Thursday, 16th.—Morning cool and cloudy. We had an early visit from the king, who was anxious to have a bottle of our porter, which I could not well refuse. He also begged my looking glass, and one of the tin boxes. In my turn I told him, that since we had finished our bullock that he gave us, we had nothing to eat. He replied, we must go to the caboceers. I told him I would do no such thing; that we did not come here to beg. He said I was mistaken; it was not begging; they were all his slaves, and what they possessed belonged to him. I requested, however, that he should send orders to them direct from himself. After a little time he left us: but the eunuch remained; and showing symptoms of sauciness I turned him out of the house. Friday, 17th.—Morning clear and cool, with fresh harmattan breezes. A great number of people arrived to-day from different parts of the country to pay their annual custom and visit to the king. Saturday, 18th.—Morning clear and cold; a strong harmattan still blowing. The religion of the people of Yourriba, as far as I could comprehend it, consists in the worship of one God, to whom they offer sacrifices of horses, cows, sheep, goats, and fowls. At the yearly feast all these animals are sacrificed at the fetish house, in which a little of the blood is spilt on the ground. The whole of them are then cooked; and the king and all the people, men and women, attending, partake of the meat, which they are said to eat in a state of nakedness, and in company, drinking at the same time copiously of country ale, or pitto; but it is also said, that the least attempt at indecency would be punished with death. It is stated, moreover, that it depends on the will of the fetish man or priest whether a human being, or a cow, or other animal is to be sacrificed. If a human being, it is always a criminal, and only one. The usual spot where the feast takes place is in a large open field before the king’s house, under wide spreading trees, where there are two or three fetish houses. This account I had from a native of Bornou, a Mahometan, and a slave to the caboceer of Jannah. Monday, 20th.—The morning cool. The harmattan still continues blowing. Our supply of provisions has of late been rather scanty, owing to the avarice of the fat eunuch, our guardian, who pockets as much as he can out of what the king sends us. I have threatened him two or three times, but I believe he trusts to my patient and easy disposition. Complaining to the king would get him a beating, though he is a favourite, and an useful person, well-skilled as a war-captain, and guardian of the king’s women.