It was market-day, there being a market held here every Monday and Friday, although the great market of Sókoto, which is much more important, even in the present reduced condition of that place, still serves to supply the wants of the inhabitants of all the neighbouring towns and villages at large. Sending, therefore, into the market in order to supply my most urgent wants, I found that corn, as well as meat, was even dearer here than in Kátsena,—100 shells scarcely sufficing for the daily maintenance of one horse, and 800 shells buying no more corn than 500 would have done in Kátsena, while an ox for slaughtering cost 7000 shells, and I bought two milking-goats, in order to enjoy the luxury of a little milk for my tea, for 2700 shells. The only article which was at all cheap was onions. The market is held on a natural platform spreading out in front of the north-western gate, and surrounded and fortified by a ditch, as, in the present weak state of the Fúlbe, the market people are liable to be suddenly attacked by the enemy. This place, as well as the whole of the town, I visited the following day, in company with my friend Alháttu, who, in acknowledgment of the present I had given him in Gáwasú, and in expectation of more, took me under his special protection; but in crossing the town, in a westerly direction from our quarters, I was surprised at its neglected and dirty appearance,—a small ravine which intersects the town forming a most disgusting spectacle, even worse than the most filthy places of any of the deserted capitals of Italy. Emerging then by the western gate (the kófa-n-sábuwa), through which leads the road to Sókoto, and which was just being repaired by the people of the ghaladíma, in order to make it capable of withstanding the effects of the rainy season, we turned northwards round the town. In front of each gate, on the slope of the rocky eminence on which the town is built, there is a group of wells, each with a little round clay house, where the proprietor of the well has his usual residence, levying on each jar of water a small contribution of five shells; but there are also a great number of wells facing the north-western gate, close to the market.