JOURNEY FROM BOUSSA TO KANO. 
147 
town, but I preferred halting outside. He sent me a present of 
cooked meat, rice, and honey. 1 gave him in return three yards of 
silk, a pair of scissors, and fifty Gora nuts. At this town they take, 
for the chief of Youri, from every loaded bullock 500 cowries, and 
from every loaded ass 300 cowries. The inhabitants are Cumbrie 
and pagans, except the head man and about a dozen others, who 
profess to be Mahometans. They say the governor, like his master 
of Youri, is a great rogue ; and invites people within his walls to 
detain them, and screw as much out of them as he can. Rajadawa 
is walled (a clay wall and ditch), and may contain from 6000 to 
7000 inhabitants. The environs are clear of wood, and planted 
with grain, yams, gaza (a kind of potatoe, yellow inside, and very 
watery, leaving an unpleasant taste in the mouth after eating), 
indigo, and cotton. We had a plentiful market in the camp. The 
principal articles for sale were raw bullocks’ flesh, fowls, millet, 
boiled yams, pudding, &c. 
At noon on the 24th, after passing numerous villages, we arrived 
at the town of W r azo, or Wazawo, the first town in the province of 
Kotongkora, where the merchants had to pay 250 cowries for every 
loaded ass, bullock, horse, or mule : of course I passed free, being 
a white man, and went through the town with my baggage, and 
encamped about a mile to the eastward of the town. The town 
of Wazo is built on the shelving side of a rocky mount : on the 
south-east side is a wall with two gates ; the steep sides of the 
mountain serving as a wall on the other side. The inhabitants are 
all Cumbrie and pagans ; and to-day they are holding a festival, so 
that we can get nothing to buy. After my tent was pitched, I 
engaged one of the natives for a few cowries to accompany me to 
hunt. I saw very little game, except five antelopes, out of gun- 
shot. On my return to the tent 1 found the head man of Wazo 
had sent me one fowl, and some millet for the horses, for which he 
expects nine or ten times the value in return. The value of his 
u 2 
