"I entered the town about sunset, and received a first impression highly favourable to its inhabitants, who were returning from their respective labours of the day, every individual bearing about him proofs of his industrious occupation. Some had been engaged in preparing the fields for the crops, which the approaching rains were to mature; others were penning up cattle, whose sleek sides and good condition denoted the richness of their pasturages; the last clink of the blacksmith's hammer was sounding, the weaver was measuring the quantity of cloth he had woven during the day, and the gaurange, or worker in leather, was tying up his neatly-stained pouches, shoes, knife-scabbards, &c. (the work of his handicraft) in a large kotakoo or bag; while the crier at the mosque, with the melancholy call of 'Alla Akbar,' uttered at measured intervals, summoned the dévôts Moslems to their evening devotions."
Had a Marilhat or a Henri Regnault transferred to canvas a scene like this, when the dazzling light of the sun is beginning to die away in green and rose tints, might he not aptly name his painting the Retour des Champs, a title so often given to landscapes in our misty climate.
"This scene," adds Laing, "both by its nature and the sentiment which it inspired, formed an agreeable contrast with the noise, confusion, and the dissipation which pervaded a Timmannee town at the same hour; but one must not trust too much to appearances, and I regret to add, that the subsequent conduct of the Kouranko natives did not confirm the good opinion which I had formed of them."
The traveller now passed through Koufoula, where he was very kindly received, crossed a pleasant undulating district shut in by the Kouranko hills and halted at Simera, where the chief ordered his "guiriot" to celebrate in song the arrival of his guest, a welcome neutralized by the fact that the house assigned to Laing let in the rain through its leaky roof and would not let out the smoke, so that, to use his own words, he was more "like a chimney-sweeper" than the white guest of the King of Simera.
Laing afterwards visited the source of the Tongolelle, a tributary of the Rokelle, and then left Kooranko to enter Soolimana. Kooranko, into which our traveller did not penetrate beyond the frontier, is of vast extent and divided into a great number of small states. The inhabitants resemble the Mandingoes in language and costume, but they are neither so well looking nor so intelligent. They do not profess Mohammedanism and have implicit confidence in their "grigris." They are fairly industrious, they know how to sew and weave. Their chief object of commerce is rosewood or "cam," which they send to the coast. The products of the country are much the same as those of Timmannee.
Komia, N. lat. 9° 22', is the first town in Soolimana. Laing then visited Semba, a wealthy and populous city, where he was received by a band of musicians, who welcomed him with a deafening if not harmonious flourish of trumpets, and he finally reached Falaba, the capital of the country.
The king received Laing with special marks of esteem. He had assembled a large body of troops whom he passed in review, making them execute various manoeuvres accompanied by the blowing of trumpets, beating of tambourines, and the playing of violins and other native instruments. This "fantasia" almost deafened the visitor. Then came a number of guiriots, who sang of the greatness of the king, the happy arrival of the major, with the fortunate results which were to ensue from his visit for the prosperity of the country and the development of commerce.
Laing profited by the king's friendliness to ask his permission to visit the sources of the Niger, but was answered by all manner of objections on the score of the danger of the expedition. At last, however, his majesty yielded to the persuasions of his visitor, telling him that "as his heart panted after the water, he might go to it."
The major had not, however, left Falaba two hours before the permission was rescinded, and he had to give up an enterprise which had justly appeared to him of great importance.
A few days later he obtained leave to visit the source of the Rokelle or Sale Kongo, a river of which nothing was known before his time beyond Rokon. From the summit of a lofty rock, Laing saw Mount Loma, the highest of the chain of which it forms part. "The point," says the traveller, "from which the Niger issues, was now shown to me, and appeared to be at the same level on which I stood, viz., 1600 feet above the level of the Atlantic; the source of the Rokelle, which I had already measured, being 1470 feet. The view from this hill amply compensated for my lacerated feet.... Having ascertained correctly the situation of Konkodoogore, and that of the hill upon which I was at this time, the first by observation, and the second by account, and having taken the bearings of Loma from both, I cannot err much in laying down its position in 9° 25' N. and 9° 45' W."