Kano, the capital of the province of that name and one of the chief towns of the Soudan, is situated in N. lat. 12° 0' 19", and E. long. 9° 20'. It contains between thirty and forty thousand inhabitants, of whom the greater number are slaves.
The market, bounded on the east and west by vast reedy swamps, is the haunt of numerous flocks of ducks, storks, and vultures, which act as scavengers to the town. In this market, stocked with all the provisions in use in Africa, beef, mutton, goats' and sometimes even camels' flesh, are sold.
Writing paper of French manufacture, scissors and knives, antimony, tin, red silk, copper bracelets, glass beads, coral, amber, steel rings, silver ornaments, turban shawls, cotton cloths, calico, Moorish habiliments, and many other articles, are exposed for sale in large quantities in the market-place of Kano.
There Clapperton bought for three piastres, an English cotton umbrella from Ghadames. He also visited the slave-market, where the unfortunate human chattels are as carefully examined as volunteers for the navy are by our own inspectors.
The town is very unhealthy, the swamps cutting it in two, and the holes produced by the removal of the earth for building, produce permanent malaria.
It is the fashion at Kano to stain the teeth and limbs with the juice of a plant called gourgi, and with tobacco, which produces a bright red colour. Gouro nuts are chewed, and sometimes even swallowed when mixed with trona, a habit not peculiar to Houssa, for it extends to Bornou, where it is strictly forbidden to women. The people of Houssa smoke a native tobacco.
On the 23rd of February, Clapperton started for Sackatoo. He crossed a picturesque well-cultivated country, whose wooded hills gave it the appearance of an English park. Herds of beautiful white or dun-coloured oxen gave animation to the scenery.
The most important places passed en route by Clapperton were Gadania, a densely populated town, the inhabitants of which had been sold as slaves by the Fellatahs, Doncami, Zirmia, the capital of Gambra, Kagaria, Kouari, and the wells of Kamoun, where he met an escort sent by the sultan.
Sackatoo was the most thickly populated city that the explorer had seen in Africa. Its well-built houses form regular streets, instead of clustering in groups as in the other towns of Houssa. It is surrounded by a wall between twenty and thirty feet high, pierced by twelve gates, which are closed every evening at sunset, and it boasts of two mosques, with a market and a large square opposite to the sultan's residence.
The inhabitants, most of whom are Fellatahs, own many slaves; and the latter, those at least who are not in domestic service, work at some trade for their masters' profit. They are weavers, masons, blacksmiths, shoemakers, or husbandmen.