§ Journey of a Mahomedan Priest 
To the westward, between Houssa and Yawoori, is 
situated on the Niger, a town of immense magnitude and im- 
portance called Kuku, of the power of which the surrounding 
tribes stand much in awe. 
In one day’s march 8S. W. from Nufi, Misrah reached 
Yarraba, where he states that a singular trade is carried 
on, between the natives and a tribe of white people, said 
to be Christians, who come down a river which flows into 
the Niger from the southward, and exchange commodities with- 
out personal intercourse. Concerning this improbable, and (if 
true) almost unaccountable story, which is related by many 
native travellers, as well as the Priest, and which occupies a 
page or two in the travels of almost every European who has 
ever ventured beyond the sight of the ocean into this forbidden 
country, I questioned Mohamed Misrah for some time before 
I learned that he himself had never seen either the white people 
in question, or their mode of carrying on trade : and on my ex~ 
ptessing surprise that curiosity did not induce him to witness a 
scene so singular, he observed with much indifference, that as 
the people of the one country were pagans, and those of the 
other were Christians, he, as a Mahomedan, was not very 
anxious to hold communication with either. When a story is once 
promulgated in Africa, it is never lost sight of ; on the contrary 
it becomes established more firmly by age, and the perfectly 
fictitious, improbable and absurd, is actually believed by the 
very inhabitants of the place, where the circumstance is said to 
exist; indeed, such is the power of this extraordinary credu- 
lity, that they will be highly offended with any one, who may 
attempt to convince them of its fallacy; repeated instances of 
this nature, though of minor import, have been experienced by 
myself during some short excursions among the Timmanees 
and Mandingoes, in particular once at Cambia, on the Kolenti 
Ba (Scarciés) when having broken a specimen of granite from a 
large block in the centre of the river, I endeavoured, at the 
Palaver, which the natives called in consequence, to explain to 
them how absurd it was to suppose the existence of any evil 
Spirit in arock; upon this occasion their anger was so stirred up, 
