102 
JOURNEY FROM KATUNGA TO BOUSSA. 
should go with him ; but the midaki, whose heart the gold chain 
has won, fairly beat him off the field, and it was decided that I am 
not to go to Youri. The sultan made a great many inquiries about 
England, and asked me two or three times if I had not come to 
buy slaves. I laughed in his face, and told him there was nothing 
we so much abhorred in England as slavery ; that the king of Eng- 
land did every thing to prevent other nations buying slaves ; that 
the slave trade was the ruin of Africa; that Yourriba presented 
nothing but ruined towns and deserted villages, and all caused by 
the slave-trade ; that it was very bad to buy and sell men like 
bullocks and sheep. It was now nearly dinner-time, and he said he 
would come and see me at night. 
At eight in the evening the sultan came, accompanied by the 
midaki, and one male slave. He began again about Youri ; but I 
repeated what I had said before. He then asked me if the king of 
England was a great man. “Yes,” I said, “the greatest of all the 
white kings.” “But,” says he, “you live on the water?” “Oh no,” 
I said, “ we have more land than there is between Boussa and Badag 
(as they call Badagry), and more than five thousand towns.” “ Well,” 
says he, “ I thought, and always have heard, that you lived on the 
water. How many wives has the king ?” “ Only one wife,” I said. 
“What!” says he, “only one wife?” “Yes,” says I; “no man is 
allowed more than one wife, and they hang a man if he has two at 
one time.” “ That is all very good for other men,” says he ; “ but the 
king having only one wife is not good.” When I told him, if the 
king had a daughter and no son, she would rule the kingdom at her 
father’s death, he laughed immoderately, as did the midaki, who 
was apparently well pleased with the idea of only one wife, and a 
woman ruling. I asked him who were the first people who inhabited 
this part of the country. He said the Cambrie ; that his ancestors 
were from Bornou ; that the sultan of Niki was descended from a 
younger branch of his family ; that his ancestors and people had 
