May 26.—I waited on the governor, who received me with marked kindness, and inquired particularly after the health of the sultan and of the gadado, and how I had fared in crossing the Gondamee, the river between Futche and Sackatoo.
May 30.—Clear and sultry. I was earnestly solicited by the people to refer to my books, and to ascertain if the new moon would be seen to-day; which much longed-for event, I assured them, would take place after sunset, if the evening was clear. This anxiety was occasioned by the fast of the Rhamadan, then terminating, and the Aid, or great feast, immediately commencing. The evening turning out cloudy, all were in low spirits; but at midnight a horseman arrived express to acquaint the governor that the new moon had been visible.
May 31.—After the arrival of the horseman, nothing was heard but the firing of musketry and shouts of rejoicing.—Paying and receiving visits now became a serious occupation. In the morning, accompanied by Hat Salah, I went on horseback to pay my respects to the governor. I accepted his invitation to ride out with him, according to their annual custom; and we proceeded to an open space within the city walls, amid skirmishing and firing of muskets, attended by his people on horseback, and the Arabs and principal townsfolk dressed in their gayest raiments,—all who could possibly muster a horse for the occasion being mounted. The most conspicuous person in the whole procession was a man on horseback in quilted armour, who rode before the governor bearing a two-handed sword. On reaching the plain, the governor made a speech to the people, declaring his intention to attack Duntungua, when he expected every man to exert his utmost prowess. Their sons too should not, as in times past, be left behind, but would accompany them to the war, and learn to fight the battles of their country under the eyes of their parents. Afterwards we rode home in the same order. All work was laid aside for three days. Men, women, and children, in their finest clothes, paraded through the town; a number of slaves were also set free, according to the custom of Mahometans at this holy season. The owner of my house freed fifteen.
June 1.—I visited the governor, to take leave. He was very kind, and after inquiring if I should ever return, begged me to remember him to his friend the sheikh El Kanemy, and expressed his hope I would give a favourable account of the people I had visited. I assured him, as to the last particular, I could not do otherwise, as I had every where experienced the greatest civility. He then repeated the Fatha, and I bade him farewell.
June 3.—At ten in the morning I left Kano, and was accompanied some miles by Hadje Hat Salah and all my friends on horseback. Before Hat Salah left me, he called all my servants before him, and told them he trusted they would behave well and faithfully; for, as they had seen, I was the servant of a great king, the friend of the bashaw of Tripoli, and had been passed from one sultan to another; consequently any misbehaviour of theirs, on a complaint from me, would be severely punished. We only travelled a short way before halting, for the heat of the day, under a shady tree. In the afternoon we again set forward, and at sunset encamped outside the town of Duakee.
June 4.—This morning we passed through the walled town of Sockwa, which is now reduced to a few huts inhabited by slaves; and halting for the heat of the day under a tamarind tree, we pitched our tents at sunset under the walls of Girkwa, not far from the banks of the river. The people were dancing in honour of the Aid. The dance was performed by men armed with sticks, who springing alternately from one foot to the other, while dancing round in a ring, frequently flourished their sticks in the air, or clashed them together with a loud noise. Sometimes a dancer jumped out of the circle, and spinning round on his heel for several minutes, made his stick whirl above his head at the same time with equal rapidity; he would then rejoin the dance. In the centre of the ring there were two drummers, the drums standing on the ground. They were made of a hollow block of wood about three feet high, with a skin drawn tensely over the top by means of braces. A great concourse of natives were assembled to witness the exhibition.
June 5.—Morning cloudy. At six in the morning we left Girkwa, and reposing ourselves during the heat of the day under some tamarind trees among the villages of Nansarina, we encamped at sunset in the woods. The inhabitants were now very busy in the fields planting grain. Their mode of planting it is very simple. A man with a hoe scrapes up a little mould at regular intervals, and is followed by a woman carrying the seed, of which she throws a few grains into each hole, and treads down the mould over them with her feet.
June 6.—At noon we halted in the town of Sangeia, the governor of which was at Kano; so I fortunately escaped the pain of hearing his squeaking voice. We encamped for the night in the woods.
June 7.—At one in the afternoon we halted outside the town of Katungwa. At sunset two horsemen arrived at full gallop, with the news of the governor of Kano having taken a town, at a very short distance to the north, from the rebel Duntungua.
June 8.—Every where the inhabitants were busily employed clearing the ground, and burning the weeds and stubble, preparatory to sowing grain. We sheltered ourselves from the mid-day heat under the shade of a tamarind tree, in the province of Sherra, and halted for the night outside the town of Boosuea. A son of the governor of Sherra was here, attended by a number of horsemen, and a band of music. He drank coffee with me, and I was in turn regaled with music the greater part of the night. The instruments were chiefly flutes and long wooden pipes, called by the natives frum-frum.