The travellers passed through Sansan, a great market place, divided into three distinct towns, and Katagum, the strongly fortified capital of the province, containing about eight thousand inhabitants.  Thence they proceeded to Murmur, where the severe illness under which Dr. Oudney had long laboured, came to a crisis.  Though now in the last stage of consumption, he insisted on continuing his journey and with the aid of his servant had been supported to his camel, when Clapperton, seeing the ghastliness of death on his countenance, insisted on replacing him in his tent, where, soon after, without a groan, he breathed his last.  His companion caused him to be buried with the honours of the country.  The body was washed, wrapped in turban shawls, and a wall of clay built round the grave, to protect it from wild beasts; two sheep were also killed and distributed amongst the poor.

Katungwa, the first town of Houssa proper, and the next on the route, is situated in a country well enclosed, and under high cultivation.  To the south is an extensive range of rocky hills, amid which is the town of Zangeia, with its buildings picturesquely scattered over masses of rocks.  Clapperton passed also Girkwa, near a river of the same name, which appears to come from these hills, and to fall into the Yeou.

Two days after, he entered Kano, the Ghana of Edrisi, and which is now, as it was six hundred years ago, the chief commercial city of Houssa, and of all central Africa.  Yet it disappointed our traveller on his first entry, and for a quarter of a mile scarcely appeared a city at all.  Even in its more crowded quarters, the houses rose generally in clusters, separated by stagnant pools.  The inhabited part on the whole, did not comprise more than a fourth of the space enclosed by the walls, the rest consisted of fields, gardens, and swamps; however, as the whole circuit is fifteen miles, there is space for a population moderately estimated, to be between thirty or forty thousand.  The market is held on a neck of land, between two swamps, by which, during the rains, it is entirely overflowed, but in the dry season it is covered with sheds of bamboo, arranged into regular streets.  Different quarters are allowed for the several kinds of goods; some for cattle, others for vegetables, while fruits of various descriptions, so much neglected in Bornou, are here displayed in profusion.  The fine cotton fabrics of the country are sold either in webs, or in what are called tobes and Turkadees, with rich silken strips or borders ready to be added.  Amongst the favourite articles are goora or kolla nuts, which are called African coffee, being supposed to give a peculiar relish to the water drunk after them; and crude antimony, with the black tint of which every eyebrow in Houssa must be dyed.  The Arabs also dispose here of sundry commodities that have become obsolete in the north; the cast-off dresses of the mamelukes and other great men, and old sword-blades