TRAVELS IN AFRICA. 17 formed of poles and thatched with long dry grass ; the third and last are entirely composed of wood and dry grass, in the form of a half splaire. The doors of all are inconveniently low, particularly the latter, which is rendered the more unpleasant by its serving, at the same time, as door, window, and chimney.

Those of Almamy, his son, nephew, and some of the princes, display the same variety of form, and, with the exception of being larger, are equally inconvenient. The interior of each of these palaces may contain about an English acre, divided, by low clay walls, into several small courts, in some of which are the chambers of their wives and concubines, and in others the magazines of arms, ammunition, merchandize, and corn. The exterior walls are about thirteen feet high, and are lined, nearly all round inside, with a range of square clay hovels, serving as cooking places, stables, slave rooms, and other stores, all which have flat roofs, where, in case of attack, a number of armed men, the best marksmen, are placed, and being there defended by that part of the outside walls which rises above the roofs, in form of parapets, they can do much against an attacking enemy.

At a short distance to the sw. are situated the ruins of a town nearly as large as Boolibany, and of which it at one time formed a part j but was