it on a stone, or a piece of board, along which she twirls two slender iron rods about a foot in length, and thus dexterously separates the seeds from the cotton wool. The cotton is afterwards teazed or opened out with a small bone, something like an instrument used by us in the manufacture of hat felt. Women then spin it out of a basket upon a slender spindle. The basket always contains a little pocket mirror, used at least once every five minutes, for adjusting or contemplating their charms. I t is now sold in yarn, or made into cloth. The common cloth of the country is, as formerly stated, only three or four inches broad. The weaver’s loom is very simple, having a fly and treadles like ours, but no beam; and the warp, fastened to a stone, is drawn along the ground as wanted. The shuttle is passed by the hand. When close at work, they are said to weave from twenty to thirty fathoms of cloth a day. Kano is famed over all central Africa for the dyeing of cloth; for which process there are numerous establishments. Indigo is here prepared in rather a different manner from that of India and America. When the plant is ripe, the fresh green tops are cut off, and put into a wooden trough about a foot and a half across, and one foot deep, in which, when pounded, they are left to ferment. When dry, this indigo looks like earth mixed with decayed grass, retains the shape of the trough, and three or four lumps being tied together with Indian corn-stalks, it is carried in this state to market. The apparatus for dyeing is a large pot of clay, about nine feet deep, and three feet broad, sunk in the earth. The indigo is thrown in, mixed with the ashes of the residuum of a former dyeing. These are prepared from the lees of the dye-pot, kneaded up and dried in the sun, after which they are burned. In the process of dyeing cold water alone is used. The articles to be dyed remain in the pot three or four days, and are frequently stirred up with a pole ; besides which, they are well wrung out every night, and hung up to dry till morning, during which time the dye-pot is covered with a straw mat. After the tobes, turkadees, &c. are dyed, they are sent to the eloth-glazer, who places them between mats, laid over a large block of wood, and two men, with wooden mallets in each hand, continue to beat the cloth, sprinkling a little water from time to time upon the mats, until it acquires a japan-like gloss. The block for beating the tobes is part of the trunk of a large tree, and when brought to the gates of the city, the proprietor musters three or four drummers, at whose summons the mob never fails to assemble, and the block is gratuitously rolled to the workshop. The price of dyeing a good tobe of the darkest blue colour is 8000 cowries, or a dollar and a half; and for glazing it, 700 cowries. The total price of a tobe is 5000 cowries, and of a turkadee, from 2000 to 3000 cowries. The women of this country, and of Bomou, dye their hair blue as well as their hands, feet, legs, and eyebrows. They prefer the paint called shunee, made in the following manner:—They have an old tobe slit up, and dyed a second time. They make a pit in the ground, moistening it with water, in which they put the old tobe, first imbedded in sheep’s dung, and well drenched with water, and then fill up the pit with wet earth. In winter the fire for domestic purposes is made close to the spot, and the pit remains unopened for ten days. In summer no fire is required; and after seven or eight days the remnants of the old tobe, so decayed in texture as barely to hang together, are taken out and dried in the sun for use. This paint sells at 400 cowries the gubga, or fathom; for this measure of length commonly gives name to the cloth itself. A little of the paint being mixed with water in a shell, with a feather in one hand, and a looking-glass in the other, the lady carefully embellishes her sable charms. The arms and legs, when painted, look as if covered with dark blue gloves and boots. They show some ingenuity in the manufacture of leathern jars, fashioning them upon a clay mould out of the raw hide, previously
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