WATT AND WINTERBOTTOM. 
833 
and Teemboo, which is about l60 miles distant 
from Sierra Leone, they manufacture narrow 
cloths, of which their dress is composed, and work 
in iron, silver, wood, and leather. Their houses 
are well built, neat and convenient, placed at a 
distance from each other, to guard against fire, a 
precaution which never occurs to the Mandin- 
goes. Among their amusements, horse-racing 
may be enumerated. The markets and channels 
of trade are under the regulation of the king, 
whose power is, in many respects, arbitrary, and 
his punishments severe. As there are schools in 
every town, the majority of the people are able to 
read, and many possess books of law and divinity. 
They profess the Mahometan religion, have nu- 
merous mosques, and are not bigots, though they 
pray five times in the day. On a sudden emer- 
gency, the Foulahs can bring into the field no 
less than 16,000 cavalry. As they are surround- 
ed with twenty-four nations, many of whom are 
Pagans, their religion affords them a pretext for 
the acquisition of slaves by war. Some of the 
nations with whom they engage in hostilities, build, 
for their defence, forts of brick, strongly interlac- 
ed with timber. The walls of these forts are six 
feet in thickness ; they are of a square form, with 
a tower furnished with stairs at each angle, loop- 
holes dispersed along the walls, the gate conceal- 
ed, and the whole fortress surrounded with a deep 
