_24th May, 1871._--The market is a busy scene--everyone is in dead
earnest--little time is lost in friendly greetings; vendors of fish run
about with potsherds full of snails or small fishes or young _Clarias
capensis_ smoke-dried and spitted on twigs, or other relishes to
exchange for cassava roots dried after being steeped about three days in
water--potatoes, vegetables, or grain, bananas, flour, palm-oil, fowls,
salt, pepper; each is intensely eager to barter food for relishes, and
makes strong assertions as to the goodness or badness of everything: the
sweat stands in beads on their faces--cocks crow briskly, even when
slung over the shoulder with their heads hanging down, and pigs squeal.
Iron knobs, drawn out at each end to show the goodness of the metal, are
exchanged for cloth of the Muabé palm. They have a large funnel of
basket-work below the vessel holding the wares, and slip the goods down
if they are not to be seen. They deal fairly, and when differences arise
they are easily settled by the men interfering or pointing to me: they
appeal to each other, and have a strong sense of natural justice. With
so much food changing hands amongst the three thousand attendants much
benefit is derived; some come from twenty to twenty-five miles. The men
flaunt about in gaudy-coloured lambas of many folded kilts--the women
work hardest--the potters slap and ring their earthenware all round, to
show that there is not a single flaw in them. I bought two finely shaped
earthen bottles of porous earthenware, to hold a gallon each, for one
string of beads, the women carry huge loads of them in their funnels
above the baskets, strapped to the shoulders and forehead, and their
hands are full besides; the roundness of the vessels is wonderful,
seeing no machine is used: no slaves could be induced to carry half as
much as they do willingly. It is a scene of the finest natural acting
imaginable. The eagerness with which all sorts of assertions are
made--the eager earnestness with which apparently all creation, above,