It was rather remarkable that the greatest part of the crops were still standing, although we had been lingering so long on our road, and had given sufficient time to the people to secure them for themselves. All the grain consisted of the red species of holcus, called by the Bórnu people “ngáberi kemé,” which grows here to the exclusion of the white species and that of millet. All the people of the army were busy in threshing the grain which they had just gathered at the expense of their friends, and loading their horses with it. Even the fine nutritive grass from the borders of the swamp, which, woven into long festoons, the natives had stored up in the trees as a provision against the dry season, was carried off, and, notwithstanding the express order to the contrary, many a goat, fowl, and even articles of furniture which had been left behind by the natives, fell a prey to the greedy host. The spectacle of this pillage was the more saddening, as the village not only presented an appearance of comfort, but exhibited in a certain degree the industry of its inhabitants. In general each courtyard contained a group of from three to six huts, according to the number of wives of the owner. The walls of the dwellings, without a single exception, were built of clay, which in the courtyards of the richer people even formed the building-material of the fences. The roofs of the cottages were thatched with great care, and at least as well as in any house or village in Bórnu, and far superior to the thatching of the Shúwa. The roofs even exhibited traces of various styles, and perhaps a certain gradation in the scale of society. [Illustration] Almost every courtyard enclosed a shed, besides the huts, and one granary built of clay and from twelve to fifteen feet high, with an arched roof, likewise of clay, there being an opening at the top, which was protected by a small cover of thatching, as the accompanying woodcut shows. The way in which the natives had stored up their supply of hay for the dry season was very remarkable, the rank grass being woven into festoons of about fifteen feet in length, and hung up in the kórna-trees which adorned the fields.