attired in a white tobe, turban, and red cap. He was surrounded by a number of well-dressed men, priests, officers of his court, eunuchs, etc., all of whom sat in a clean sheltered space before his piazza, but on the ground. We were placed about four yards in front of him, to the right of the company, except Dungari, who with our interpreter was on the right of us. Although the king understands Aku well, and therefore could converse directly with our interpreter, yet the customs of his court require, that all that is said be communicated to him in Fulanee by Dungari, who as before re-marked, (see page 61) is, except the king, the most important personage of Ilorin. He is by birth a Fulanee, but of the blackest type of Negroes, as are indeed ninety-five per cent of them; those who are lighter in complexion, or differ in physiognomic conformation, being more or less of Arabian intermixture. In common with many of the people he reads and writes Arabic, to teach which, there are quite a number of schools in the town. We saw there, in the market-places chiefly, several Arabians, some of whom had travelled immense distances across the continent, for purposes of trade, in which they all engage. Other travellers speak of "white people" in Ilorin, but although we spent as long a time there as perhaps any
