10 
TRAVELS IN AFRICA. 
Chap. XXII. 
where every new species of plant first appeared. 
At four o'clock in the afternoon we saw the first 
cotton-fields, which alternated with the corn-fields 
most agreeably. The former are certainly the great- 
est and most permanent ornament of any landscape 
in these regions, the plant being in leaf at almost 
every season of the year, and partly even in a state 
of fructification ; but a field of full-grown cotton- 
plants, in good order, is very rarely met with in these 
countries, as they are left generally in a wild state, 
over-grown with all sorts of rank grass. A little 
beyond these fields we pitched our tent. 
„ , We started at rather a late hour, our 
Monday, 1 
January isth. roac [ |3 em g crossed by a number of small 
paths which led to watering-places ; and we were 
soon surrounded by a great many women from a 
neighbouring village called Baibay, offering for sale, to 
the people of the caravan, "godjia," or ground-nuts, 
and a dakkwa," a sort of dry paste made of pounded 
Guinea corn (Pennisetum), with dates and an enor- 
mous quantity of pepper. This is the meaning of 
dakkwa in these districts ; it is, however, elsewhere 
used as a general term signifying only paste, and 
is often employed to denote a very palatable sort of 
sweatmeat made of pounded rice, butter, and honey. 
We then passed on our left the fields of the village, 
those near the road being well and carefully fenced, 
and lying around the well, where half the inhabitants 
of the place were assembled to draw water, which 
required no small pains, the depth of the well ex- 
