XVm INTRODUCTION. 



and August ; tbe second crop is planted chiefly in August or the latter part of July. As the heavy rains 

 of May and June are not favorable to the growth of cotton, it is planted in July ; in December the crop 

 is cut short by the dry season. Maize and yams are generally housed in the farms where they grow, and 

 brought into town in small quantities to supply the daily market. In case the town is large, some of the 

 farms may be ten or even twenty miles distant ; but all the produce is brought in on the heads of the 

 owners. Pack-horses and asses, though employed east of the Niger, are never seen in Yoruba. I have 

 travelled with a caravan of two or three thousand persons, all of whom carried their goods in packages on 

 their heads. 



Some parts of the country are rich in ore, from which the people obtain a very good quality of iron. 

 As the smelters are not communicative, I can only state what I have seen as to tlieir manner of working. 

 The furnace is a pit in a house, and may be entered either by the door or by an underground passage 

 which emerges twenty' or thirty feet from the building. The broken ore is placed in the furnace with 

 layers of charcoal ; a number of well dried clay tubes, about an inch in diameter and fifteen inches in 

 length, are inserted into the mass of ore and coal, I think at the bottom. Although no bellows are 

 employed, the heat is so intense that the ends of these tubes are partially vitrified. The iron is sold to 

 blacksmiths, who manufacture it into various articles, among which may be enumerated axes, adzes, hoes, 

 sickles, bill-hooks, swords, knives, razors, scissors, needles, chains and staples, all of rude workmanship. 

 The smiths' bellows are identical in principle with those of the ancient Egyptians and Greeks. The large 

 anvil is a stone, the smaller one a block of iron. Copper, brass, and silver are wrought by the same smith 

 with the same implements. 



The Yoruba carpenter employs himself chiefly in the manufacture of bowls, mortars, and door shutters. 

 His principal tools are wedges for splitting trees, an axe, and an adze. The carver who makes images of 

 ■wood, or carves figures on doors and calabashes, works chiefly with knives. The ornamental engraving 

 of calabashes appears to be a thrifty business. Considerable numbers of people are engaged in the pro- 

 duction of clothing. Cotton is freed from the seeds by rolling it under a small iron cylinder on a smooth 

 piece of wood. It is then whipped with a bow to prepare it for spinning, which is done with a distaff. 

 The yarn is sold to the weavers every evening in market, and the cloth given to the tailors, who cut and 

 make garments. Thread is warped on pins driven into the ground, and then fonned into a large ball 

 instead of being wound upon a beam. With the exception of the thread beam, the parts of an African 

 loom are the same as those of hand-looms in our own country ; but the implement is so small, that the 

 cloth is scarcely six inches in width. 



Among the other employments of the people we may mention the manufacture of earthen pots and 

 vessels for cooking and eating; the dyeing of cloth with indigo, which grows abundantly on the farms; 

 the dressing of black, red, yellow, and white morocco, and the making of it into shoes and saddles ; the 

 manufacture of various oils, chiefly from the palm-nut, the fruit of the shea-butter tree, and the seeds of 

 sesame and of watermelons ; the manufacture of beads from broken palm-nuts and from jasper, both beau- 

 tiful articles ; the making of soap ; and the grinding of snuff, which is practised in every town. As the 

 tobacco is poor, it is always ground with carbonate of soda from the desert, to give it pungency. 



So far as I could ascertain, the art of making glass is confined to three towns in Nnfe, one of which is 

 west of the Niger. This art is kept a profound secret. 



There is no legal or customary restraint as to the choice of occupations, except that it is not reputable 

 for women to labor on the farms. In their favorite capacity of traders, however, they are constantly 

 engaged in bringing the produce which they have purchased from the farms to the market. Many poor 

 women also obtain a living by supplying the market with firewood, which they sometimes bring from a 

 distance of six or eight miles. Others gather large leaves, which they sell by the basketful to the market 

 women to be employed as wrapping paper. The other employments of females are housework, spinning, 

 washmg, soap-makmg, and the manufacture of earthenware. The cultivation of the soil, blacksmithing, 

 wood work, weaving, tailoring, and the barber's trade, are performed by men. 



All the Africans, and none more so than the people of Yoruba, are addicted to traffic. Their trade 

 with the people nearer the coast consists in palm oil, ivory, cotton cloths, indigo, iron, horses, cattle, 

 sheep, (fee; for which they receive cheap guns and powder, calicoes, velvet, salt, and other articles from 

 Europe and America. Their inland trade embraces the foregoing and many other commodities, including 

 large quantities of soda, and some fine horses, worth several hundred doUare each, from Hausa and Bornu. 

 Uides, coffee, and a superior kind of indigo will be among the future exports. 



In the present condition of the countr}', without roads or vehicles, the traffic gives employment to 

 thousands of people. Sometimes a single caravan consists of hundreds and even thousands of persons of 



