400 
TRAVELS IN AFRICA. 
Chap. L. 
However, I was delighted when I sometimes made a 
little excursion on horseback in the environs of the 
capital, to see that the open country was less dry than 
the inside of the town, although even there as yet 
little cultivation was to be seen. It seemed very 
remarkable to me that here, as well as in the other 
parts of the country, especially Bakada, the corn was 
generally cultivated in deep furrows and ridges or 
"deraba," a mode of tillage which I had not observed in 
any other country of Negroland through which I had 
travelled. The people, however, were very suspicious 
whenever I mounted on horseback ; and the first 
time they saw me galloping off, they thought I was 
going to make my escape, and were therefore a]l on 
the look-out. 
All this time the sultan or " banga" was absent, and 
the false news which was repeatedly told of his where- 
abouts kept up a continual excitement. When I first 
arrived in the country, he had gone a considerable 
distance towards the south-east, and was besieging a 
place called Gogomi, which was strongly fortified by 
nature, and made a long resistance, so that the 
besieging army lost a great many of their best men, 
and among them an Arab sherif who had joined the 
expedition. But at length the place was taken, and 
the courtiers prevailed upon the prince to retrace his 
steps homewards, as they were suffering a great deal 
from famine; so much so that the greatest part of 
the army were obliged to live upon the fruit of the 
deleb-palm (Borassus flabelliformisf), which seems 
