Sambatikila is a large village surrounded by a double wall; it is independent and inhabited by Mandingo Musulmans. It is much larger than Kankan, but not so well peopled; there are many large vacant places in the interior of the village; the streets are narrow, crooked, and, at this season of the year, full of mud. The soil, composed in some places of black mould, and in others of grey sand mixed with earth, is very fertile, but very little cultivated; the country is covered with cés and nédés. The inhabitants are engaged entirely in commerce; they go a few days’ journey to the south of their village to buy colat-nuts, and these they carry to Jenné and barter for salt; this traffic is not very lucrative, because the journeys are long and troublesome, and they have to purchase food on the road, and to pay for lodgings and transit-duty in all the villages. A small quantity of very handsome cloth is manufactured in this neighbourhood, from cotton purchased from the Bambaras. The average price of a slave in these parts is thirty bricks of salt (a brick is ten inches long, three wide, and two or two and a half thick: there are larger and smaller bricks, and the value varies accordingly) a barrel of powder and eight parcels of beads of a bright chesnut colour; or, a gun and four yards of rose-coloured taffeta are also the price of a slave. The trade of Sambatikila is not brisk; and is far from equal to that of Kankan; the want of a market injures it greatly, and the inhabitants are poor. Their crops are not sufficient to last from one year to the next, and they are forced to buy rice from the Bambaras, paying for it with salt, which the others cannot procure in any other way. The Mandingoes would rather go without food part of the day than work in the fields; they pretend that labour would take off their attention from the Koran, which is a very specious excuse for their laziness. Their flocks, which are not numerous, consist of sheep and goats; they also rear poultry; the few horses they have are of a very small breed. The son of the almamy with whom I lodged had performed several journeys to Jenné; he told me without any fear of compromising his dignity, that he had carried a load of colat-nuts on his head, as well as his companions. I questioned him as to the length of the journey; and he told me that it took two months and a half or three months to get thither, and that it was not possible to make more than two journeys in a year. The title of almamy, or king, is hereditary; the eldest son of the sovereign always succeeds. He has usually four wives and a great number of children. He is the only chief at Sambatikila, and if disputes arise the elders assemble at the almamy’s house, or at the mosque, to administer justice. Guns are not as common in this village as at Kankan, for I saw nothing but bows and arrows hanging up in the houses which I visited.