the market is held every fifth day, is counting inclusively according to the linguistic usage of the natives, as the Greeks also did. This is the opinion of another authority, who writes as follows:--Some say the Yoruba week is composed of four days, and some of five. This same mystification recurs in the number of days said to complete one of their months. Some say there are sixteen and others seventeen days in a month. The natives rest on the fifth day, that is to say, having counted four days, they really rest on the first day of the next week, counting that day as one. So in their next great division of time they say that they rest on the seventeenth day, which is a great market-day, and this is, of course, the first day of what is their second so-called month. Fourteen of these months complete the ancient Yoruba so-called year of 224 days[1100]. But there are also periods of time of other durations. The Adeli of the hinterland of Togo divide the lunar month into five weeks of six days[1101]; unfortunately the brief account tells us nothing of the nature of this six-day week. The Tshi-speaking peoples usually reckon time in periods of 40 or 42 days, every fortieth or forty-second day being a festival termed the great _adae_, 18 or 20 days after which is the little _adae_. The great _adae_ is always celebrated on a Sunday, and the little _adae_ on a Wednesday[1102]. Once again the statements are not clear. If the last condition must be absolutely fulfilled, the period of the great _adae_ must always embrace 42 days and the little _adae_ must fall 18 days after it. The natives consider the number 40 particularly lucky and always endeavour to connect it with some important event[1103]. The probable explanation is that 40 is used as a round number instead of 42. But among the Edo-speaking peoples also, at one point in Northern Nigeria, a twenty-day month seems to be used[1104]. The former mode of reckoning is connected with the seven-day week adopted by the Tshi-speaking peoples, though this, in order that it may cover the lunar month, is reckoned in a curious fashion so that each week consists of 7 days 9 hours; each so-called day is therefore somewhat longer than the natural day and consequently also begins at a different hour of the natural day. Hence the two _adae_ also begin at different hours of the day. The same curious reckoning is found among the Gã-tribes. This mode of computation is a far from primitive refinement, the real object of which is the fitting of the seven-day week into the lunar month, the natural day however being abandoned. There is connected with it a strong day-superstition. The first day of the ‘week’ is rest-day, and that on which the new moon falls is an absolute rest-day, the following being days of rest only for certain trades, e. g. the second for the fishermen, the third for the agriculturalists[1105]. It is clear that the only period which can