ey should affix their own
price; he then said they asked too much, on which pretext he delayed,
and in a great measure evaded paying for them at all. The travellers,
in their ill-judged confidence in his friendship, requested him to
furnish a boat, in which they might descend the Niger. He replied,
they might have one for a hundred dollars, but being unable to
command that sum they were finally obliged to apply to their friend,
the king of Boossa, whom they had so unreasonably distrusted, and who
cheerfully undertook to supply their wants.

The city of Yaoorie is of prodigious extent, and is supposed to be as
populous as any other in the whole continent, or at least that part
of it which is visited by the trading Arabs. Its wall is high and
very excellent, though made of clay alone, and may be between twenty
and thirty miles in circuit, and it has eight vast entrance gates or
doors, which were well fortified after the manner of the country. The
residence of the sultan, as well as the houses of many of the
principal inhabitants of the city, are two stories in height, having
thick and clumsy stairs of clay, leading to the upper apartments,
which are rather lofty, and, together with rooms on the ground floor,
have door-ways sufficiently large to enable a person to enter without
putting himself to the inconvenience of stooping. The principal part
of the houses is built in the circular or coozie fashion, but the
inhabitants have a few square ones, and the sultan's are of no
regular form whatever. It may be considered somewhat singular, that
the majority of the natives of western and central, and it may be
said, also of northern Africa, moisten the floors of their huts, and
the inside of their walls with a solution of cow dung and water, two
or three times a day, or as often as they can find the materials.
Though disagreeable to the smell of an European, this keeps the
interior of a dwelling as cool as it is dark.

The Landers were anxious to expedite their departure, but the sultan
sent word to inform them that he would be occupied _three days_ in
writing to the king of England, and he would, therefore, thank them
to remain in Yaoorie till the expiration of that period. On the
following day, however, the sultan told them in plain and decisive
terms, that he could not send them either by way of Koolfu or Guarie,
because the Fellatas were in both of those places, and their fate
then would soon be decided. He wished, however,