103 
TRAVELS IN AFRICA. 
Chap. XXV. 
leisure, from the saddle, the manifold scenes of 
public and private life, of comfort and happiness, of 
luxury and misery, of activity and laziness, of in- 
dustry and indolence, which were exhibited in the 
streets, the market-places, and in the interior of the 
courtyards. It was the most animated picture of a 
little world in itself, so different in external form 
from all that is seen in European towns, yet so similar 
in its internal principles. 
Here a row of shops filled with articles of native 
and foreign produce, with buyers and sellers in every 
variety of figure, complexion, and dress, yet all intent 
upon their little gain, endeavouring to cheat each 
other; there a large shed, like a hurdle, full of half- 
naked, half-starved slaves torn from their native homes, 
from their wives or husbands, from their children or 
parents, arranged in rows like cattle, and staring 
desperately upon the buyers, anxiously watching into 
whose hands it should be their destiny to fall. In 
another part were to be seen all the necessaries of 
life; the wealthy buying the most palatable things 
for his table ; the poor stopping and looking greedily 
upon a handful of grain : here a rich governor 
dressed in silk and gaudy clothes, mounted upon a 
spirited and richly caparisoned horse, and followed 
by a host of idle, insolent slaves ; there a poor blind 
man groping his way through the multitude, and 
fearing at every step to be trodden down ; here a 
yard neatly fenced with mats of reed, and provided 
with all the comforts which the country affords — a 
