TRAVELS IN AFRICA. 109 back to me in the evening. He left us at four o'clock, and the asses returned at nine the same afternoon. The country about this town is really beautifully diversified with hill and dale, both covered with wood, some of which is very large. At a short distance to the se. is the dry bed of a stream which, during the rains, runs to the sw. and joins the Gambia. The inhabitants here had commenced preparing their corn and rice grounds, in consequence of the very great appearance of approaching rain for the last two or three days, during which we had some thunder and lightning, accompanied with a perfect calm and intense heat of the sun and atmosphere.

Little trouble is indeed necessary in this country for the purpose of cultivation; the ground is merely cleared of the old corn stalks, and such weeds and young wood as have sprung up during the dry weather ; all which are burnt, and the ashes strewed on the surface.

Small holes are then made in the ground, distant from each other about a foot or eighteen inches, and two or three grains of corn dropped into each, which is filled by pushing a portion of the earth and the ashes before mentioned into it. In this state it remains, until it arrives at about two feet above the surface, when the ground between is hoed up and cleared of weeds, a pro-