Travels Of Richard And John Lander Into The Interior Of Africa For The Discovery Of The Course And Termination Of The Niger By Robert Huish
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Their Journey This Day Was Vexatiously Short, Not Having Exceeded
Four Miles, For It Was Utterly Beyond The Power Of Either Of The
Landers To Persuade The Superstitious Natives, Who Conform Only To
Their Fetish In These Matters, That The Robbers Would Be Afraid Even
To Think Of Attacking White Men.
They halted at a small town called
Shea, which was defended by a wall.
It appeared to possess a numerous
population, if any opinion could be formed from the vast number of
individuals that gathered round them, immediately on their entrance
through the gateway. A stranger, however, cannot give anything like a
correct estimate of the population of any inhabited place, in this
part of Africa, for as he can only judge of it by the number of
court-yards a town or village may contain; and as the one court yard
there may be residing at least a hundred people, and in the one
adjacent to it, perhaps not more than six or seven, the difficulty
will be immediately perceived. Generally speaking, the description of
one town in Youriba, would answer for the whole. Cleanliness and
order and establish the superiority of one place over another, which
may likewise have the advantages of a rich soil, a neighbourhood, and
be ornamented with fine spreading and shady trees; but the form of
the houses and squares is every-where the same; irregular and badly
built clay walls, ragged looking thatched roofs, and floors of mud
polished with cow-dung, form the habitations of the chief part of the
natives of Youriba, compared topmost of which, a common English barn
is a palace.
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