76 TRAVELS IN THE 
Teesee is a large unwalled town, having no security against 
the attack of an enemy, except a sort of citadel, in which Tiggity 
and his family constantly reside. This town, according to the 
report of the natives, was formerly inhabited only by a few 
Foulah shepherds, who lived in considerable affluence by means 
of the excellent meadows in the neighbourhood, in which they 
reared great herds of cattle. But their prosperity attracting 
the envy of some Mandingoes, the latter drove out the shep- 
herds, and took possession of their lands. 
The present inhabitants, though they possess both cattle 
and corn in abundance, are not over nice in articles of diet ; 
rats, moles, squirrels, snakes, locusts, &c. are eaten without 
scruple by the highest and lowest. My people were one 
evening invited to a feast given by some of the townsmen, 
where, after making a hearty meal of what they thought fish 
and kouskous, one of them found a piece of hard skin in the 
dish, and brought it along with him, to shew me what sort 
of fish they had been eating. On examining the skin, I found 
they had been feasting on a large snake. Another custom 
still more extraordinary, is that no woman is allowed to eat an 
egg. This prohibition, whether arising from ancient supersti- 
tion, or from the craftiness of some old Bushreen who loved 
eggs himself, is rigidly adhered to, and nothing will more af- 
front a woman of Teesee than to offer her an egg. The custom 
is the more singular, as the men eat eggs without scruple in the 
presence of their wives, and I never observed the same prohi- 
bition in any other of the Mandingo countries. 
The third day after his son's departure, Tiggity Sego held a 
