JOURNEY FROM BOUSSA TO KANO. 
163 
to go out, I found my watch torn forcibly from the ring ; but I 
fortunately caught the thief, who was one of the bullock drivers : 
I threatened him very much, but was glad I had got my watch 
again without any serious injury. The bullocks on this day’s 
journey were nearly all worn out ; it was with great difficulty we 
could get two of them on with very light loads. 
Monday, 17th. — Having passed Roma and several other towns, 
at noon of this day we entered the town of Dunchow, the first to 
the westward in the province of Kano. I rode up to the head 
man’s house, who was just coming out of his door to take his ride ; 
a jolly looking tall Fellata, about thirty years of age. After we 
had exchanged compliments, he took me to a very good house to 
lodge in, and promised to send me every thing I wanted, which 
was food for man and beast. I got corn sent me in abundance, 
but nothing else ; all his other promises proved to be nothing but 
empty words. 
Tuesday, 18th. — Clear and cool. Thermometer at sunrise 68° F. 
in the open air. After giving the head man of Dunchow a knife, 
and a lecture for not performing his promises to me, in giving 
me meat or milk, or lending me a horse, he said, they had no meat, 
because they had killed no bullock ; no milk, as all the young 
women were dancing last night, as their custom is after the aid , 
and they did not milk the cows ; his horses had all been killed this 
summer at the war with the sheik of Bornou. All these excuses 
were made with as much ease as he made the promises, and I could 
not help admiring the courtier-like manner in which lie behaved, 
though he has only been here a month as governor. At 7 A. M. 
1 left Dunchow and its polite governor, and travelled through a 
well cultivated and populous country, the inhabitants of the villages 
all out in their plantations, giving the millet and dourra the second 
hoeing, and drawing the earth up to the roots of the grain : the soil 
a fine black mould, covered with a thin layer of sand. Passed 
y 2 
