escribes the country between Badagry and
Jannah, the frontier town of the kingdom of Youriba, as abounding in
population, well cultivated with plantations of Indian corn,
different kinds of millet, yams, plantains, wherever the surface was
open and free from the noxious influence of dense and unwholesome
forests.

The old caboceer of Jannah was, according to the report of Lander, a
merry, jocose kind of companion. On one occasion, when he was
surrounded by a whole crowd of the natives, and was informed that the
English had only one wife, they all broke out into a loud laugh, in
which the women in particular joined immoderately. The vanity of this
old negro almost exceeded belief; during the ceremony of the
reception of Captain Clapperton and Mr. Houston, he changed his dress
three different times, each time, as he thought, increasing the
splendour of his appearance.

The whole court in which they were received, although very large, was
filled, crowded, and crammed with people, except a place in front,
where the august strangers sat, into which his highness led Captain
Clapperton and Mr. Houston, in each hand, followed by Lander, who,
ever and anon, first to the right, and then to the left, felt a
twitch at the tail of his coat, and on looking to ascertain the
cause, found it to have proceeded from the _fair_ hands of a
bewitching negress, who, casting upon him a look of irresistible
fascination, accompanied by a smile from a pair of huge pouting lips,
between which appeared a row of teeth, for which one of the toothless
grannies at Almack's would have given half her dowry, seemed to be
anxious of trying the experiment of how far the heart of an
Englishman was susceptible of the tender passion, especially when
excited by objects of such superlative beauty. It may be supposed
that neither Clapperton nor Houston had as yet taken any lessons in
the art and mystery of African dancing, and as to waltzing, neither
of them felt any great inclination to be encircled in the arms of a
negress, who, although she might be young and graceful in her
attitudes, had a scent about her of stinking rancid oil, which was
not very agreeable to the olfactory nerves of the delicate Europeans.
However, it was the etiquette of the court,--and every court, from
the Cape of Good Hope to the country of Boothia, that is, if a court
were ever held in the latter place,--is cursed with the ridiculous
forms of ceremony and etiquette; it must be repea