DENHAM AND CLAPPERTON. 143 



magnitude. The presents were silently deposited ; nothing 

 passed ; and the courtiers, tottering beneath the weight of 

 their turbans and their bellies, could not display that punc- 

 tilious activity which had been so annoying at the palace 

 of the sheik. This was all that was ever seen of the 

 sultan of Bornou. The party then set out for Kouka, 

 passing, on their way, through Angomou, the largest city 

 in the kingdom, containing at least 30,000 inhabitants. 



During his residence at Kouka and Angomou, Major 

 Denham frequently attended the markets, where, besides 

 the proper Bornouese, he saw the Shouaas, an Arab tribe, 

 who are the chief breeders of cattle ; the Kanemboos from 

 the north, with their hair neatly and tastefully plaited ; and 

 the Musgow, a southern clan of the most savage aspect. 

 A loose robe or shirt, of the cotton cloth of the country, 

 often fine and beautifully died, was the universal dress ; 

 and high rank was indicated by six or seven of these worn 

 one above another. Ornament was studied chiefly in 

 plaiting the hair, in attaching to it strings of brass or silver 

 beads, in inserting large pieces of amber or coral into the 

 nose, the ear, and the Up ; and when to these was added a face 

 streaming with oil, the Bornouese belle was fully equipped 

 for conquest. Thus adorned, the wife or daughter of a 

 rich Shouaa might be seen entering the market in fiill 

 style, bestriding an ox, which she managed dexterously by 

 a leathern thong passed through the nose, and whose un- 

 wieldly bulk she contrived even to torture into something 

 like capering and curvetting. Angomou is the chief mar- 

 ket, and the crowd there is sometimes immense, amounting 

 often to eighty or a hundred thousand individuals. All the 

 produce of the country is bought and sold in open market ; 

 for shops and warehouses do not enter into the system of 

 African traffic. There is displayed an abundance of their 

 principal grain, called gussub, a good deal of wheat and rice, 

 an ample store of bullocks, and no small number of sheep and 

 fowls ; but not a vegetable except a few onions, nor a sin- 

 gle fmit of any kind, — the Bornouese not having attained 

 to the production of these elegant luxuries. The objects 

 most prized and rare are pieces of amber, coral, and brass, 

 to adorn the countenances of the females ; these are sold 

 readily, and paid in money, while other articles are only 

 exchanged for cloth. Among other rarities are sometimes 



