Katungwa, The First Town Of Houssa Proper, And The Next On The Route, Is Situated In A Country Well Enclosed, And Under High Cultivation. To The South Is An Extensive Range Of Rocky Hills, Amid Which Is The Town Of Zangeia, With Its Buildings Picturesquely Scattered Over Masses Of Rocks.

Clapperton passed also Girkwa, near a river of the same name, which appears to come from these hills, and to fall into the Yeou.

Two days after, he entered Kano, the Ghana of Edrisi, and which is now, as it was six hundred years ago, the chief commercial city of Houssa, and of all central Africa. Yet it disappointed our traveller on his first entry, and for a quarter of a mile scarcely appeared a city at all. Even in its more crowded quarters, the houses rose generally in clusters, separated by stagnant pools. The inhabited part on the whole, did not comprise more than a fourth of the space enclosed by the walls, the rest consisted of fields, gardens, and swamps; however, as the whole circuit is fifteen miles, there is space for a population moderately estimated, to be between thirty or forty thousand. The market is held on a neck of land, between two swamps, by which, during the rains, it is entirely overflowed, but in the dry season it is covered with sheds of bamboo, arranged into regular streets. Different quarters are allowed for the several kinds of goods; some for cattle, others for vegetables, while fruits of various descriptions, so much neglected in Bornou, are here displayed in profusion.

Enter page number Go  Previous Next
Page 462 of 1124
Words from 126004 to 126266 of 309561