ng on the _gado_ spread with a
carpet. His dress consisted of all the mixed finery of Haussa and
Barbary. He allowed his face to be seen, the white shawl hanging down
far below his mouth, over his breast.

The governor was highly pleased with the handsome presents he received,
and the doctor, notwithstanding the fatigue he had gone through, quickly
recovered from his fever.

The next day he rode round the town. Here were a row of shops filled
with articles of native and foreign produce, with buyers and sellers in
every variety of figure, complexion, and dress, yet all intent upon
their little gain. There a large shed full of naked half-starved slaves
torn from their homes--from their wives or husbands, from their children
or parents--ranged in rows like cattle, and staring desperately upon the
buyers, anxiously watching into whose hands it should be their destiny
to fall. In another part were to be seen all the necessaries of life;
here a rich governor dressed in silk and gaudy clothes, mounted upon a
spirited and richly-caparisoned steed, and followed by a host of idle,
insolent slaves; there a poor blind man, groping his way through the
multitude, and fearing at every step to be trodden down. There were
pleasant scenes too, a snug-looking cottage with the clay walls nicely
polished, beneath the shade of a wide-spreading alleluba-tree; or a
_papaya_ unfolded its large leather-like leaves above a slender, smooth
and undivided stem; or the tall date-tree, waving over the whole scene;
a matron, in clean black cotton gown, busy preparing the meal for her
absent husband or spinning cotton, and at the same time urging the
female slaves to pound the corn, and children, naked and merry, playing
about in the sun, or chasing a straggling, stubborn goat; earthenware
pots and wooden bowls, all cleanly washed, standing in order. In one
place dyers were at work, mixing with the indigo some coloured wood in
order to give it the desired tint, others drawing a shirt from the
dye-pot or hanging it up on ropes fastened to the trees. Further on, a
blacksmith, busy with his rude tools making a dagger, a formidable
barbed spear, or some more useful instrument of husbandry. Here a
caravan appears from Gonga bringing the desired kola-nut, chewed by all
who have ten _kurdie_ to spare; or another caravan laden with natron; or
a troop of A'sbenawa going off with their salt to the neighbouring
towns; or some Arabs leading their camels,