294 
AGRICULTURE. 
unhappy at my delay^ and that he expected me sooner ; he 
had given his friend notice of my coming and of the cir- 
cumstances that occasioned my passage through their country. 
These good negroes came to see me every day ; they sat by 
me and looked at me with curiosity; they were all very 
dirty and covered with rags^ but there was great sweetness 
in their countenances. They were not annoying like the 
Mandingoes, but contented themselves with staring at me, 
and saying to one another : " He is a white ! what a good, 
looking man he is V One of them, the head of a family, 
made me a present of a sheep, and in the course of the day, 
of a large calabash of new milk, in which he had put some 
degu^, and which I thought delicious. I offered to share it 
w;th my companions, who would not taste it, till I had 
finished my meal ; I did not expect so much delicacy from 
the Mandingoes, for my guide was one 
I walked about in the neighbourhood of our habitation, 
and was delighted with the good cultivation ; the natives 
raise little mounds of earth, in which they plant their pis- 
tachios and yams ; and these mounds are arranged with 
some taste, all of the same height and in rows. Rice and 
millet are sown in trenches ; as soon as the i*ainy season 
commences they put in their seed around their habitations, 
and when the maize is in flower they plant cotton between 
the rows. The maize is ripe very early and they then pull 
it up to make room for the other crop. If they do not plant 
cotton, they turn up the ground after the maize is got in, 
and transplant the millet into it ; a practice which I never 
remarked in Kankan. I was surprised to see these good 
people so laborious and careful ; on every side, in the 
country, I saw men and women weeding the fields. They 
grow two crops a year on the same land ; I have seen rice 
in ear, and other rice by its side scarcely above the ground. 
The country is for the most part very open ; the only trees 
which are preserved by the husbandmen are the ce and the 
