300 
TRAVELS IN AFRICA. 
and onions are grown there, and the people are 
well and abundantly supplied with milk and 
butter from large herds of horned cattle and 
sheep. The only disadvantage the place labours 
under is the bad quality of the water, which 
they obtain from wells about four feet deep, on 
the borders of a narrow stagnant lake. 
The chief (Safere) who with his followers and 
slaves composed a part of the Kaartan forces, 
received us kindly, provided us with huts, and 
furnished us with an excellent supper of rice and 
mutton, the first good one we had made since 
leaving Galam. 
I paid him a complimentary visit at his pa- 
lace, where I found him seated in an open 
court surrounding his own hut, but separated 
from the others, composing the palace, by a clay 
wall eight feet high. He was attended by a 
few of his domestic slaves and favourites. He 
accommodated me with a seat on his own mat, 
and asked many questions about the country of 
the white people, as they call us, our mode of 
warfare, government, laws, and revenue, and ap- 
peared much astonished at some of my answers, 
particularly when I said that we fought on firm 
ground and on horseback, and which he acknow- 
ledged he could scarcely credit, as it was his be- 
lief in common with all the natives of the inte- 
rior, that we live exclusively on the sea in ships, 
