232 SOCIAL CONDITION OF AFRICA. 



these mansions afTord little facility for standing upright, 

 and indeed are resorted to chiefly for sleep and shelter , 

 while the court before the door, shaded by the family tree, 

 is the scene of social intercourse, and of all meetings for 

 the purposes of business and gayety. Greater efforts in- 

 deed are made to form a commodious state-room or public 

 hall, called the palaver-house ; yet this, too, consists merely, 

 as shown in the annexed plate, of a large apartment, raised 



on posts fixed in the ground, and roofed with slopmg 

 planks, which leave the interior open to the air on every 

 side. The houses and yards of persons in any degree opu- 

 lent are enclosed by an outer wall or hedge, sometimes pretty 

 high, serving the purposes both of privacy and defence. Even 

 the palaces of the grandees, and of the greatest monarchs, 

 consist of merely a cluster of these hovels or cottages, 

 forming a little village, with large open spaces, and sur- 

 rounded by a common wall. The state-hall of the sultan 

 of the Fellatas, the greatest of the African princes, is an 

 apartment to which, in Captain Clapperton's opinion, the 

 term shed would in Europe be properly applied. Slender, 

 however, as is the accommodation afforded by these edi- 

 fices, they are liberally adorned, especially in the larger 

 cities, both with carving and painting. 



If African houses be of mean construction, the internal 



