ENVIRONS OF AORET. 149 
exhausted it. I doubt if this explanation will satisfy our 
philosophers. 
Overcome by fatigue, I proposed to my companions to 
rest ourselves in the midst of the country, and Boukari went 
to the neighbouring- village to purchase a supply of milk. 
We were soon joined by a caravan of Toucolors, conducting 
asses laden with cotton, and who came and shared our 
frugal repast. After dinner, politics formed the topic of 
conversation, I thus learned, that Foutatoro, Bondou, and 
Fouta Jallon, had formed a sacred alliance for extinguishing 
idolatry, and waging eternal war with the Pagans, who will 
not submit to the privations to which the law of Mahomet 
would subject them if they were to embrace it. 
When the east wind had ceased to blo^, we resumed our 
journey : at the extremity of the wood which we had been 
traversing the whole day, we perceived an immense plain, 
encircled by ferruginous mountains. We then crossed the 
dry channel of a stream, and saw a great number of villages 
built on small elevations, because, during the rainy season the 
plain is inundated by the torrents, which pour down from the - 
mountains. The houses here were not surrounded by thorny 
hedges, from which circumstance I conjecture, that wild beasts 
are not very numerous in the environs, otherwise they could 
carry off all the cattle which are left out at night in the middle 
of the village, Maka conducted us to Aoret ; we paid a visit 
to the chief of this village ; his house was encompassed by a 
