RESIDENCE AT SOCCATOO AND MAGARIA. 
215 
very little dress, except the binta or apron, scolloped or vandyked 
round with red cloth, with two long broad strings vandyked round 
in the same manner, hanging down as low as the heels behind. This 
is the dress of the poorer sort of people, until fit for marriage, as 
also of a great many of the virgin female slaves. 
Their marriages are celebrated without any pomp or noise. 
The bride, as far as 1 was informed, is always consulted by her 
parents; but a refusal on her part is unknown. The poorer class 
of people make up matters much in the same way ; that is, after 
having got the consent of one another, they ask their father and 
mother. The dowry given by a man of good condition, with re- 
gard to riches, may be said to consist of young female slaves, carved 
and mounted calabashes or gourds, filled with millet, dourra and 
rice, cloths for the loins, bracelets, and the equipage of her toilet, 
and one or two large wooden mortars for beating corn, &c. and 
stones for grinding, &c. ; even these are carried in procession on 
the heads of her female slaves, when she first goes to her husband's 
house. 
It is said that, in the event of the husband sleeping or having 
connexion with any of the female slaves given as dower to the 
wife, he must give her in lieu a virgin slave of equal value the next 
day. This never causes any dispute between the parties. 
Their mode of burial I have never seen ; but I understand they 
always bury their dead behind the house which the deceased occu- 
pied while living. The following day all the friends and relations 
of the deceased visit the head of the family, and sit a while with 
him or her. If the husband dies, the w idow returns to the house 
of her parents, with the property she brought with her. 
The domestic slaves are generally well treated. The males 
who have arrived at the age of eighteen or nineteen are given a 
wife, and sent to live at their villages and farms in the country, 
where they build a hut, and until the harvest are fed by their 
