SHIP-BUILDING. 
9 
The women manufacture a beautiful kind of pottery, which 
they sell at Jenne, and to the canoes going to Timbuctoo. 
The village is situated on a little eminence ^ it is a great 
market for provisions. 
Before I proceed further I will give a description of the 
canoes which are employed in the passage from Jenne to 
Timbuctoo, and which keep up a continually active trade 
along the whole extent of the river. Little flotillas of sixty 
or eighty boats are frequently seen all richly laden with 
various kinds of produce. 
A vessel of sixty, or eighty tons burthen, is about 
ninety or one hundred feet long, twelve or fourteen broad 
at midships, and draws six or seven feet depth of water. 
These canoes, whether large or small, are generally fragile, 
and it is astonishing how they bear the heavy cargoes with 
which they are laden, and which consist of rice, millet, 
butter, honey, onions, pistachios, colat-nuts, stuffs, and 
various kinds of preserved articles. In addition to their 
cargo they frequently have on board forty or fifty slaves, 
half of whom remain on deck. 
The crew consists of sixteen or eighteen sailors, two 
steersmen, and a superior, who acts as captain. The manner 
in which these vessels are built shews their want of solidity. 
Large planks, five feet long by eight inches broad, and about 
one inch thick,* are adjusted and fixed together by ropes 
made from the hemp of the country and the leaves of the 
ronnier. These ropes possess the property of lasting a long 
time in water, an advantage of great importance in this 
country, where the inhabitants do not avail themselves of the 
use of iron. 
The workmen first of all join the planks together; but they 
* These planks are sawed ; of this, at least, I think I am certain. The 
natives are indebted to the Moors for the knowledge of the saw. Wood is 
so scarce in this country that it is necessary to make a tree produce as 
many planks as possible. 
