Chap. LV. 
CONSPICUOUS VALLEY. 
91 
Having lost one of our camels, which died on the road, 
we encamped near a village (the name of which, by 
accident, I did not learn) situated in a large vale rich 
in diim palms, and encompassed on the east side by a 
regular ridge of sandhills of considerable height. 
Rice was cultivated in the beds beside the onions, 
while wheat, which is generally raised in this way, 
was not grown at all. As I have frequently observed, 
there is no rice cultivated in the whole of Bornu, — 
this village constituting, I think, the easternmost 
limit of the cultivation of this most important article 
of food, which is the chief staff of life in the whole of 
Kebbi and along the Niger. The wells in this valley 
w T ere only three feet deep, and richly provided with 
water ; and the whole vale was altogether remarkable. 
The dense grove of diim palms through Thursday, 
which our road led afforded a most pic- Februai T 3rd, 
turesque spectacle in the clear light of the morning 
sky, and reminded me of the extensive groves of palm 
trees which I had seen in more northern climes, while 
large piles of the fruit of the fan palm, stored up by the 
natives, excited the facetious remarks of those anions 
my people who were natives of Fezzan ; and they 
sneered at the poverty and misery of these negroes, 
who, being deprived by nature of that delicious and 
far-famed fruit of the nobler Phoenix, were reduced 
to the poor and tasteless produce of this vile tree. 
We then left the shallow bottom of the vale, with its 
wells seven fathoms in depth, at the side of a village 
a short distance to the east. The country then became 
