218 
TRAVELS IN AFRICA. C, ». XXVII. 
and most beautiful basin, with rich pasture-grounds 
enlivened by numbers of well-fed cattle. Stubble- 
fields, with small granaries such as I have described 
above, were scattered about here and there. Then 
keeping on through a more level country with patches 
of cultivation, we reached the fields of Bandego. The 
village introduced itself to our notice from afar by the 
sound of noisy mirth ; and I was surprised to hear that 
it was occasioned by the celebration, not of a mar- 
riage, but of a circumcision. This was the first 
and last time during my travels in Negroland that I 
saw this ceremony performed with so much noise. 
We were quietly pitching our tent on the east side 
of the village, and I was about to make myself com- 
fortable, when I was not a little affected by learning 
that the girls, who had been bringing little presents 
to the festival, and who were just returning in pro- 
cession to their homes, belonged to Ngurutuwa, the 
very place where the Christian (Mr. Richardson) bad 
died. I then determined to accompany them, though 
it was late, in order to have at least a short glimpse 
of the " white man's grave," and to see whether it 
were taken care of. If I had known, before we un- 
loaded the camels, how near we were to the place, I 
should have gone there at once to spend the night. 
Ngurutuwa,* once a large and celebrated place, but 
* Ngurutuwa, properly meaning the place full of hippopotami, 
is a very common name in Bornu, just as in "Ru6a-n-dorina"(the 
water of the hippopotami) is a wide-spread name given by Hausa 
travellers to any water which they may find in the wilderness. 
