386 
PLANS FOR DEPARTURE. 
of the day's sale. The tobacco cultivated in the country 
is of a very small species, like that at Time, and the leaves 
are short and narrow. The people pay little attention to its 
cultivation, and are not accustomed to cut off the head of 
the plant, as we do. At Tangrera, the leaves are dried in 
the shade, and afterwards made up into rolls : they thus 
acquire a pale chesnut colour. 
It was about nine in the morning, when we returned 
home. My host told me in a very phlegmatic tone that he 
was tired, and asked me for colat-nuts. Soon afterwards I 
went back by myself to visit the chief, whom I found at 
home, lying on an ox-hide, in a miserable straw hut. After 
the usual salutations, he sent for two women, who had been 
to Jenne, to be my interpreters, for he supposed that I spoke 
the language of that country, and was exceedingly asto- 
nished when I told him that I did not understand it. I 
asked him in the Mandingo tongue, when the caravans 
for Jenne would start, and he told me that the merchants 
who made that journey were gone to Boyoko, to purchase 
colats ; but that they would soon return, and then if I 
pleased I might travel with them. The soon of a negro, 
however, often means fifteen or twenty days. I learned that 
Boyoktf is a village inhabited by Pagans, and that a market 
for the sale of colats is held there. It is twenty days* 
journey S. S. E. of Tangrera. 
Uncertain whether to wait a speedy Opportunity for 
departing, and fearful of passing a second bad season in the 
interior, I finally resolved to rejoin the travellers who had 
set out in the morning. I hoped that by going to Sansanding 
and thence to Kayaye, I should meet with some opportunity to 
start for Jenne, and if not, I could leave Sansanding for El- 
Arawan, situated in the desert ; and on reaching that town, 
I could form some definitive plan. I went immediately to 
seek the Moor Mohammed, to whom I communicated my 
project, of which he entirely approved. He accompanied 
