222 
RESIDENCE AT SOCCATOO AND MAGARIA. 
monthly, where they are made into cushions, bags, boots, and 
shoes, &c. 
The next article is the white cotton cloth of the country, of 
which they make a considerable quantity, both for the home con- 
sumption and for exportation to Kano and Nyffe: what they ex- 
port is principally made into tobes and large shirts before it leaves 
Soccatoo. They have also a cloth called naroo, which is something 
like our counterpanes ; a few checked and red striped cloths, 
used as tobes, and some as wrappers or zinnies for the women. 
The weavers of the latter are mostly natives of Nyffe, as are also 
all their blacksmiths. They have shoe, boot, saddle, and bridle- 
makers. Another article of export is the civet ; the animals that pro- 
duce it are kept in wooden cages, and fed on pounded fish and corn. A 
few slaves are also sold out of the province to the merchants of Kano, 
Kashna, Ghadamis, and Tripoli. A young male slave, from thirteen 
to twenty years of age, will bring from 10,000 to 20,000 cowries ; a 
female slave, if very handsome, from 40,000 to 50,000; the common 
price is about 80,000 for a virgin about fourteen or fifteen. The 
articles brought to Soccatoo for sale by the Arabs are the same as 
what are brought to other parts of Houssa, and are mentioned in 
another place. Salt is brought by the Tuaricks from Billma, and 
also by the Tauricks of the w est. The salt from the latter quarter 
is much better, being more pure, and in large pieces like ice. 
Ostriches alive and ostrich skins are brought by these people, but 
little is given for a skin, only from 4000 to 5000 cowries for the 
finest. They also bring horses which fetch a good price here ; dates 
from Billma, and a small quantity of goods which they buy from the 
Arabs at Aghadiz. The articles they could export in considerable 
quantities, if there were buyers, would be elephants’ teeth, bullocks’ 
hides, which, when tanned, only cost five hundred cowries, equal to 
sixpence of our money. Goat skins, and the skins of antelopes, and 
