SITUATION OF JENNE. 
467 
banks ; and the inhabitants are obliged to push their large 
empty canoes down nearly to the river, where the branch is^ 
navigable at all times. Thither the merchandise is con- 
veyed in small canoes : this is a long and toilsome process, 
but the traders are not obliged to hire hands, having their 
own slaves to do the work. During inundations the branch 
is easily navigable for large canoes. Round the town I 
saw a great many canoes undergoing repair. 
Jenne is situated in the eastern part of the island, on 
an elevation of seven or eight feet, which preserves it from 
the periodical inundations of the river. Its soil is composed 
of red argillaceous earth, mixed with a great deal of grey 
sand, among which I saw not a single stone. 
Old Kai-mou, my guide, came to pay me a visit; he 
had been purchasing a fine cotton wrapper of the manufac- 
ture of the country. It consisted of narrow breadths sewed 
together like the pagnes. These wrappers are much 
esteemed by the negroes, who are very chilly; the Moors 
do not wear them : they have better which come from Mo- 
rocco. My guide told me that he had not yet found pur- 
chasers for his colats. I asked him to go with me to Tim- 
buctoo, where he could dispose of them more advantageously. 
He laughed at this, and said he should spend all he possessed 
before he got thither : I gave him some glass beads and he left 
me in good humour, 
I conversed every day with the Moors, who, as I per- 
ceived, regarded the negroes as a race very inferior to them- 
selves. They often used to say to me : " The negroes are 
ignorant brutes; when they see a Moor they think he is en- 
tirely covered with gold, however poor he may be. They 
imagine that we have gold between our skin and flesh.'* 
At the distance of three days' journey N. W. of Jenne 
is situated the kingdom of Massina, inhabited by Mahometan 
Foulahs; almost all of them wear their hair in small tresses 
2 II 2 
