JOURNEY FROM BOUSSA TO KANO. 
165 
the westward, serving them as a winnowing machine. The town 
was below, in the form of an oblong square, the four sides facing 
the four cardinal points ; the head man’s house in the centre of the 
town, and is like one of the old keeps or castles in Scotland, near 
the Borders ; it is also of the Moorish form, and the general one 
for all the governor’s houses in Houssa. A high clay tower, through 
which is the gate or entrance from each side, overtops a wall of 
clay about twenty feet high, in the form of a square ; inside are 
huts or coozies for the women, eunuchs, domestics, and horses ; 
the governor occupying the upper part of the tower in times of 
alarm and danger, and his men-slaves and armed retainers the 
lower. This, like all the others, is built of clay, and is three stories 
high, with a flat roof and battlement. In the lower story, at each 
side, and above the gate, are oblong holes, which serve for archers 
and to give light in the upper stories ; the windows are like ours 
in England in form, four on each side, but no attention as to re- 
gularity in placing them ; the windows are either shut by a mat on 
the side next the wind, or by a number of coloured and plaited 
lines of grass strung over a small rod, which is hung across the top 
of the window ; the ends falling down, admit sufficient air and 
light, and keep out flies. This plan is also used for the doors of 
inner apartments in the lower houses, and requires no opening or 
shutting. The rooms in the town are supported by pillars formed 
by lashing long poles together until sufficiently strong, and, when 
they are up, plastering them thickly over in all parts with clay, 
and then a coating of cow-dung, to prevent the white ants and 
other insects eating away the wood ; the great beams are formed 
in the same manner. The floors of the upper rooms are first laid 
with rafters of stout poles, then short diagonal pieces are laid over as 
close as they can be laid, then a coating of clay and small gravel is 
laid six or eight inches thick. The walls are made, first by mixing 
clay well up with a little chopped grass or cow-dung, and making 
