They Have Frequent Wars With Their Southern And Eastern Neighbours, Though Without Any Important Results; The Sterility Of The Soil Throughout The Whole Of The Region Of Sand, Affording Little Temptation To Its Inhabitants To Dispossess Each Other Of Their Territorial Possessions.

CHAPTER XII.

Wadinoon or Wednoon, was the first place at which Adams had seen houses after he quitted Tudenny. It is a small town, consisting of about forty houses and some tents. The former are built chiefly of clay, intermixed with stone in some parts, and several of them have a story above the ground-floor. The soil in the neighbourhood of the town was better cultivated than any he had yet seen in Africa, and appeared to produce plenty of corn and tobacco. There were also date and fig trees in the vicinity, as well as a few grapes, apples, pears, and pomegranates. Prickly pears flourished in great abundance.

The Christians whom Adams had heard of, whilst residing at Hieta Mouessa Ali, and whom he found at Wadinoon, proved to be, to his great satisfaction, his old companions, Stephen Dolbie the mate, and James Davison and Thomas Williams, two of the seamen of the Charles. They informed him, that they had been in that town upwards of twelve months, and that they were the property of the sons of the governor.

Soon after the arrival of Adams at Wadinoon, Abdallah offered him for sale to the governor or sheik, called Amedallah Salem, who consented to take him upon trial; but after remaining a week at the governor's house, Adams was returned to his old master, as the parties could not agree upon the price. He was at length, however, sold to Belcassam Abdallah for seventy dollars in trade, payable in blankets, gunpowder, and dates.

The only other white resident at Wadinoon was a Frenchman, who informed Adams that he had been wrecked about twelve years before on the neighbouring coast, and that the whole of the crew, except himself, had been redeemed. This man had turned Mahommedan, and was named Absalom; he had a wife and child and three slaves, and gained a good living by the manufacture of gunpowder. He lived in the same house as the person who had been his master, and who, upon his renouncing his religion, gave him his liberty.

Among the negro slaves at Wadinoon was a woman, who said she came from a place called Kanno, (Cano?) a long way across the desert, and that she had seen in her own country white men, as white as "bather," meaning the wall, and in a large boat, with two high sticks in it, with cloth upon them, and that they rowed this boat in a manner different from the custom of the negroes, who use paddles; in stating this, she made the motion of rowing with oars, so as to leave no doubt that she had seen a vessel in the European fashion, manned by white people.

The work in which Adams was employed at Wadinoon, was building walls, cutting down shrubs to make fences, or working on the corn lands, or on the plantations of tobacco, of which a great quantity is grown in the neighbourhood.

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