82 
JOURNEY FROM KATUNGA TO BOUSSA. 
kings leave off war.” I said, “ God willing, I would do what I could.” 
This opinion of my being a peace-maker prevails strongly in all 
places that I have been in : perhaps it may arise from the people of 
the coast and those of Dahomey informing them of the active part 
we take in preventing the slave trade. He said he should send to 
the sultan of Boussa, and tell him to forward me by the way of 
Nyffe, with the merchants, as the other road was bad ; that he had 
never had such a valuable present from any one before ; and that 
I should see every thing I pleased in his country. I told him that 
three white men who were with me had died on the road ; that I 
was very anxious to get to Bornou before the rains, as being a dry 
sandy country, I considered that there I was safe : but that in this 
country or Houssa it was very unsafe and unhealthy for white men 
to be caught by the rains. The governor is a thin, spare, old man ; 
he had on a cap in the form of a foraging cap, with some of the 
Stuart tartan riband in several folds around it, a white tobe or 
large shirt, a Moorish kaftan of Manchester cotton, and a pair of 
sandals on his feet. The room in which he received me had nothing 
worth note but the stool on which he sat, which had two lizards 
carved in has relief on the top, and the heads of two as handles 
for carrying it. His house is inside a high square clay wall, with 
one gate on the western side, and consists of coozies, or circular 
huts, built of clay and thatched, and one square tower of clay, 
having little projections at each corner, and an ostrich egg on 
the top of each of the huts. 
After returning home I had numerous visitors, who brought 
presents of rum, palm wine, and pitto, none of which I would 
accept, nor allow to be brought into the house for the servants ; 
but as for my man Ali, an Arab, whose freedom I had purchased at 
Badagry and taken as a servant, all my care could not prevent him 
from getting drunk. He is a confirmed liar and a thief, and I have 
often regretted that I gave him his freedom, as I cannot well get rid 
