| "The caravan met a messenger." |
Clapperton remained at Katunga from the 24th January to the 7th March, 1826. He was entertained there with great hospitality by the sultan, who, however, refused to give him permission to go to Houssa and Bornou by way of Nyffé or Toppa, urging as reasons that Nyffé was distracted by civil war, and one of the pretenders to the throne had called in the aid of the Fellatahs. It would be more prudent to go through Yaourie. Whether these excuses were true or not, Clapperton had to submit.
The explorer availed himself of his detention at Katunga to make several interesting observations. This town contains no less than seven markets, in which are exposed for sale yams, cereals, bananas, figs, the seeds of gourds, hares, poultry, sheep, lambs, linen cloth, and various implements of husbandry.
The houses of the king and those of his wives are situated in two large parks. The doors and the pillars of the verandahs are adorned with fairly well executed carvings, representing such scenes as a boa killing an antelope, or a pig, or a group of warriors and drummers.
According to Clapperton the people of Yariba have fewer of the characteristics of the negro race than any natives of Africa with whom he was brought in contact. Their lips are not so thick and their noses are of a more aquiline shape. The men are well made, and carry themselves with an ease which cannot fail to be remarked. The women are less refined-looking than the men, the result, probably, of exposure to the sun and the fatigue they endure, compelled as they are to do all the work of the fields.
Soon after leaving Katunga, Clapperton crossed the Mousa, a tributary of the Quorra and entered Kiama, one of the halting-places of the caravans trading between Houssa and Borghoo, and Gandja, on the frontiers of Ashantee. Kiama contains no less than 13,000 inhabitants, who are considered the greatest thieves in Africa. To say a man is from Borghoo is to brand him as a blackguard at once.
Outside Kiama the traveller met the Houssa caravan. Some thousands of men and women, oxen, asses, and horses, marching in single file, formed an interminable line presenting a singular and grotesque appearance. A motley assemblage truly: naked girls alternating with men bending beneath their loads, or with Gandja merchants in the most outlandish and ridiculous costumes, mounted on bony steeds which stumbled at every step.
Clapperton now made for Boussa on the Niger, where Mungo Park was drowned. Before reaching it he had to cross the Oli, a tributary of the Quorra, and to pass through Wow-wow, a district of Borghoo, the capital of which, also called Wow-wow, contained some 18,000 inhabitants. It was one of the cleanest and best built towns the traveller had entered since he left Badagry. The streets are wide and well kept, and the houses are round, with conical thatched roofs. Drunkenness is a prevalent vice in Wow-wow: governor, priests, laymen, men and women, indulge to excess in palm wine, in rum brought from the coast, and in "bouza." The latter beverage is a mixture made of dhurra, honey, cayenne pepper, and the root of a coarse grass eaten by cattle, with the addition of a certain quantity of water.
Clapperton tells us that the people of Wow-wow are famous for their cleanliness; they are cheerful, benevolent, and hospitable. No other people whom he had met with had been so ready to give him information about their country; and, more extraordinary still, did not meet with a single beggar. The natives say they are not aborigines of Borghoo, but that they are descendants of the natives of Houssa and Nyffé. They speak a Yariba dialect, but the Wow-wow women are pretty, which those of Yariba are not. The men are muscular and well-made, but have a dissipated look. Their religion is a lax kind of Mahommedanism tinctured with paganism.
Since leaving the coast Clapperton had met tribes of unconverted Fellatahs speaking the same language, and resembling in feature and complexion others who had adopted Mahommedanism. A significant fact which points to their belonging to one race.