124 DEPARTURE FROM SENOPALE. 
tlieir faces with their muslin veils. I thought it a duty, as a 
gallant Frenchman, to praise them to my Marabout; but this 
iVfrican philosopher whispered to me: " You cannot imagine 
how deceitful the women of our country are ; this modesty 
which they atiect, joined to the beauty of their features, and 
the lively passion they seem to feel for their lovers, inflames 
the latter to such a degree, that they eat them up," meaning 
that they ruin them. Thus it is pretty nearly the same as 
among Europeans. Notwithstanding the pleasure I took 
in contemplating the handsome persons of these two African 
women, I left them to take a view of the environs of Seuopalé, 
chiefly occupied with fields of rice, the quality of which 
I will venture to say, equals that of Carolina. The heat soon 
obliged me to return to the hut, where I was immediately beset 
by a crowd of Toucoulors, who questioned me for the first 
time concerning my religious opinions; they appeared much 
shocked that I did not believe like them, that Mahomet was 
the prophet of God. " Why," said they, " dost thou not respect 
our prophet as an envoy from the Most High, since we ac- 
knowledge Christ as such ?" During this theological discvission 
some children who had slipped in among the rest, having 
with surprise remarked the tenderness of the soles of my 
feet, amused themselves by tickling them, which put me out 
of patience. To deliver myself from all these importunities, 
I ordered Boukari to saddle my horse, and giving his sister a 
grain of coral, bade her adieu. We were obliged to go to 
