In The Enlightened And Civilized Country Of Europe, Or At Least In That Part Of It Called England, It Is

By no means an obsolete custom, for an individual, who wishes to ingratiate himself with the object of his affections,

To bestow a valuable present on the waiting woman or abigail, who is a great deal about her person, and the eulogiums which she then passes upon the absent lover, are great and exuberant in proportion to the extent of the bribe. A female, whoever she may be, whether a Middlesex virgin, or a Wawa widow, delights not only to have some one to whom she can speak of the object of her attachment, but who will be continually speaking to her of him, and as it appears that the female character is very nearly the same in the interior of Africa, as in the latitude of London, it is by no means a matter of surprise, that the amorous widow enlisted Pascoe, the black servant of Clapperton, in her cause, by offering him in the way of a bribe, a handsome female slave as a wife, if he would manage to bring about an interview at her own house, between either Clapperton or Lander, expressing herself at the same time not to be very particular as to which of the two this interview was obtained with. Clapperton it appears had greater confidence in himself than Lander could boast of, and the former considering himself proof against all the arts and fascinations of the widow, and wishing at the same time to see the interior arrangement of her house, he determined to pay her a visit. He found her house large, and full of male and female slaves, the males lying about the outer huts, the females more in the interior. In the centre of the huts was a square one, of large dimensions, surrounded by a verandah, with screens of matting all round, except in one place, where there was hung a tanned bullock's hide; to this spot he was led up, and on its being drawn on one side, he saw the lady sitting cross-legged on a small Turkey carpet, like one of our hearth-rugs, a large leathern cushion under her left knee; her goora pot, which was an old-fashioned pewter mug, by her side, and a calabash of water to wash her mouth out, as she alternately kept eating goora and chewing tobacco snuff, the custom with all ranks, male and female, who can procure them; on her right side lay a whip. At a little distance, squatted on the ground, sat a dwarfish, humpbacked female slave, with a wide mouth, but good eyes. She had no clothing on, with the exception of a profusion of strings of beads and coral round her neck and waist. This dwarfish personage served the purpose of a bell in our country, and what, it may be supposed, would in old times have been called a page. The lady herself was dressed in a white coarse muslin turban, her neck profusely decorated with necklaces of coral and gold chains, amongst which was one of rubies and gold beads; her eyebrows and eyelashes were blackened, her hair dyed with indigo, and her hands and feet with henna; around her body she had a fine striped silk and cotton country cloth, which came as high as her tremendous bosom, and reached as low as her ankles; in her right hand she held a fan made of stained grass, and of a square form.

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