FROM FAFA TO SAY 279 For the first time since we left Gao we met with the valuable kola nuts so much appreciated by the negroes, and I gave my people the greatest possible pleasure by distributing quantities of this delicacy amongst them.

Each nut is worth some 150 cowries, or about threehalfpence.

Here, as the reader will have noticed, we begin to talk about cowries again. I have already said that these little AT SANSAN-HAUSSA.

univalve shells of the African coast are the usual currency from the source of the Niger to Timbuktu.

We went with Father Hacquart to return the visit the chief of the village had paid us the evening before. He did not seem to wish us to remain long in his country. He was afraid, he said. Why? we asked. It was evident that the Toucouleurs, of whom there were a good many in the village, had prejudiced-him against us.

Two people came and asked us to give them a passage,