10 JOURNEY FROM BADAGRY TO KATUNGA.

the chin resting on the hands, turning one cheek to the ground,

then the other, and finally to bestow a kiss on their mother earth and rise. Before entering the caboceer’s presence their heads must

he covered with dust or clay. He told us he had a house at Eyeo,

and that half his wives were there. When he spoke in a compli- mentary way to us, all the people clapped their hands joyfully. When we told him that a white man had only one wife, he and

the whole people, with his wives, laughed immoderately. After

staying with him an hour we took our leave, giving him two

bottles of rum, and a promise of something more when the bag-

gage ai rived. The town of Lahoo is large, and stands on a rising ground on the top of a small hill, and in some parts commands an

extensive view, particularly to the south, which is low and fiat.

Lagos, we were told, can be reached in one day by a messenger.

Thursday, 15th.— Our sick better: at eight, sent them off in

the hammocks : at nine, started on horseback, but waited a short

time for the caboceer, who came mounted, but without stirrups. He attended us some distance out of town with the whole popula-

tion of Lahoo around him, the women singing in chorus and holding up both hands as we passed ; and groups of people were kneeling down and apparently wishing us a good journey. The country well

cultivated and beautiful, rising into hill and dale : from the tops of

the hills we had distant views, the road leading through plantations

of millet, yams, alavances, and Indian corn.

On arriving at Jannah about noon, I found our poor sick halted

in the palaver house, which is an open shed, surrounded by thou-

sands of people making a great noise. Here we had to wait about

an hour before the caboceer made his appearance, which however

at last he did, gorgeously arrayed in a large yellow silken shirt and

red velvet cap ; with a silver mounted and silver wrought kind of

horsewhip ornamented with beads, in one hand, and a child’s silver

bells in the other, which he rattled or shook when he spoke : he