The women manufacture a beautiful kind of pottery, which they sell at Jenné, and to the canoes going to Timbuctoo. The village is situated on a little eminence; it is a great market for provisions. Before I proceed further I will give a description of the canoes which are employed in the passage from Jenné to Timbuctoo, and which keep up a continually active trade along the whole extent of the river. Little flotillas of sixty or eighty boats are frequently seen all richly laden with various kinds of produce. A vessel of sixty, or eighty tons burthen, is about ninety or one hundred feet long, twelve or fourteen broad at midships, and draws six or seven feet depth of water. These canoes, whether large or small, are generally fragile, and it is astonishing how they bear the heavy cargoes with which they are laden, and which consist of rice, millet, butter, honey, onions, pistachios, colat-nuts, stuffs, and various kinds of preserved articles. In addition to their cargo they frequently have on board forty or fifty slaves, half of whom remain on deck. The crew consists of sixteen or eighteen sailors, two steersmen, and a superior, who acts as captain. The manner in which these vessels are built shews their want of solidity. Large planks, five feet long by eight inches broad, and about one inch thick,[1] are adjusted and fixed together by ropes made from the hemp of the country and the leaves of the ronnier. These ropes possess the property of lasting a long time in water, an advantage of great importance in this country, where the inhabitants do not avail themselves of the use of iron. The workmen first of all join the planks together; but they do not unite closely, and large interstices are left in this first joining. The seams are then caulked over with bruised straw, reduced to a sort of oakum, and mixed with a soft kind of clay, found in the morasses and on the banks of the river. The interstices thus filled up, the seams are closely covered with fresh straw, and the whole is strongly fastened by a second joining; this renders the canoe sufficiently solid for the purpose of navigating the river At the bottom, wooden bars are laid at certain distances to consolidate the whole mass; and similar bars are placed higher up, for supporting the deck. The hull being finished, it is covered over with small pieces of flexible wood, bent in a convex form, across which, other pieces of smaller size are fixed. This forms the deck, which is raised three feet and a half above the sides, and covered over with mats, made in the country from the leaves of the ronnier. The lightest merchandise is placed on the deck, or orlop, and is firmly lashed to the gunwales of the vessel, forming a sort of barrier, not very high, but sufficiently so to prevent the slaves, who sleep on deck, from rolling into the water. The vessel is loaded to the height of two feet and a half or three feet above the deck, even on the prow.