Sansanding contains, according to Koontie Mamadie's account, eleven thousand inhabitants. It has no public buildings, except the mosques, two of which, though built of mud, are by no means inelegant. The market place is a large square, and the different articles of merchandize are exposed for sale on stalls covered with mats, to shade them from the sun. The market is crowded with people from morning to night: some of the stalls contain nothing but beads; others indigo in balls; others wood-ashes in balls; others Houssa and Jinnie cloth. I observed one stall with nothing but antimony in small bits; another with sulphur, and a third with copper and silver rings and bracelets. In the houses fronting the square is sold, scarlet, amber, silks from Morocco, and tobacco, which looks like Levant tobacco, and comes by way of Tombuctoo. Adjoining this is the salt market, part of which occupies one corner of the square. A slab of salt is sold commonly for eight thousand cowries; a large butcher's stall, or shade, is in the centre of the square, and as good and fat meat sold every day as any in England. The beer market is at a little distance, under two large trees; and there are often exposed for sale from eighty to one hundred calabashes of beer, each containing about two gallons. Near the beer market is the place where red and yellow leather is sold. Besides these market-places, there is a very large space, which is appropriated for the great market every Tuesday. On this day astonishing crowds of people come from the country to purchase articles in wholesale, and retail them in the different villages, &c. There are commonly from sixteen to twenty large fat Moorish bullocks killed on the market morning. October 8th.--As Mansong had delayed much longer in sending the canoes he promised, than I expected, I thought it best to be provided with a sufficient quantity of shells to purchase two; particularly when I reflected that the river would subside in the course of a few days, having sunk this morning about four inches by the shore. I therefore opened shop in great style, and exhibited a choice assortment of European articles to be sold in wholesale or retail. I had of course a _great run_, which I suppose drew on me the envy of my brother merchants; for the Jinnie people, the Moors, and the merchants here joined with those of the same description at Sego, and (in presence of Modibinne, from whose mouth I had it) offered to give Mansong a quantity of merchandize of greater value than all the presents I had made him, if he would seize our baggage, and either kill us, or send us back again out of Bambarra. They alleged, that my object was to kill Mansong and his sons by means of charms, that the white people might come and seize on the country. Mansong, much to his honour, rejected the proposal, though it was seconded by two-thirds of the people of Sego, and almost all Sansanding.