While Major Denham was thus traversing in every direction Bornou, and the surrounding countries, Lieutenant Clapperton and Dr. Oudney were proceeding through Houssa, by a route less varied and hazardous indeed, but disclosing forms both of nature and society fully as interesting.  They departed from Kouka on the 14th December 1823, and passing the site of old Birnie, found the banks of the Yeou fertile, and diversified with towns and villages.

On entering Katagum, the most easterly Fellata province, they observed a superior style of culture; two crops of wheat being raised in one season by irrigation, and the grain stored in covered sheds, elevated from the ground on posts.  The country to the south was covered with extensive swamps and mountains, tenanted by rude and pagan tribes, who furnish to the faithful an inexhaustible supply of slaves.  The practice of travelling with a caravan was found very advantageous, from the help it afforded, as well as from the good reports spread by the merchants, respecting their European companions.  In Bornou, these last had been viewed with almost unmingled horror, and for having eaten their bread under the extremest necessity, a man had his testimony rejected in a court of justice.  Some young Bornouese ladies, who accosted Major Denham, having ventured to say a word in his favour, an attendant matron exclaimed, “Be silent, he is an uncircumcised kafir—­neither washes nor prays, eats pork, and will go to hell.”  Upon which the others screamed, and ran off.  But in Houssa, this horror was not so great, and was mingled with the belief, that they possessed supernatural powers.  Not only did the sick come in crowds expecting to be cured, but the ladies solicited amulets to restore their beauty, to preserve the affections of their lovers, and even to destroy a hated rival.  The son of the governor of Kano, having called upon Clapperton, stated it was the conviction of the whole city and his own, that the English had the power of converting men into asses, goats, and monkeys, and likewise that by reading in his book, he could at any time commute a handful of earth into gold.  The traveller having declared to him the difficulty he often found in procuring both asses and gold, induced him with trembling hands to taste a cup of tea, when he became more composed, and made a sort of recantation of his errors.

As the caravan proceeded they met many other travellers, and found sitting along the road, numerous females selling potatoes, beans, bits of roasted meat, and water with an infusion of gussub-grains; and when they stopped at any place for the night, the people crowded in such numbers as to form a little fair.  Clapperton attracted the notice of many of the Fellata ladies, who, after examining him closely, declared, that had he only been less white, his external appearance might have merited approbation.