Chap. LXII. 
ti'nge. 
311 
._ 
h 
• • 
walls consist of sun-dried clay, which is formed in 
regular lumps, like stones, and is placed in uni- 
form layers, with loose clay between. Such being 
the mode of construction, the whole of the houses 
have rather a miserable appearance from without, 
and more particularly so at the time of our arrival, 
in the hot hour of noon, when the destructive effect 
of the rainy season became more apparent in the mid- 
day sun. But the interior of the dwellings is not so 
bad, and some of them are very 
large and spacious, as the accom- 
panying ground-plan of the quar- 
ters where I was lodged will serve 
to show. These consisted of a very 
spacious antechamber, or seglfa, 
forty feet long by ten feet wide, and as many in height, 
— I myself taking up the part to the right of the en- 
trance, and my people that on the left, a sort of light 
wall being formed with matting. From this ante- 
chamber we could pass into an irregular courtyard, 
which gave access to a number of apartments where 
several families were living. 
The inhabitants of this place are Songhay who have 
vindicated their liberty, up to the present time, suc- 
cessfully against the restless and steadily advancing 
Fiilbe, although in independence they are far behind 
their noble brethren in Dargol and those other places 
lower down the Niger. The indigenous name of their 
family is Beleede, or, as they are called by the Fiilbe, 
Kurminkobe ; and they are said to have come from 
x 4 
