76 
JOURNEY FROM KATUNGA TO BOUSSA. 
animals being lame, and going with a halt, and all in very had con- 
dition. The poor girls, their slaves, are compelled to travel with a 
heavy load on their heads, yet are as cheerful and good-natured as 
if they were at home grinding corn in their own native country. 
The road lay over a level plain covered with trees ; the soil a red 
clay, with gravel and ore, among rocks of clay ironstone, appearing, 
from the softer parts, to have been washed or worn away, as if it 
had undergone the action of fire. We halted near to a small rainy- 
season stream, in which were pools of water. Here and there saw 
numerous traces of the large antelopes, buffaloes, and elephants. 
The latter, they say, the natives do not kill, because they can get 
plenty of other meat, and they can prevail on no one to buy the 
tusks. They destroy wild animals with poisoned arrows, one of 
which they pretend to say will kill an elephant in about an hour. 
They eat the fiesli of the animal slain with these arrows, but cut 
out and throw away the piece around the poisoned wound. Yarro’s 
messenger has promised to show me the tree from which they get 
the poison when we arrive at Wawa : they tell a number of extra- 
vagant stories about its power and effects, which are too ridiculous 
to believe. 
In the evening I went to the place where the Houssa people 
were encamped, in order to conclude my bargain with the taya, or 
head man of the caravan, and to make him sign the written agree- 
ment in Arabic by which he was to be bound to carry my baggage 
and presents from Boussa to Kano ; and for which I was to pay him, 
the day after my arrival at the latter place, two hundred thousand 
cowries. He had always fought off the agreement, saying, I could 
conclude the bargain when I got over the river ; that I must get 
the sultan of Boussa to allow me to go, and then we should conclude 
the bargain. I never could get him to say how much he would 
take them for, or even that he would take them at all. I now said 
he must determine, as, before I knew whether he would for certain 
