620 F O U 
merce. The inhabitants are in general of a tawny com¬ 
plexion. It is fuppofed that their alliances with the 
Moors have given them that mixed colour, between the 
true olive and the black. However negligent they may 
be fuppofed in pufhing the trade of their country, they 
are extremely diligent as farmers and graziers, and raife 
millet, rice, tobacco, cotton, peafe, roots, and fruits, with 
abundance of care; nor are they lefs expert in rearing 
cattle, in which confifts great part of their traffic with the 
neighbouring countries. As their chief wealth confifts 
in their cattle, many tribes of them lead a wandering life, 
and roam about from field to field, from country to conn- . 
try, with large droves of cows, (beep, goats, and horfes ; 
for although thefe have fixed habitations, yet they ule 
them but little, removing them, as the dry or wet feafons 
require, from low to the high lands, redding in no one 
place longer than the pafture for their cattle will admit. 
This laborious life is greatly increafed by the continual 
neceftity they are underof defending themfelves and their 
cattle againft the depredations of thofe fierce animals with 
which the country abounds : lions, tigers, and elephants, 
aftaulting them from the land, and crocodiles from the 
rivers. The Foulahs are celebrated by travellers as an 
extremely hofpitable nation ; all perfons, without dif- 
tindtion of country, being freely admitted into their huts, 
and treated with the beft accommodations they can afford ; 
nor is their humanity in any other particular lefs com- 
mendable ; for as foon as any of them has the misfortune 
to fall into flavery, all the reft join ftock to redeem him. 
Their arms are compofed of bows and arrows, lances, 
fwords, daggers, and occafionally a kind of fmall fufee, 
all of which they life with great dexterity and addrefs, 
fuperior to molt negro nations, particularly .in hunting, a 
diverfionin great efieem among them. Elephants, lions, 
tigers, and the fierceft animals, are the game they purfue. 
Twenty or thirty of them, fome on foot fome on horfe- 
back, follow the chace, and feldorn return but laden with 
the fpoils of thefe defperate animals. The elephants’ 
teeth, the lions, leopards, and tigers, fkins they fell, and 
the flefh is fmoked and dried for ufe and winter ftore. In 
fuch numbers are the elephants bred here, that they are 
l'een in droves of two hundred together, plucking up the 
fmall trees, and deftroying whole fields of corn ; pleafnre, 
therefore, is not the object of their hunting, but neceftity 
and felf-prefervation. “ The Foulahs in general (fays 
Park) are of a tawny complexion, with fmall features, 
and (oft ftlky hair ; next to the Mandingoes they are un¬ 
doubtedly the moft confiderabie of all the nations in this 
part of Africa. Their original country is find to be Foo- 
ladoo, (which (ignifies the country of the Foulahs;) but 
they poft'efs at prefent many kingdoms at a great diilance 
from each other : their complexion, however, is not ex¬ 
actly the fame in the different diftricts; in Bondou, and 
fome other kingdoms which are lituated in the vicinity of 
the Moorifti territories, they are of a more yellow com¬ 
plexion than in the fouthern ftates. Their government 
aiffers from that of the Mandingoes chiefly in this, that 
they are more immediately under the influence of the Ma- 
bomedan laws ; for all the chief men (the king excepted) 
are Muffulnien, and the authority and laws of the Prophet 
are everywhere looked upon as (acred and decifive. In the 
exercife of their faith, however, they are not very into¬ 
lerant towards fitch of their countrymen as (till retain their 
ancient fuperftitions. Religious perfecution is not known 
among them, nor is it neceffary ; for the fyfteni of Maho¬ 
met is made to extend itlelf by means abundantly more 
efficacious. By eftabiifhing fmall fchools in the different 
towns, where many of the pagan as well as Mahoinedan 
children are taitglft to read the Koran, and inltruded in 
the tenets of the prophet, the Mahomedan priefts fix a 
bias on the minds, and form the character of their young 
difciples, which no accidents of life can ever afterwards 
remove or alter. 
