hut, hearing the news, or speaking of the price of natron or other goods.  The weavers are daily employed at their trade; some are sent to cut wood, and bring it to market; others to bring 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 humanity, looking upon them almost as children of the family.  The males are often freed, and the females given in marriage to free men, or to other domestic slaves.  The food of the slave and the free is nearly the same.  The greatest man or woman in the country is not ashamed, at times, to let the slaves eat of the same dish; but a woman is never allowed to eat with a man.  With a people, who have neither established law nor government, it is surprising that they are so good and moral as they are; it is true, they will cheat if they can, but amongst the civilized nations, who have both laws and government, cheating is by no means a rare occurrence, and by those too, who are the loudest in the professions of their honesty and integrity.