114 
JOURNEY FROM BOUSSA TO KANO. 
woman, and such as would have been thought a beauty in any 
country in Europe. 
After the heat of the day was over, I went to the governor, 
Pascoe having previously sent back his wife to the widow. They 
parted without reluctance, though he declared that she had fallen 
in love with him at first sight. She was the second wife the old 
fellow lias had since we left Badagry : the first he got at Jannah ; 
she turned out to be a thief, a jade, and used to get drunk with 
the king's wives at Katunga, for which I was obliged to order her 
out of the house ; but Pascoe, with tears in his eyes, begged me to 
forgive her, as she really loved him, and he loved her. I was not 
sorry when 1 heard, the day we left Katunga, that she had walked 
off with all the coral and other little trinkets which Mrs. Belzoni 
had given him before he left England, as I trusted it would be a 
lesson to him in future. I told the governor that the widow was 
now arrived, and I wished he would send me off according to his 
promise. He said, he did not know that she had arrived, but 
would send for her. He again repeated what he had said yesterday, 
and so did 1 ; to which I added that I should be sorry if such a 
foolish affair should have any effect on the good understanding 
that existed between him and me before I went to Boussa. The 
widow arrived, having stripped off her finery, and put on only a 
common country cloth around her, and one female slave in at- 
tendance. She saluted the governor according to the custom of 
the country ; that is, by kneeling down on the ground on her knees 
and elbows, with the palms of her hands before her face. It was 
some time before the governor spoke : he then began, and gave her 
a lecture on disobedience and vanity, and asked her where she was 
going : she said, after some slaves of hers who had run away and 
gone to Nyffe : with which excuse, after his telling her she did not 
speak the truth, she was dismissed ; and when she got outside the 
coozie, or hut, she shook the dust from her cloth with the greatest 
