120 
JOURNEY FROM BOUSSA TO KANO. 
of my paying a visit to the queen of Nyffe, who is at present re- 
siding here ; but in the evening I was informed she could not re- 
ceive me, as the king her husband is absent, at a town called Raba, 
two days’ journey distant ; but that I may see the king’s mother in 
the morning, who will inform me when and how I am to proceed 
to Kano. During the night thunder, lightning, and rain. 
Friday, 14th. — After breakfast I went and visited the queen- 
mother, according to last night’s arrangement ; I took with me as 
a present a Chinese crape shawl, part of a string of coral, and a mock 
gold chain, and some silk. In the outer coozie of her house I 
found mats spread for me, and a slieep-skin for her majesty. Her 
male attendants were mostly all old men, without teeth. In this 
company I remained for near a quarter of an hour. Then came in 
a number of women past their teens, and seated themselves on the 
mats opposite to me. They were decently dressed, in short check 
bed-gowns, the manufacture of the country, with a stuffing in the 
breast, which made them appear full-breasted. Around their loins 
they wore striped cotton cloths, which reached down to their 
ankles. Their woolly hair was dressed in the crest fashion ; over 
which they wore a cap flowered and ornamented with red and 
white silk ; around which there was tied a piece of check, flowered 
with white silk and fringed at each end, the ends hanging down : 
this was about the breadth of a broad riband. After sitting in 
profound silence for some time, they looking at me and I at them ; 
at last her majesty made her appearance, dressed in a large white 
tobe or shirt. On her head she wore a coarse green cloth cap with 
two flaps, and trimmed with red tape. She was old, walked with a 
staff, and had only one eye. I rose to receive her, and shook 
her by the hand. She sat down on the sheep-skin, and I on the 
mat beside her. After asking after her health, and she doing the 
same, and how I had fared on my journey, I began to display my 
present before her, told her who I was, and where I wished to go. 
