MODE OF LIVING. 463 
lahi j and when they know the Koran by heart, they are 
looked upon as learned men : they then return to their 
native places, and enter into trade. 
The inhabitants of Jenn^ live very well : they eat rice 
boiled with fresh meat, which is to be procured every day 
in the market. With the fine millet they make couscous ; 
this is eaten with fresh or dried fish, of which they have 
great abundance. Their dishes are highly seasoned ; they 
use a good deal of allspice, and salt is common enough to 
enable every one to get it. The expense of maintenance 
for a single individual is about twenty-five or thirty cowries 
per day. Meat is not dear in this place : a piece which 
costs forty cowries (twenty centimes) is enough to furnish 
a dinner for four persons. They generally make two meals 
a day ; all sitting round one dish, and each taking out a 
portion with his hand, like all the inhabitants of the in- 
terior. 
Their houses are not furnished. They have leather bags 
in which they put their things ; these bags are sometimes 
hung to a line put up across the apartment. The people 
always sleep on bullocks' hides, or mats, spread upon the 
ground. Hence they are very subject to rheumatic com- 
plaints, owing to the extreme dampness of the soil j for they 
cannot keep fires during the night on account of the scarcity 
of wood. The children, as well as grown persons, are very 
neatly dressed. They wear a coussabe made of cloth of the 
Soudan, generally white, which is the favourite colour ; 
their trowsers reach to the ancle, and are not so full as those 
worn by the Mandingoes in the south ; they have a hem at 
the waist in which is run a cotton string that ties above 
the hips. The Mandingo traders buy these trowsers and 
carry them to their country : I saw them at Sambatikila, 
Tim^, and Tangrera. The people of Jenn^ never go bare- 
foot, not even the children of the slaves. Their shoes, 
which are very neatly made, ressemble our European 
