502 
TRAVELS IN AFRICA. Chap. XXXYI. 
miserably supplied : but certainly during the season 
of field labours, as I have already had occasion to 
observe, all the markets in Negroland are less im- 
portant than at other times of the year. The most 
common objects in the market, which find ready sale, 
are turkedi, beads, and salt*, while other articles, 
such as striped Manchester, calico, cloth bermises, 
are generally sold privately to the wealthier people. 
The only articles of export at present are slaves and 
ivory. Four good turkedi, bought in Kano for 1800 
or 2000 kurdi each, will generally purchase a slave ; 
and a turkedi will often buy an elephant's tusk of 
tolerable size. 
Slavery exists on an immense scale in this coun- 
try ; and there are many private individuals who 
have more than a thousand slaves. In this respect 
the governor of the whole province is not the most 
powerful man, being outstripped by the governors of 
Chamba and K6ncha — for this reason, that Mohammed 
Lowel has all his slaves settled in riimde or slave- 
villages, where they cultivate grain for his use or 
profit, while the above-mentioned officers, who obtain 
all their provision in corn from subjected pagan tribes, 
have their whole host of slaves constantly at their 
* With regard to salt, I will observe, that the greater part of 
it is brought from Bumanda on the Benuwe, near Hamarruwa, 
where it seems to be obtained from the soil in the same way as I 
shall describe the salt-boiling in Foga in the fourth volume, 
although in Bumanda there is no valley-formation, and Mr. Vogel, 
who lately visited this place, may be right in stating that the salt 
is merely obtained from ashes by burning the grass which grows 
in that locality. 
