The scenery and produce of Bornou were exceedingly various. Mountains, valleys, plains, and deserts alternating with each other composed a prospect of striking aspect; and the population, consisting of wild soldiers, merchants, artisans, farmers, herdsmen, and shepherds, some glittering with arms, or wrapped in ample drapery, others nearly as naked as when they left the womb, appeared no less picturesque or strange. Leo’s stay in this country was short, and the persons from whom he acquired his information must have been either ignorant or credulous; for, according to them, no vestige of religion existed among the people (which is not true of any nation on earth), while the women and children were possessed by all men in common. Proper names were not in use. When persons spoke of their neighbours, they designated them from some corporeal or mental quality, as tallness, fatness, acuteness, bravery, or stupidity. The chief’s revenue consisted of the tenth of the produce of the soil, and of such captives and spoil as he could take in war. Slaves were here so plentiful, and horses so scarce, that twenty men were sometimes given in exchange for one of those animals. The prince then reigning, a narrow-minded and avaricious man, had contrived by various means to amass immense riches; his bits, his spurs, his cups, and vases were all of gold; but whenever he purchased any article from a foreign merchant, he preferred paying with slaves rather than with money. From Bornou he proceeded through Gaoga towards Nubia, and approached those regions of the Nile where, amid poverty and barbarism, the civilization of the old world has left so many indestructible traces of the gigantic ideas which throw their shadows over the human imagination in the dawn of time. Coming up to the banks of the mysterious river, around the sources of which curiosity has so long flitted in vain, he found the stream so shallow in many places that it could be easily forded; but whether on account of its immense spread in those parts, or the paucity of water, he does not inform us. Dongola, or Dangala, the capital, though consisting of mere chalk huts thatched with straw, contained at that period no less than one hundred and fifty thousand inhabitants. The people, who were rich and enterprising, held knowledge in the highest esteem. No other city, however, existed in the country; the remainder of the population, chiefly or wholly occupied in the culture of the soil, living in scattered villages or hamlets. Grain was extremely plentiful, as was also the sugarcane, though its use and value were unknown; and immense quantities of ivory and sandal-wood were exported. However, at this period, the most remarkable produce of Nubia was a species of violent poison, the effect of which was little less rapid than that of prussic acid, since the tenth part of a grain would prove mortal to a man in a few minutes, while a grain would cause instantaneous death.