On the 18th of July, we took leave of our hosts at six in the morning, and directed our course E.S.E. for about a mile. We crossed the Lin in a canoe, so ill-contrived, that we thought it would have upset; it was made of a crooked trunk of a tree, and was very narrow and leaky; every time we stirred, it inclined so much that the water came in over the gunwale. The Lin is a large stream from the south; its current is rapid, and it falls into the Dhioliba. We travelled another mile in the same direction, over a well-cultivated plain, and I saw many labourers all around, who were hoeing the ground, and seemed to break it up as thoroughly as our French vine-dressers; they were not like the negro slaves of the Mandingoes, who just scratch up the surface of the soil two or three inches deep, to clear it of weeds: these men laboured in good earnest for a rich and plentiful crop. They are well rewarded, for their rice, and every thing else they cultivate, grows quicker and produces more abundantly than in Kankan. I have seen them harvesting the foigné; it is cut with a sickle, and, in many parts, they leave it on the ground exposed to the rain; they commonly drive two rows of stakes into the ground, and arrange the crop very skilfully between them, so that it has the appearance of a palisade; straw is laid on the top to keep off the rain, and they fetch the foigné from this store as they want it: nobody ever thinks of plundering a magazine of this kind. I have seen the negroes tilling the field from which a crop had just been gathered in, to sow it afresh with another grain. The women were occupied in clearing away the grass, and in weeding the beautiful fields of rice with which the country is covered. The people are industrious; they do not travel, but devote themselves to the labours of the field, and I was astonished to find agriculture in such a state of advancement in the interior of Africa: their land is as carefully cultivated as ours, whether under the plough or not, according as the position of the soil permits inundation. We arrived at the little hamlet where my guide had rested; he gave me a very kind reception, and said that he had been unhappy at my delay, and that he expected me sooner; he had given his friend notice of my coming and of the circumstances that occasioned my passage through their country. These good negroes came to see me every day; they sat by me and looked at me with curiosity; they were all very dirty and covered with rags, but there was great sweetness in their countenances. They were not annoying like the Mandingoes, but contented themselves with staring at me, and saying to one another: “He is a white! what a good-looking man he is!” One of them, the head of a family, made me a present of a sheep, and in the course of the day, of a large calabash of new milk, in which he had put some dégué, and which I thought delicious. I offered to share it with my companions, who would not taste it, till