way of charity, but was told he had none to spare. Whilst I was
examining the countenance of this inhospitable old man, and
endeavouring to find out the cause of the sullen discontent which
was visible in his eye, he called to a slave who was working in the
cornfield at a little distance, and ordered him to bring his hoe
along with him. The dooty then told him to dig a hole in the
ground, pointing to a spot at no great distance. The slave, with
his hoe, began to dig a pit in the earth, and the dooty, who
appeared to be a man of very fretful disposition, kept muttering and
talking to himself until the pit was almost finished, when he
repeatedly pronounced the words "dankatoo" ("good for nothing")--
"jankra lemen" ("a real plague")--which expressions I thought could
be applied to nobody but myself; and as the pit had very much the
appearance of a grave, I thought it prudent to mount my horse, and
was about to decamp, when the slave, who had before gone into the
village, to my surprise returned with the corpse of a boy about nine
or ten years of age. quite naked. The negro carried the body by a
leg and an arm, and threw it into the pit with a savage indifference
which I had never before seen. As he covered the body with earth,
the dooty often expressed himself, "naphula attiniata" ("money
lost"), whence I concluded that the boy had been one of his slaves.

Departing from this shocking scene, I travelled by the side of the
river until sunset, when I came to Koolikorro, a considerable town,
and a great market for salt. Here I took up my lodging at the house
of a Bambarran, who had formerly been the slave of a Moor, and in
that character had travelled to Aroan, Towdinni, and many other
places in the Great Desert; but turning Mussulman, and his master
dying at Jenne, he obtained his freedom and settled at this place,
where he carries on a considerable trade in salt, cotton cloth, &c.