Sunday, 29th.—Clear and cool. Very unwell all night with a bad cold, pains in the limbs, and severe headache, with vomiting of bile; took calomel. Richard also weak and unwell.
Monday, 30th.—Clear and fine. The harmattan seemingly approaching its end. Better this morning. In the early part of the evening we had no wind, and it is extremely hot.
Tuesday, 31st.—I have been very restless and unwell all night. The king sent twice to inquire after my health yesterday, and wished to come and see me; but I was too weak to sit up to receive him. The messenger sent to open the path to Nyffé not yet returned. The king called to see me this evening, but I was asleep; he insisted, however, that Mr. Houtson should allow him to look at me with his own eye, and taking the candle, he did so, and observed, that having looked on me I should be quite well in the morning. Mr. Houtson asked him for the loan of a horse, to take an airing in the morning. This his majesty could not comprehend: what could a man want to ride or walk for nothing? if he rode or walked, he ought to go and see one of the caboceers, and he would get a present of a sheep, or a pig, or some yams; that would be doing good; so he said he would send a horse in the morning, and he must go and see some of his caboceers, and he would send to let them know he was coming. The pain in my head has fallen into my left eye, with inflammation and acute pain, accompanied with a light delirium. Poor Pascoe very unwell.
Wednesday, February 1.—Strong breezes. My eye a little better. Pascoe much better. The king, agreeably to his promise, sent a horse and two eunuchs to attend Mr. Houtson in his ride. He visited one caboceer, and was about to return home, when the whole of the party begged he would visit another, or all the caboceers would make a palaver with this one. Mr. Houtson went accordingly to see the other caboceers; he was received with great kindness and attention, and came home with a supply of eggs, milk, honey, two goats, a pig, two ducks, and plantains, &c. He objected to receiving presents, but they told him the king’s friends could not come to their houses, and go away empty-handed.
Sunday, 5th.—Morning clear, and a fresh breeze. In the afternoon had a visit from his majesty. I asked him if the Nyffé messenger had arrived. He said, no; that he must be dead, sick, or taken prisoner. He said we could not go by the road of Nyffé, which was impassable from the wars: what was my hurry to go? He was not yet tired of me; he had many caboceers coming from the country to see me; he wished to put every thing right on the roads for me before I set off; that the king of England did not send me to him to run away again directly; that he wished me much to wait and see the customs, for then I should see him truly a king. I said I would do so with pleasure, but that the rains would have set in by that time, and I should be unable to go to Bornou. He asked what I was going to Bornou for. “Did not the king of England send you to me alone?” “No,” said I, “he sent me to you to procure me a passage to that country, where an Englishman now resides who was left there when I returned from thence.” I then told him I would consent to remain twelve days longer, and if he did not by that time find me a passage, I would return to England and say he would not allow me to proceed. He now informed me that the messenger who arrived yesterday was from one of his provinces called Yaru, five days distance; that it was divided from the Youri by the Quorra; that he would send me by that route, which was quite safe. I asked if I could not go and see the Quorra before I departed from Katunga. He said no: the Fellatahs had possession of the road. He gave me his gooro-nut box, carved in the shape of a tortoise in ebony. I promised to let him have thirty musquets, with powder and ball; on which he went away dancing, tripped and fell, but was soon picked up by his ladies. He always brings us some little present when he comes, and to-day he brought us a bottle of honey, and some fruit called agra, about the size of a pear, with a hard outer skin, four large black seeds, surrounded by a pleasant acid pulp, like tamarinds, of a cream colour. My servant Pascoe met in the market to-day some Fellatahs, who told him there was no war in Nyffé; that the king was only afraid of the Fellatahs; that the Fellatahs of Raka had taken nine Yourribanis, who had been found in a suspicious place, but were going to return them here on the morrow. Raka is only one day’s journey north-north-east from Katunga.
