386 
TRAVELS IN AFRICA. 
Chap. LXIV. 
to swimming. I took great pains to discover whether 
there was any current here, but I did not succeed in 
ascertaining the fact ; and altogether, in this network of 
creeks and backwaters, the current seems to be very 
uncertain, going in on one side and out on the other, 
notwithstanding that we were now approaching the 
trunk of the river, following in general a northerly 
direction with a slight westerly deviation. The 
gradually sloping bank was here covered with the 
dense rich bush called bogina by the Songhay. 
But at present these shores, once animated with 
the bustle of many larger and smaller villages of the 
native Songhay, were buried in silence and solitude, 
a turbulent period of almost 200 years having suc- 
ceeded to the epoch when the great Songhay king, 
Mohammed el Haj A'skia, held the whole of these 
regions under his powerful sway. No less than 
four dwelling-places * along this tract of the river had 
been destroyed on one and the same day by the father 
of Galaijo, the prince whom we had met on our 
journey a short distance from Say. A solitary ante- 
lope, with her young, was the only living being in 
the present state of desolation that we observed 
during several hours' navigation, but the banks were 
occasionally lined with fine trees. Besides the tama- 
rind tree, a tree called b6gi appeared in great quan- 
tities ; it bears a yellow fruit about the size of a pear, 
having four or five large kernels, and which, on 
* These places are Bango, Ujinne, Gakoira, and another one. 
