heavily laden with the
luxuries of the north and east. Everywhere human life was to be seen in
its varied forms, the most cheerful and the most gloomy closely mixed
together--the olive-coloured Arab, the dark Kanuri with his wide
nostrils, the small-featured, light, and slender Ba-fellanchi, the
broad-faced Mandingo, the stout, large-boned, and masculine Nupe female,
the well-proportioned and comely Ba-haushe woman.

The doctor met with many friends, and was very kindly treated at Kano.
He was again attacked with illness, but, recovering, prepared to set out
for Kukawa, where he had arranged with Mr Richardson to arrive in the
beginning of April. The capital of the large province of Sackatoo
contains sixty thousand inhabitants during the busy time of the year,
about four thousand of whom belong to the nation by whom the people were
conquered. The principal commerce consists in native produce, viz.,
cotton cloth, woven and dyed here and in the neighbouring towns in the
forms either of _tobes_, the oblong piece of dress of dark colour worn
by the women, or plaids of various colours, and the black _litham_. A
large portion of it is sent to Timbuctoo, amounting to three hundred
camel-loads annually, thus bringing considerable wealth to the
population, for both cotton and indigo are produced and prepared in the
country. Leathern sandals are also made with great neatness and
exported in large quantities. Tanned hides and red sheep-skins are sent
even as far as Tripoli. The chief article of African produce sold in
the Kano market is the kola-nut, which has become to the natives as
necessary as coffee or tea to Europeans. The slave trade is an
important branch of commerce, though the number annually exported from
Kano does not exceed five thousand; but very many are sold into domestic
slavery, either to the inhabitants of the province itself or to those of
the adjoining districts.

The greatest proportion of European goods is still imported by the
northern road; but the natural road by way of the great eastern branch
of the so-called Niger will in the course of events be soon opened. The
doctor deeply regretted that after the English had opened that noble
river to the knowledge of Europe, they allowed it to fall into the hands
of the American slave-dealers, who began to inundate Central Africa with
American produce, receiving slaves in return. Happily an end has come
to this traffic. The English did not appear to be