Monday, 6th.—In the evening, at the request of the king, I again set off five rockets, one of which having too low an elevation ran along the ground, but fortunately only set fire to some grass. We afterwards went and saw the king, who, with his ladies and principal men, was sitting outside under the verandah to see the rockets. He presented us with gooro nuts, and said he would come and see us in the morning.
Tuesday, 7th.—In the middle of the day the king visited me, and brought a bottle of honey and two cock fowls. He began joking me as to what I was about to give him. I said I had nothing to give him. Says he, “I ask you to give me one of your servants.” “I can’t do that,” says I; “they are free men as well as myself.” “What,” says he, “no slaves in England!” “No,” says I, “as soon as a slave sets his feet in England he is free.” “Then,” says he, “as you must go, either Mr. Houtson or Richard must stop with me. I must have one.” After a good deal of conversation of this kind I asked him to fix a day for our departure. He artfully shifted the subject of conversation to that of women. Would I not like a wife? he would give me one. Did he not give us plenty to eat, or did he not use me well? “All very true, and very good,” says I, “but I am not like a black man, who has no book to write. I must know the day on which I am to go, as I must have all my books ready for the king of England. Every thing I give away is in that book, every thing I get, and every thing I say.” All my talk would not make him fix a day, but he said I should have a servant of his to the king of Youri; that that road was safe. I would go in four days to Yara in Bamba, which was tributary to him; there I would cross the river Moussa, which ran into the Quorra, three days distance; that the Moussa came from the north-west, and in it were plenty of hippopotami. He is still particularly shy of giving any information about the Quorra, of which, perhaps, he has none. At one time he says it runs into the sea between Jaboo and Benin, and at another that it passes Benin; that the Fellatahs are in possession of Raka, only a day’s journey north-north-east, and of all the country between it and the Quorra: he therefore cannot contrive to get me thither. He now shifted the subject of conversation; told me he did not know how many wives, or how many children he had got, but he was sure that his wives alone, hand to hand, would reach from hence to Jannah. He sent for one of his daughters, whom he had given as wife to Abaco, the messenger. His daughters are allowed to take any one they may choose, either as a husband or lover; but it is death to touch any of the king’s wives. The son, at the father’s death, takes all the widows to maintain. The king had his skin rubbed over with the powder of a species of red wood, ground very fine, and made like a paste; it is used by all classes. The wood is brought from Waree and Benin. We gave him a flask of rum on his leaving us, and he promised to give me some of the blue stone of which his beads are made. He says it comes from a country between this and Benin. They are not glass, as I at first supposed.
Thursday, 9th.—This evening I had to take the eunuch to task about our provisions: he had been dealing us out too small a share, and pocketing the rest. He pretended to be in a great rage, and even the milk is now bad.
Friday, 10th.—Moderate breezes and clear. A number of caboceers from distant provinces arrived to-day, and we had nothing but drumming, and whistling, the whole day. The king sent us an invitation to see them, and we went in the afternoon. We found the king seated in an old easy chair covered with crimson damask. The caboceers at some distance in front, facing him, dressed in leopard skin robes, their heads well dusted, and also their cheeks, by rubbing their faces in the dust while making their prostrations. It is the court etiquette here to appear in a loose cloth, tied under one arm; part over the other shoulder, and hanging down to the feet in a graceful manner: but no tobes, no beads, no coral, or grandeur of any kind, must appear but on the king alone. The cane I made him a present of holds, on all occasions, a conspicuous place: when he walks, he carries it, and when he sits, it is stuck in the ground at some distance before him. He presented us with gooro nuts, and asked me to fire off some rockets to-night.
The caboceers from the country were attended by their bowmen. They are required to wait upon, and first to prostrate themselves before, the chief eunuch, with dust on their heads. When any one speaks to the king, he must do it stretched at full length on the ground, and it must be said to him through the eunuch, who is also prostrated by his side. When equals meet, they kneel on one knee; women kneel on both knees, the elbows resting on the ground.