180 TRAVELS IN AFRICA.

and villages, are for the most part cleared for the purpose of cultivation, to which the soil, being a light sand mixed with brown vegetable mould, seems well adapted. Innumerable beds of torrents intersect these valleys in all directions, and serve during the rains, being dry at all other times, to conduct the water collected by the high grounds to the Fa-lemme and Senegal. Great numbers of tamarinds, baobabs, rhamnus lotus, and other fruit-trees, are beautifully scattered over these valleys, which are rendered still more picturesque by the frequent appearance of a village or walled town, in whose vicinity are always a number of cotton and indigo plantations.

The proportion of land cultivated is small, but sufficient to supply the inhabitants abundantly with all the productions of the country ; these are corn in four varieties, together with rice, pumpions, water-melons, gourds, sorrell, onions, tobacco, red pepper, pistacios, cotton, and indigo.

The commerce, and in which the greater proportion of the inhabitants are engaged, consists in the exchange of the cotton cloths manufactured in the country, and the superabundance of their provisions, for gold, ivory, and slaves brought thither by the people of Bamboak, Kasson, and Foota Jallon ; and for European merchandize, such as fire-arms, gunpowder, India goods,