A little harmless deception was here attempted to be played off at my expense by one of the soldiers of my guard. This young man was one of the King’s huntsmen, and being anxious to compete with the others who made me presents, by some means procured a very large Guinea fowl. Making a hole through the neck of the bird with a knife, or some similar instrument, he assured me upon presenting it to me, that he always shot his birds in the neck, and with bullets. This I knew was not true; and upon making some further inquiries, with a view to ascertain whether this was the suggestion of his own brain or proceeded from others, I learnt that he had been prompted by others, probably with a view to raise my opinion of their superior skill in shooting. I soon convinced them, however, of my total disbelief of their being able to strike any prescribed part of a bird of much larger dimensions than the Guinea fowl, and offered the man ten head of cowries if he would even hit a bird in the neck fastened to a peg stuck into the ground. The caboceer, however, refused to allow him to try. Of course this objection saved the young huntsman’s credit for the present, but I had made up my mind to test his capabilities on the first occasion which might present itself. In the meantime I made him a present of a paper of needles and a thimble for the fowl, for which he seemed very grateful. Having received so much kindness from everybody in this place, I determined to make a general distribution of needles, having upwards of six thousand with me for the purpose of giving away. News to that effect soon spread through the town, so that my court-yard was soon filled, and hundreds waited outside. With some difficulty I cleared a small space for myself to sit down and distribute my needles, giving four needles to grown women and two to female children; but I soon found several of the young ones come a second time. As soon as the caboceer became aware of this, he gave orders that any one who should be detected coming a second time should be flogged. This threat had the desired effect; still a considerable time elapsed before I had finished making my presents to the female portion of the assemblage. The caboceer very judiciously hinted the necessity of either reducing the distribution in number, or confining it to the old people, remarking that I had many other towns and countries yet to pass through. This advice was well timed, and I forthwith acted upon it, although some hundreds arrived after I had left off.