“ With the Mahomedan faiih is alfo introduced the 
Arabic language, with which moft of the Foulahs have a 
L A H. 
flight acquaintance. Their native tongue abounds very 
much in liquids, but there is fomething unpleafant in the 
manner of pronouncing it. A ftranger, on hearing the 
common converfation of two Foulahs, would imagine that 
they were fcolding each other. Theinduftryof the peo¬ 
ple or tribes in the occupations of pafturage and agricul¬ 
ture, is every where remarkable. Even on the banks of 
the Gambia, the greater part of the corn is raifed by 
them ; and their herds and flocks are more numerous and 
in better condition than thofe of the Mandingoes; but in 
Bondou they are opulent in a high degree, and enjoy all 
the neceflaries of life in the greateft profufion. They dif- 
play great (kill in the management of their cattle, making 
them extremely gentle by kindnefs and familiarity. On 
the approach of night, they are collected from the woods, 
and feenred in folds, called korrees, which are conftruded 
in the neighbourhood of the different villages. In the 
middle of each korree isereded a fmall hut, wherein one 
or two of the herdfmen keep watch during the night, and 
keep up the fires which are kindled round the korree to 
frighten away the wild beads. The cattle are milked in 
the mornings and evenings : the milk is excellent; but the 
quantity obtained from any one cow is by no means fo 
great as in Europe. The Foulahs ufe the milk chiefly as 
an article of diet, and that, not until it is quite four. The 
cream which it affords is very thick, and is converted in¬ 
to butter by ftirring it violently in a large calabafti. This 
butter, when melted over a gentle fire, and freed from 
impurities, is preferved in fmall earthen pots, and forms 
a part in moft of their diflies ; it ferves likewife to anoint 
their heads, and is beftowed very liberally on their faces 
and arms. But although milk is plentiful, it is fomevvhat 
remarkable that the Foulahs, and indeed all the inhabit¬ 
ants of this part of Africa, are totally unacquainted with 
the art of making cheefe. A firm attachment to thecuf- 
toms of their anceftors, makes them view with an eye of 
prejudice every thing that looks like innovation. The 
heat of the climate, and the great fcarcity of fait, are 
held forth as unanfwerable objections ; and the whole 
procefs appears to them too long and troublefome, to be 
attended wit It any folid advantage. Befides the cattle, 
which conftitute the chief wealth of the Foulahs, they 
poffefs fome excellent horfes, the breed of which feems 
to be a mixture of the Arabian with the original African.” 
See Park’s Travels, p. 59-62. 
The principal of the Foulah ftates is that which lies 
within Sierra Leona ; and of which Teemboo is the capi¬ 
tal. The next in order appears to be that bordering on 
the fouth of the Senegal river, and on the Jalofts ; this is 
properly named Siratik. Others of lefs note are Bondou, 
with Foota-Torra adjacent to it, lying between the rivers 
Gambia and Faleme ; Foola-doo and Brooko along the 
upper part of the Senegal river ; Waffela beyond the up¬ 
per part of the Niger; and Madina lower down on the 
fame river, and joining to Tombudoo on the weft. The 
kingdom of the Foulahs, fituated between the upper part 
of tiie Gambia river and the coaft of Sierra Leona, and 
along the Rio Grande, is governed by a Mahometan fove- 
reign ; but the bulk of his fubjeds appear to be pagans. 
From the circumftances of their long hair, their lips, and 
comparatively light colour, Major Rennel is decidedly of 
opinion, that the Foulahs are the LcvcAthiops of Ptolemy 
and Pliny. The former, as he obferves, places the Leu- 
caethiops in the fituation occupied by the Foulahs; and 
by the name which he gave them, he evidently meant to 
deferibe a people lefs black than the generality of the Ethi¬ 
opians. Hence it may be gathered, that this nation had 
been traded with, and that fome notices refpeCting it had 
been communicated to Ptolemy. It may alfo be remark¬ 
ed, that the navigation of Hanno terminated on this coaft ; 
and as this was alfo the term of Ptolemy’s knowledge, it 
may juftly be fufpedted, that this part of the coaft was 
deferibed from Carthaginian materials. Thole who have 
perufed the journals of modern travellers through the 
Foulah country, and recoiled: how flattering a pidure 
4 they 
