_24th May, 1871._--The market is a busy scene--everyone is in dead earnest--little time is lost in friendly greetings; vendors of fish run about with potsherds full of snails or small fishes or young _Clarias capensis_ smoke-dried and spitted on twigs, or other relishes to exchange for cassava roots dried after being steeped about three days in water--potatoes, vegetables, or grain, bananas, flour, palm-oil, fowls, salt, pepper; each is intensely eager to barter food for relishes, and makes strong assertions as to the goodness or badness of everything: the sweat stands in beads on their faces--cocks crow briskly, even when slung over the shoulder with their heads hanging down, and pigs squeal. Iron knobs, drawn out at each end to show the goodness of the metal, are exchanged for cloth of the Muabé palm. They have a large funnel of basket-work below the vessel holding the wares, and slip the goods down if they are not to be seen. They deal fairly, and when differences arise they are easily settled by the men interfering or pointing to me: they appeal to each other, and have a strong sense of natural justice. With so much food changing hands amongst the three thousand attendants much benefit is derived; some come from twenty to twenty-five miles. The men flaunt about in gaudy-coloured lambas of many folded kilts--the women work hardest--the potters slap and ring their earthenware all round, to show that there is not a single flaw in them. I bought two finely shaped earthen bottles of porous earthenware, to hold a gallon each, for one string of beads, the women carry huge loads of them in their funnels above the baskets, strapped to the shoulders and forehead, and their hands are full besides; the roundness of the vessels is wonderful, seeing no machine is used: no slaves could be induced to carry half as much as they do willingly. It is a scene of the finest natural acting imaginable. The eagerness with which all sorts of assertions are made--the eager earnestness with which apparently all creation, above, around, and beneath, is called on to attest the truth of what they allege--and then the intense surprise and withering scorn cast on those who despise their goods: but they show no concern when the buyers turn up their noses at them. Little girls run about selling cups of water for a few small fishes to the half-exhausted wordy combatants. To me it was an amusing scene. I could not understand the words that flowed off their glib tongues, but the gestures were too expressive to need interpretation.