126 TRAVELS IN AFRICA.

palaces of Almamy, his son Saada, and his nephew Moosa Yoro Malick, all joining each other, but having no internal communication.

The mosque, by no means a good one, stands in an open space in the south-west end of the town. It was in very bad repair, being nearly destitute of thatch. It is a large oblong clay building, lying east and west, the walls about nine feet high, and the roof, which is composed of rough timber, is supported in the centre by three strong forked stakes, about eightteen feet high. The ends of this roof extend five or six feet over the walls, on which it rests, and is there supported by forked stakes five feet high, forming a sort of piazza. Public prayers are performed in it five times a day, with the greatest apparent devotion.

The town is divided by streets, or more properly lanes, which are very narrow, dirty, and irregular. The outside of the walls too, in consequence of the want of public places of convenience, is nothing but a continued heap of filth, which emits, particularly during the rains, an overpowering and unpleasant effluvia.

The huts or houses are of different forms some entirely composed of clay and rough timber, are square and flat roofed ; others are round, having the walls of the same material as the former, but are covered with a conical roof,