118 
TRAVELS IN AFRICA. 
Chap. LVI. 
companions found the traces of their footsteps, which 
indicated that they had taken an easterly direction, 
all the people were seized with fright, and the inten- 
tion which had been entertained, of resting here for 
a few hours of the night, was given up, and with an 
advanced guard of twenty horse, and a guard of from 
fifty to sixty, we kept cautiously and anxiously on. 
About midnight we again entered dense forest, 
consisting chiefly of underwood. We marched the 
whole night, and emerged in the morning into open 
cultivated country. We then passed several small 
hamlets, and, crossing first a small and further on 
a larger watercourse, reached, a little before nine 
o'clock, the considerable place Biinka, surrounded by 
a clay wall about twelve feet in height, and by a half 
natural half artificial stockade of dense forest. In this 
town, the governor of which is directly dependent 
upon the ghaladima of Sokoto, my protector had 
taken quarters ; but, true to my old principle, I here 
also preferred encamping outside, and, turning round 
the town, on the south side, along a very winding 
and narrow passage through dense prickly under- 
wood, I pitched my tent on the west side, in the midst 
of an open suburb consisting of several straggling 
groups of huts. 
The inhabitants of the village proved to be indus- 
trious and sociable, and, soon after we had encamped, 
brought me several articles for sale, such as good 
strong ropes, of which we were greatly in want. In 
general a traveller cannot procure good ropes in these 
