JOURNEY FROM BOUSSA TO KANO. 
143 
metans; and the women are generally of easy virtue. Notwith- 
standing all this against them, they are a people of a natural good 
disposition ; for when it is considered that they have been twice 
burnt out of the town by the enemy within the last six years, and 
that they have had a civil war desolating the country for the last 
seven years, and been subject to the inroads of the Fellatas during 
twenty years, and having neither established law nor government 
but what a present sense of right and wrong dictates, I am surprised 
that they are as good as they are. 
I witnessed while here several acts of real kindness and good- 
ness of heart to one another. When the town of Bali was burnt 
down, every person sent next day what they could spare of their 
goods, to assist the unfortunate inhabitants. My landlady, who 
has given away a number of her female slaves to freemen for wives, 
looks upon them as her own children, attending them when sick ; 
and one who had a child while 1 was here, at the giving it a name, 
she sent seventy different dishes of meat, corn, and drink, to assist 
at the feast on that occasion. In all my dealings with them they 
tried and succeeded in cheating me, but they had an idea that I 
was possessed of inexhaustible riches ; and besides, I differed with 
them in colour, in dress, in religion, and in my manner of living. I 
was considered therefore as a pigeon for them to pluck. Had they 
been rogues, indeed, they might have taken all I had ; but, on the 
contrary, I never had an article stolen, and was even treated with 
the most perfect respect and civility they were masters of. 
I believe it is generally considered in England, that when a 
negro slave is attached to his master, he will part with his life for 
him. Instances of this kind are not so common as they ought to 
be, when it is considered that all of these slaves are brought up from 
their childhood, and know no other parent or protector ; and if they 
were to run away, or behave so ill as to cause him to sell them, 
