AGRICULTURE, 
293 
that we thought it would have upset; it was made of a 
crooked trunk of a tree, and was very narrow and leaky; 
every time we stirred, it inclined so much that the water 
came in over the gunwale. The Lin is a large stream from the 
south ; its current is rapid, and it falls into the Dhioliba. 
We travelled another mile in the same direction, over a well- 
cultivated plain, and I saw many labourers all around, who 
were hoeing the ground, and seemed to break it up as 
thoroughly as our French vine-dressers ; they were not like 
the negro slaves of the Mandingoes, who just scratch up the 
surface of the soil two or three inches deep, to clear it of 
weeds : these men laboured in good earnest for a rich and 
plentiful crop. They are well rewarded, for their rice, and 
every thing else they cultivate, grows quicker and produces 
more abundantly than in Kankan. I have seen them harvest- 
ing the foigne ; it is cut with a sickle, and, in many parts, 
they leave it on the ground exposed to the rain ; they com- 
monly drive two rows of stakes into the ground, and arrange 
the crop very skilfully between them, so that it has the 
appearance of a palisade ; straw is laid on the top to keep 
off the rain, and they fetch the foigne from this store as they 
want it : nobody ever thinks of plundering a magazine of 
this kind. 
I have seen the negroes tilling the field from which a 
crop had just been gathered in, to sow it afresh with another 
grain. The women were occupied in clearing away the grass, 
and in weeding the beautiful fields of rice with which the 
country is covered. The people are industrious ; they do not 
travel, but devote themselves to the labours of the field, and 
I was astonished to find agriculture in such a state of ad- 
vancement in the interior of Africa : their land is as care- 
fully cultivated as ours, whether under the plough or not, ac- 
cording as the position of the soil permits inundation. We 
arrived at the little hamlet where my guide had rested ; he 
gave me a very kind reception, and said that he had been 
