trappings were of the first order for this semi-civilized country; the head of the horse was ornamented with brass-plates, the neck with brass bells, and charms sewed in various coloured leather, such as red, green, and yellow; a scarlet breast-piece, with a brass plate in the centre; scarlet saddle-cloth, trimmed with lace.  She was dressed in red silk trousers and morocco boots; on her head a white turban, and over her shoulders a mantle of silk and gold.  For the purpose of properly balancing her ponderous frame on the horse, she rode in the style of the men, a-straddle; and perhaps a more unwieldy mass never pressed upon the loins of an animal; had she, however, been somewhat younger, and less corpulent, there might have been some temptation to head her party, for she certainly had been a very handsome woman, and such as would have been thought a beauty in any country in Europe.

The widow was summoned before the governor; went on her knees, and, after a lecture on disobedience and vanity, was dismissed; but on turning her back, she shook the dust off her feet with great indignation and contempt; “and,” says Clapperton, “I went home, determined never to be caught in such a foolish affair in future.”

The travellers, having secured their baggage, returned to the ferry, and crossed the Quorra.  They were now on the high-road to Koolfu, the emporium of Nyffee.  In the course of the first two stages, they came to two villages full of blacksmiths’ shops, with several forges in each.  They got their iron ore from the hills, which they smelt, where they dig it.  In every village they saw a fetish house in good repair, adorned with painted figures of human beings, as also the boa, the alligator, and the tortoise.  The country is well cultivated with corn, yams, and cotton; but the ant-hills were the highest the travellers had ever seen, being from fifteen to twenty feet high, and resembling so many gothic cathedrals in miniature.

In the afternoon of the third day, they crossed a stream called the May Yarrow, opposite the town of Tabra, by a long narrow wooden bridge of rough branches covered with earth, the first that they had seen in Africa; it will not, however, bear a man and horse, nor can two horses pass at once.  Tabra, which is divided by the river into two quarters, was at this time the residence of the queen-mother of Nyffee, who was governor ad interim during the absence of her son.  It may contain from eighteen to twenty thousand inhabitants, who, with a few exceptions, are pagans, and they all, men and women, have the reputation of being great drunkards.  There are only a few blacksmiths here, but a great number of weavers.  The Houssa caravans pass close to the north side of the town, but seldom enter it.  Before the civil war began, the Benin people came here to trade.  The war, which was still raging, originated in a dispute for the succession, between Mohammed El Majia, the son of the queen-mother, who was a moslem, and Edrisi, who was represented to be a pagan.  The former was supported by the Fellatas, whom the people of Nyffee cannot endure; the other had the best right and the people on his side, but there was little doubt of his being obliged to succumb.