The village of Saraya contains a population of about seven or eight hundred. The inhabitants keep many cattle which at night are driven within the two walls that surround their village. I was informed that the great river flows at the distance of a day’s journey south of the village. Fish are caught in it, and, after being dried and smoked, they are used as sauce, and eaten with rice: they make them also an article of trade. The whole evening the young people of this village amused themselves by dancing to the sound of a tambourine, and a small instrument made of bamboo; their dances are sprightly and decorous. My guide and I paid a visit to the chief, who received us very kindly, and offered me a sheep-skin to sit upon. The door of his court was shaded by two bombaces. He afterwards sent us a very good supper of rice and gombo. At half past six o’clock in the morning of the 6th of June, we proceeded four miles E.S.E., over a fine plain of sand. We passed Fausimoulaya, a village surrounded by a mud wall. The country was covered with cés and nédés. We crossed the Ba-ndiégué, which flows through a fine plain clothed with perpetual verdure. We advanced for two miles in the same direction, over a level plain, composed of red earth, with a great deal of gravel, and some red stone of the same kind as that of Sierra-Leone. We entered the village of Sancougnan, in order to visit the chief, a ceremony which all travellers are obliged to observe. We found him lying on a large bullock’s hide, with his head resting on a log of wood. My guide told him that I was a sherif going to my native country, near Mecca. This chief, who was said not to be a very pious Musulman, gave us a very kind reception. He assigned to me a very good hut, and asked me to pass the next day in his village. Lamfia met with the son of the chief of Kankan, a zealous Musulman, who had come to Baléya to sell a horse. I was desirous of making acquaintance with him, and with this view I gave him a sheet of paper. He spoke favourably of me to the chief of Sancougnan, who, he said, was a great warrior, and not over-devout, and therefore might make me pay a considerable tribute for liberty to pass. After our interview, which took place in a stable, where he was lying beside his horse, we went to the hut which was destined for us. The mansa, or chief, soon sent me a calabash full of rice, mixed with milk and butter, and sprinkled with salt, which we ate for dinner. I took the precaution of circulating in the village a story calculated to serve my purpose. I said that Mr. Macaulay, a merchant at Sierra-Leone, well known through all this country, had wished me to remain in the English settlement, and for that purpose offered to advance me money to carry on trade; but that I rejected the offer on account of my strong dislike to live among infidels. When in the presence of the chief, I drew forth some leaves of the Koran, which I read aloud, to induce a belief that I