We remained at Courouassa during the 12th. A storm came on accompanied by an east wind, which occasioned a suffocating heat. The rain poured in torrents. When it ceased I again visited the banks of the river. I watched its current, which flowed at the rate of about two miles and a half or three miles an hour. At this period it was about nine feet deep. This I calculated by the long pole which the boatmen used to push along the canoes.[50] In this part it appeared as broad as the Senegal at Podor. The right bank is lower than the left, on which the village is situated at an elevation of nearly a twentieth part of a mile above the water. I observed in the village many large bamboos, under the shade of which the old men assemble and spend part of the day in conversation. These people use much snuff; but they do not take it as we do in Europe, with the fingers; some use a small brush, and others a little iron spoon like an ear-pick. The negroes told me that the river begins to overflow in July, and that then they can go three miles over the plain in canoes. A great quantity of rice is grown on this plain. The sand-bank which I had seen plainly on the preceding evening was now no longer visible. Courouassa is a neat village, surrounded by a mud wall, from ten to twelve feet high and from eight to ten inches thick. It contains between four and five hundred inhabitants. I observed that thousands of swallows, of the same kind as those seen in Europe, had built their nests in this wall. They were collected in flocks upon the trees, and I concluded that they were preparing to depart. Courouassa is entered by several low and narrow openings which are closed by a thick plank made of a single tree. The town is shaded by bombaces and baobabs, and it is the principal of five small villages situated on the banks of the Dhioliba. This country is called Amana; the inhabitants are called Dhialonkés, and are chiefly idolaters. They do not travel, but occupy themselves peaceably in the cultivation of their little fields, which are fertilised by the inundations of the river. They catch many fish with hooks, which they obtain from travellers coming from our settlements on the coast. They likewise fish with the fouène, an instrument consisting of three branches with darts having teeth like a saw. A large piece of wood forms the handle of this instrument, which the natives use with great address. I saw a species of fish with a number of small bones like the carp. The people dry and smoke this fish, and sell it to their neighbours and the traders who pass through their country. Bouré is situated at the distance of a five days’ passage down the river, in a canoe. The voyage is thus divided: from Courouassa to Cabarala one day; from Cabarala to Balatou one day; from Balatou to the village of Dhioliba one day; from Dhioliba to Boun-Bouriman, one day; from Boun-Bouriman to Bouré, proceeding a little way up the Tankisso, one day.