166 
JOURNEY FROM BOUSSA TO KANO. 
it up ill lumps of two handfuls, and letting it dry in the sun ; when 
dry, they build with them as our masons would do with rough 
stones, laying a thick layer of well-wrought soft clay between each 
layer of hardened lumps, and a good thick coat outside : their 
hand is the only trowel ; and, without plumb-line or level, they 
manage to make pretty fair walls and buildings, taking these things 
into consideration. The walls outside, before the commencement 
of every rainy season, get a fresh plastering, the tops are repaired, 
and parts that may be washed down are built up. The water is con- 
veyed from the tops of the houses, clear of the walls, by long, baked, 
clay funnels, like what are used on the tops of smoky chimneys 
in England, and look like great guns mounted on the tops of the 
walls. The other houses of the town are like almost all others out- 
side the capital towns, a number of circular huts within a high, 
square, clay wall ; frequently a single room, with a flat roof, used 
by the master of the house as a safe repository for his goods. 
Every house has two or three date trees within this wall or en- 
closure, which bear fruit twice a year, like those of Kashna and 
Kano ; once before or at the commencement of the rains, the other 
after the rains a month or forty days. They use two pieces of flat 
board or gourd, one fixed, the other moveable, to which is attached 
a line for the purpose of clapping one against the other to frighten 
the vampire-bat and a kind of jay which lodge on the trees and 
destroy a great quantity of fruit. The ibis, stork, crane, adjutant- 
crane, and several other birds, build their nests in the shady trees 
of the town. A market is held daily, which is well attended: 
grain, oxen, sheep, and all the necessaries of life, abound. A tame 
ostrich is kept in the market-place to avert the evil eye — a Bornou 
and eastern custom. There are several places of prayer in the 
town, but one principal mosque or jama, as they call them, stands 
on the right of the governor’s house, forming one side of the 
square before his door. The inhabitants may amount to about 
