A monotonous uniformity begins to prevail over all these tracts. I am afraid I shall soon get tired of this negro population and these towns, all built and all peopled in the same manner. They seem remarkably curious at first, but curiosity soon palls.
We have with us the Hajah, mentioned before. She is very quiet, being _passée_, and also afraid of the Sheikh's people.
I went round the village and found some five hundred or six hundred people nestled together. All the villages which we passed to-day have a similar population. I saw the preparations for a wedding; it was a most amusing sight. Two enclosures were crowded with people, all busy; but the busiest were those grinding corn for the marriage-feast. The bridegroom was with one group, haranguing them in the most persevering manner, and rattling a hollow gourd filled with small stones. The group replied in chorus, all on their knees, bending forward, rubbing grain between two stones. The other group went on by themselves. Then, in an enclosure close by, was the bride, attended with, all her maiden friends, jammed together in a hut, all busy, doing nobody knows what. It was with great difficulty I could get a peep at her. The bride and her friends were distinguished by having a sort of brass nail-head driven through the right nostril of their noses. Good big boys were running about quite naked. But the conduct of the people, old and young, was quite decent.
The bridegroom followed me to my tent, rattling his calabash for a present, singing my praises cheaply enough, for I gave him a very small present indeed. They have no set songs; all their singing is extempore.
Afterwards I saw a man afflicted with palsy in his head. He applied to me for a remedy, but I could only recommend him to bathe himself every day in warm water, which will never be done; for these people are too indolent to perform any labour of this kind, even if it be to save their lives.
My new interpreter, Mohammed, pretends that slave servants, or agents, are thought more of, that is, are more useful, than free people in Bornou. This may be accounted for by the absolute control which a master can exercise over his slave.
The thermometer at sunset ranges 84°. It was very warm this afternoon.