Mil. MUNGO park’s ACCOUNT OP SEGO IN AFRICA. 33 
where they live in the most miserable manner, their country hardly 
aftording one single necessary of life. Hence they are said to be 
the ugliest of all the Arabs, their bodies having scarcely any thing 
but skin and bone, their faces meagre, with fierce ravenous looks ; 
their garments, which are commonly what they take from the passengers 
who go through those parts, tattered with long wearing ; whilst the 
poorest of them have scarce a rag to cover their nakedness. They 
are most expert and resolute roblbers, that being their chief employ- 
ment and livelihood ; but the travellers in these parts are so few, 
that the Barcans are often necessitated to make distant excur- 
sions into Numidia, Libya, and other southern countries. Those that 
fall into their hands are made to drink plenty of warm milk, then 
they hang them up by the feet, and shake them, in order to make 
them vomit up any money they think they have swallowed ; after 
which they strip them of all their clothes, even to the last rag, but 
with all this inhumanity, they generally spare their lives, which is 
more than the other African robbers do. Yet notwithstanding every 
artifice they can use, the Barcans are so poor that they commonly let, 
pledge, or sell their children to the Sicilians and others, who supply 
them with corn, especially before they set out on any long excursion. 
Mr. Mungo Park’s Account of Sego in Africa. 
Mr Park informs us, that Sego contains about 30,000 inhabitants. 
The king of Bambarra constantly resides at Sego ; he employs many 
slaves in conveying people over the rivers; and the money they receive, 
though the fare is only ten cowrie shells for each individual, 
furnishes a considerable revenue to the king in the course of a year. 
The canoes are of a singular construction, each of them being formed 
of the trunks of two large trees rendered concave, and joined toge- 
ther, not side by side, but endwise, the junction being exactly across 
the middle of the canoe ; they are therefore very long, and dispro- 
portionably narrow, and have neither decks nor masts ; they are, how- 
ever, very roomy, for our author observed in one of them four horses, 
and several people, crossing over the river. 
The river of this extensive city, the numerous canoes upon the 
river, the crowded population, and the cultivated state of the sur- 
rounding country, formed altogether a prospect of civilization and 
magnificence, which he little expected to find in the bosom of Africa. 
He met not, however, in Sego with that hospitality which he had 
experienced in some other African towns. The Moors, who abound in 
it, and whose bigotry renders them implacable enemies of every 
white man suspected of being a Christian, persuaded the king that it 
was for no good purpose he had come into the territories of 
Bambarra. He was therefore ordered to take up his residence at a 
village a little distant, without being admitted into the royal presence. 
Even there, so strong was the prejudice that had been excited against 
him, that no person would admit him into his house. About sun-set, how- 
ever, as he was preparing to pass the night in the top of a tree, that 
he might riot be torn to pieces by wild beasts, a poor Negro woman 
conducted him to her hut, dressed a fine fish for his supper, and 
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