Chap. XXVI. 
MARKET OF GU'MMEL. 
169 
Though I had heard a good deal about Giimmel, I 
was nevertheless surprised at the size and the activity 
of the market, although that held on Saturday is 
said to be still more important. Giimmel is the 
chief market for the very extensive trade in natron, 
which, as I have mentioned above, is carried on be- 
tween Kiikawa and Miiniyo on one side, and Niipe 
or Nyffi on the other ; for this trade passes from 
one hand into another, and the Bornu people very 
rarely carry this merchandise further than Gummel. 
Large masses of natron, certainly amounting to at 
least one thousand loads of both qualities mentioned 
above, were offered here for sale — the full bullock's 
load of the better quality for five thousand, an ass's 
load of the inferior sort for five hundred kurdi. 
There were also about three hundred stalls or 
sheds, but not arranged in regular rows, where a 
great variety of objects were offered for sale, — all 
sorts of clothing, tools, earthenware pots, all kinds of 
victuals, cattle, sheep, donkeys, horses — in short, 
everything of home or foreign produce which is in 
request among the natives. 
The Arabs have their place under a wide-spreading 
fig-tree, where I was greatly pleased to make the 
acquaintance of a very intelligent man called f Azi 
Mohammed Moniya, who gave me some valuable 
information, particularly with regard to the route 
tion of a language in the border-districts ; for while the words are 
Kanuri, they are joined according to the grammar of the Plausa 
language, for in Kanuri the expression ought to be "chinnayalabe." 
