river, used in the wet season by those who make a business of crossing passengers on large calabashes as already described.
First one, evidently the balagun, came out and saluted us very kindly, then another, and still another, until there were more than thirty standing around us. I strove to appear myself, quite at ease, and shook hands and joked with them, but the woman and her son and daughter gave them a "wide berth," while the interpreter and cook, the latter of whom I shall better call Johnson, could ill repress their fears, although they behaved well.
Berecadu is a town of about thirty or thirty-five thousand inhabitants, judging from the extent and character of its only market. The people are partly Yorubas and partly Egbas, paying tribute to both nations, but obliged to guard against both also, as each seems determined to compel the paying of tribute to itself alone. Its defenses are so well contrived that it would almost be as difficult a place to take as Bi-olorun-pellu, except by surprise, and this is not likely, as a large number of armed men, "keepers of the city," are stationed every night at the gates.
There are two walls encompassing the whole city, leaving a space of about two hundred yards between them, and this space contains a dense forest, with an
