The next day I went, after sending to say I was ready to give the governor his present, to his house, accompanied by his head man, and gave him seven yards of red cloth, seven yards of blue cloth, seven yards of blue silk, an umbrella, ten strings of beads, and a phosphorus box, after showing them off to the greatest advantage, a thing never to be neglected in Africa. I sat down and told him what I have told them all, and which has been so often repeated. He said there were two roads, one where there was war, the other peace. The one where there was war was by Youri; that the sultan of that country was out fighting the Fellatas: the other by the way the merchants went, through Nyffé, which was safe, and he would advise me to go by that road. I thanked him, and said I would follow his advice, for that I had nothing to do with war. Says he, “You are come to make peace among all people, and make the kings leave off war.” I said, “God willing, I would do what I could.” This opinion of my being a peace-maker prevails strongly in all places that I have been in: perhaps it may arise from the people of the coast and those of Dahomey informing them of the active part we take in preventing the slave trade. He said he should send to the sultan of Boussa, and tell him to forward me by the way of Nyffé, with the merchants, as the other road was bad; that he had never had such a valuable present from any one before; and that I should see every thing I pleased in his country. I told him that three white men who were with me had died on the road; that I was very anxious to get to Bornou before the rains, as being a dry sandy country, I considered that there I was safe: but that in this country or Houssa it was very unsafe and unhealthy for white men to be caught by the rains. The governor is a thin, spare, old man; he had on a cap in the form of a foraging cap, with some of the Stuart tartan riband in several folds around it, a white tobe or large shirt, a Moorish kaftan of Manchester cotton, and a pair of sandals on his feet. The room in which he received me had nothing worth note but the stool on which he sat, which had two lizards carved in bas relief on the top, and the heads of two as handles for carrying it. His house is inside a high square clay wall, with one gate on the western side, and consists of coozies, or circular huts, built of clay and thatched, and one square tower of clay, having little projections at each corner, and an ostrich egg on the top of each of the huts.