the illiterate among them, just as with us. The male slaves are employed in the various trades of building, working in iron, weaving, making shoes or clothes, and in traffic ; the female slaves in spinning, baking, and selling water in the streets. Of the various people who frequent Kano, the Nyffuans are most celebrated for their industry ; as soon as they arrive, they go to market and buy cotton for their women to spin, who, if not employed in this way, make billam for sale, which is a kind of flummery made of flour and tamarinds. The very slaves of this people are in great request, being invariably excellent tradesmen; and when once obtained, are never sold again out of the country. I bought, for three Spanish dollars, an English green cotton umbrella, an article I little expected to meet with, yet by no means un
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