will find plenty of people to put evil in your head; if you are wise, do not believe them.” Monday 20th.—At 6 A.M. left our encampment. Our road through a woody country, rising into hill and dale, with some beautiful rocky mounts, perched on the heights composed of blocks of sandstone and clay ironstone; the soil a red clay and gravel. We halted at the village of Barakina, where I stopped until the carriers came up. As I arrived at this village, a hunter came in from the chase. He had a leopard’s skin over his shoulder, a light spear in his hand, and his bow and arrows slung over his shoulder. He was followed by three cream-coloured dogs, a breed as if between the greyhound and cur: they were adorned with round collars of different coloured leather. The hunter and his dogs marched through the village as independently as ever I saw a man, without taking the least notice of us, or even looking at us. He was followed by a slave carrying a dead antelope that he had killed this morning. They say the people of Borgoo are the greatest hunters in Africa, and that the people of this village and of those we have passed live entirely by the chase; the little ground they cultivate being worked by the women. Leaving Barakina, and travelling until noon, I came to a rocky ledge, formed like a wall, in some places rising into beautiful rocky mounts with bold precipices, shaded on the top with trees of the most luxuriant foliage. The road lay through a narrow pass in the ledge, shaded with fine tall majestic trees. Here, I said to myself, is the pass, or gates, leading to the Niger. The rocks of which the ledge is composed are of a conglomerate, formed with large square pieces of white quartz, imbedded in a shining dark gray substance; the pieces of quartz about an inch square, the strata forming an angle of about 40° with the zenith. At noon crossed the river Oli, which has a very rocky bed, and is said to be impassable, from the swiftness of the current, in the rainy season. At this place the rocks in the river were a dark clay slate: its course was from west-north-west to east-south-east. The head man of the village at the ferry told me that it had its rise in the hills to the north of Niki, ran to the north of Kiama, and entered the Quorra above Rakah. At the place where I and my baggage crossed it was dry; but all other passengers, not being in the service of a king, are required to cross at the ferry by a canoe, where they have to pay ten cowries a head for each passenger, and twenty cowries for a load for goods. After crossing, I halted at the village of the ferry, which is called Billa, on the south side of the river. I encamped under a shady tree for the superior coolness, though I was offered the best house in the village. The head man brought me a present of a sheep, some yams, milk and honey; and, a short while after my arrival, the head man of the village of Barakina arrived with a sheep, yams, and honey,