Honourably as I was treated on these different occasions in consequence of the great exertions of my protector, yet the Fullán had obtained, throughout the whole affair, a slight advantage in political superiority, and they followed it up without hesitation and delay, by levying a tax of 2000 shells upon each full-grown person, under the pretext that they did not say their Friday prayers in the great mosque as they were ordered to do. This is one of the means by which the conquering tribe was endeavouring to subdue the national spirit of the native population, by making them celebrate the great weekly prayer in the mosque which had originally been built by the Mandingo conqueror Mansa Músa, and which they themselves had made the centre of their establishment in the town. Even in previous times it had always been the centre of the Mohammedan quarter. They were supported in this endeavour by the precepts of Islám, according to which a Moslim, even if he says his ordinary prayers at home, is obliged, when staying in the town and not prevented by disease, to say his Friday prayers in the Jámʿa. When the Fullán conquered the place, they purposely increased the ruin of the old native mosque of Sán-koré, which is situated in the northern quarter, and afterwards prevented its being repaired, till by the exertions of the Sheikh El Bakáy, especially on his visit to Hamda- Alláhi some years previously, the inhabitants of the town had been allowed to repair that mosque at their own expense. This had been accomplished at the cost of 600 blocks or rús of salt, equal to about 200_l._ Besides levying this tax upon the inhabitants in general, they also devised means to subject to a particular punishment the Arab part of the population who had especially countenanced the Sheikh in his opposition against their order to drive me out, by making a domiciliary search through their huts, and taking away some sixty or eighty bales or sunníye of tobacco, an article which, as I have stated on a former occasion, forms a religious and political contraband under the severe and austere rule of the Fúlbe in this quarter. [Sidenote: March 24th.]