g
grass for the horses that may belong to the house, or to take to the
market to sell. A number of people at the commencement of the rainy
season, are employed in clearing the ground for sowing the maize and
millet, some are sent on distant journeys to buy and sell for their
master or mistress, and they very rarely betray their trust. About
noon, they return home, when all have a mess of the pudding called
_tvaki,_ or boiled beans. About two or three in the afternoon, they
return to their different employments, on which they remain until
near sunset, when they count their gains to their master or mistress,
who receives it, and puts it carefully away in their strong room.
They then have a meal of pudding, and a little fat or stew. The
mistress of the house, when she goes to rest, has her feet put into a
cold poultice of the pounded henna leaves. The young then go to dance
and play, if it be moonlight, and the old to lounge and converse in
the open square of the house, or in the outer _coozie,_ where they
remain until the cool of the night, or till the approach of morning
drives them into shelter.

The majority of the inhabitants of Koolfu are professedly
Mahommedans; the rest are pagans, who once a year, in common with the
other people of Nyffee, repair to a high hill in one of the southern
provinces, on which they sacrifice a black bull, a black sheep, and a
black dog. On their fetish houses are sculptured, as in Youriba, the
lizard, the crocodile, the tortoise, and the boa, with sometimes
human figures. Their language is a dialect of the Youribanee, but the
Houssa is that of the market. They are civil, but the truth is not in
them; and to be detected in a lie is not the smallest disgrace; it
only causes a laugh. The men drink very hard, even the Mahommedans
and the women are not particularly celebrated for their chastity,
although they succeeded in cheating both Clapperton and Lander; they
were not, however, robbed of a single article, and they were
uniformly treated with perfect respect. The people seem, indeed, by
no means devoid of kindness of disposition. When the town of Bali was
burned down, every person sent next day what they could spare of
their goods, to assist the unfortunate inhabitants. In civilized
England, when a fire takes place, thieving and robbery are the order
of the day, but during the conflagration at Bali, not an article was
stolen.

To their domestic slaves, they behave with the greatest huma