IN WESTERN AFRICA. 
11 
CHAPTER II. 
TOWNS — LOCALITY AND DESCRIPTION. 
On the banks of the rivers, and generally near 
a large tree, or something of the kind to mark the 
locality, and in villages and towns, the people all 
live, except that occasionally a few families collect 
together a short distance from the water-side, and 
immediately back from a town to which they are 
tributary. 
Their towns are built without any regularity or 
order, having no streets or regularly laid-out walks 
in them. The houses being placed on the ground 
without method, and so close to each other that 
often there is barely room to pass between them, 
n stranger finds some difficulty in winding his wslj 
out of a laro:e African town when he has ventured 
any considerable distance from the place of en- 
trance. The great irregularitv and constant 
windings about are well calculated to bewilder. 
Some of these towns are barricaded, or fenced, 
in the following manner: Two rows of posts 
