It was but very rarely that I mounted my horse, as I purposely avoided everything which was likely to attract attention, or create envious and jealous feelings; but on the 10th of the month, I was obliged by circumstances to take a long ride, as my she-camel, which at the time was my only beast of burden, was missing, and not a trace of her could be found. On the south-east side of the village there is much forest of a very uniform character, interspersed with tall reed-grass; but on the other sides a great deal of cultivation was to be seen, shaded by hájilíj (or “jánga,” as it is called here), nebek or “kírna,”[40] and talha-trees, here called “keláya.” I found it very remarkable that almost all the fields, even those where millet and sorghum were grown, were laid out in deep furrows, called derába,—a system of tillage which, in the case of any sort of grain, I had not before observed in Negroland. Besides grain, a good deal of sesamum (“kárru”), cotton (“nyére”), and indigo (“alíni”) was cultivated, the plants being from two and a half to three feet in height, and bare of leaves at the present season. On the north-east side, also, there was a great deal of forest; but it was adorned by some groups of fine trees. It was enlivened by numbers of Guinea fowl and gazelles; and a great number of “kálgo” trees, with their wide-spreading branches, were observed here. The soil had been already tolerably saturated with moisture, fine tufts of succulent grass were springing up here and there, and I was enabled to water my horse at a small pool; but this abundance of the watery element, of course, was only temporary, in consequence of the heavy rain which had fallen the previous night, and the poor inhabitants were still to suffer most severely from drought, their deep well being almost dry. This was the only point in regard to which I had continual disputes with the inhabitants, who would scarcely allow my horse to get his sufficient _quantum_, although I had to pay a considerable sum for it.