412 THE CARAVAN CROSSES A STREAM. 
aiy, we separated, Karamo-osila going to the N. N. E. and 
we to the east. At a httle distance from the village we 
crossed a stream by a very substantial bridge. There were 
between six and seven hundred persons and thirty or forty 
asses to pass. Many travellers with their women forded the 
stream, being up to their waists in water. It was a terrible 
scene of uproar and confusion. Every one was loudly dis- 
puting about the amount of the passage-duty, which was 
paid in cowries. Our caravan had been augmented by a 
number of merchants who traded in cloth, allspice, and long 
pepper. Having reached the opposite bank of the stream, 
we proceeded towards the N. E. along a fine level road. 
The country was open and interspersed with ces and nedes. 
The soil, composed of grey sand, was broken here and there 
by little hills. We crossed a dry marsh, covered with rich 
pasture, into which the natives turn their cattle. The inha- 
bitants of the neighbouring villages are so industrious as to 
make dikes. They are raised to the height of three and a 
half, or four feet, so as to confine the waters of the marsh, 
which would otherwise inundate the country in the months 
of August and September. 
About nine o'clock in the morning we halted at Oulasso, 
a village composed of three or four small enclosures of equal 
size, and containing about three hundred inhabitants. 
At six in the morning of the 6th of February, we again 
set out and proceeded six miles N. E. over the same kind 
of soil as on the preceding day. The country was covered 
with bombaces and baobabs. We halted about nine in the 
morning at Chesso. This village is formed like Oulasso, 
of several little enclosures, very near to each other. The sur- 
rounding country is very bare. There is a marsh, on the bor- 
ders of which the natives cultivate onions, beans, giraumons, 
&c. There are also within the village many bombaces and 
baobabs. On arriving at the hut allotted to us, I saw at the 
door a very dirty woman baking cakes in an earthen frying- 
