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a white man, but he was convinced, from my appearance, that I was a very poor one.

"In the course of the day several women, hearing that I was going to Sego, (a town on the Niger, containing 30,000 inhabitants,) came and begged me to inquire of Mansong, the king, what was become of their children. One woman in particular, told me, that her son's name was Mamadee; that he was no heathen; but, prayed to God, morning and evening, and had been taken from her about three years ago by Mansong's army, since which she had never heard of him. She said she often dreamed about him, and begged me, if I should see him in Bambarra, or in my own country, to tell him that his mother and sister were still alive.

"I reached Dyngyee about noon, but the Dooty and most of the inhabitants had gone into the fields to cultivate corn. An old Foulah observing me wandering about the town, desired me to come to his hut, where I was well entertained; and the Dooty, when he returned, sent me some victuals for myself, and corn for my horse.

"In the morning, when I was about to depart, my landlord, with a great deal of diffidence, begged me to give him a lock of my hair. He had been told, he said, that white men's hair made a saphie, that would give to the possessor all the knowledge of white men. My landlord's thirst for learning was such, that, with cutting and pulling, he cropped one side of my head pretty closely,

"I reached a small town called Wassiboo, about 12 o'clock. Cultivation is carried on here on a very extensive scale; and as the natives themselves express it, "hunger is never known." In cultivating the soil the men and women work together."

On Mr. Park's arrival at one of the ferries of Sego, for the purpose of crossing the Niger to see the king, he says, "we found a great number waiting for a passage ;-they

[graphic]

"The poor white man, faint and weary,

Came and sat under our tree." Park's Travels in Africa.

Designed and Published by J.Torrey Jur Phalads. 1817.

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