Interior Paris of Jfr'ica, i-^g 



b GonneAed with the walls of the town. Thefe wajls are c<m-. 

 ftrii(B;fed of common ftonesand flints; but the houles, which- 

 are fometimes two flories high, are built, for the molt part, 

 of draw, leaves, timber, and clay. The town is divided into 

 two parts; one, confifting of houfes called Konho horrobjatn- 

 gala, or the hill of the free town, is inhabited by the nier^ 

 chants, priefts, and magiftrates 5 the otljer part, called Ilifiy^ 

 daho honko, the hill of the black land, received this appel*- 

 liition, in all probability, becaufe the huts it contains, and 

 which arc inhabited chiefly by Arabs and indigent Moors, 

 fland in a place where the foil is a kind of black ejirth. 

 Bcfides eighty public temples and mofques, there are here a 

 great many private temples in the houfes of the principal in- 

 habitants. Bamberger found here what he had not feen for 

 a long time, vio^. four public wells : each of them was walled 

 round in a neat manner with flints, and had a winding flair 

 that condu6led down to the water. They were not liipplied 

 with water from fprings, but by the rain which fell in the 

 rainy feafon; at other times water was conduced to them' 

 by conduits from the Niger. They were under the infp(^c- 

 tion of perfons appointed to take care of them, and who had 

 fcrvants whofe bufinefs was to open and fliut them ; for they 

 were always kept flnit during the night. According to Dam- 

 berger, the people here, in cafes of fire, do not employ water 

 to extinguifli it, but in its flead ufe fand. The king refides 

 here only four months in the year; the remaining part of it 

 he fpends at Sille, or in fome other town, and fonietimcs alfo 

 in camp. The Arabs employ themfelves in agriculture, and 

 though the ground is covered with fand they obtain good 

 crops; for the land is fertilifed partly by the inundation during 

 the rainy feafon, and partly by manure. 



Our traveller left this place on the 7th of April, and arrived 

 at Nahga, from which he proceeded up the Niger in a boat, 

 «and on the nth reached Sille or Silla, the fecond refidence 

 of the kintr of Feene. It is fltuated clofe to the Nicer, and 

 is larger than Feene, but not fo well built. It has two prin- 

 cipal flreets with a crofs flreet, and confifts of houfes and 

 huts fcattered here and there in an irregular manner. A 

 f'anal from the Niger pafles along the crofs ftrcct for .the 



S % purpofe 



