DOWN THE LOGONE RIVER 121 



currency here, as in many other parts, is in gahigas, 

 or lengths of cloth, some three inches broad and a 

 good yard long. 



In the streets, or squatting at the threshold of 

 their houses, we saw men and women engaged in 

 every stage of this industry. One woman would sit 

 pulling out and cleaning cotton stored in a grass 

 basket by her side. It was in rough dirty lumps 

 just as it had been gathered, and she, after pulling 

 it out in an elementary way with her fingers, would 

 place it upon a board and press it with a small iron 

 roller. This done, she would spin it into one con- 

 tinuous thread by means of a bobbin with a weight 

 attached to the end, which span as she worked. 

 Later on these threads would be passed round and 

 round some stick a great many yards away from the 

 loom, and there fastened ; and men would sit in the 

 village square, usually some two or three together, 

 and weave it into cloth. Most villages contained 

 dyeing-pits, and indigo was the dye almost univer- 

 sally used, giving a deep or light 

 shade according to the number of 

 times the stuff was dipped. In 

 the more northerly part of the 

 Kotoko dominion a red dye was 

 sometimes obtained from an acacia. 



The Kotoko make a great deal 

 of pottery, which they shape by 

 means of moulds. Hitherto the 



, IT 1 1 n 1 T Niche in Wall. 



pots we had seen had all had 

 rounded bottoms, so that they could not stand up- 

 right unless holes were scooped in the ground to 

 contain them. Here, however, three little legs were 



