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Egga, he said, was the last Nouffe town, the power of the Fellatahs extended no further, and between it and the sea dwelt none but savage and barbarous races, always at war with each other.
At last, on the 31st March, Richard and John Lander succeeded in getting away from Badagry; and preceded by an escort sent in advance by the king, arrived at Katunga on the 13th May, having halted by the way at Wow-wow, a good-sized town, Bidjie, where Pearce and Morrison had been taken ill, Jenneh, Chow, Egga, all towns visited by Clapperton, Engua, where Pearce died, Asinara, the first walled city they saw, Bohou, formerly capital of Yariba, Jaguta, Leoguadda, and Itcho, where there is a famous market.
The friendly natives exhorted them to return, or at least if they were determined to persevere, to pass, if possible, the towns by night. After they had left Egga, the banks of the river assumed a pleasing appearance, and were adorned with numerous villages.
Bates relates that an Indian father with his son went one day in their montario to gather fruit a short distance from Egga, when, landing on a sloping, sandy shore, the boy was left to take care of the canoe while the man entered the forest. The boy was playing in the water under the shade of some myrtle and wild guava trees, when a huge reptile stealthily wound its coils round him.
The low marshy banks of the Niger were now gradually exchanged for loftier, richer, and more fertile districts. Kacunda, where the people of Egga had recommended Lander to halt, is on the western bank of the river. From a distance its appearance is singularly picturesque. The natives were at first alarmed at the appearance of the travellers.
The mallams and the king's wives had given them trouble enough, but the whole population of Egga was too much for them, so that they were literally obliged to blockade the doorways, and station three of their people at each to keep them away.
If we venture to approach too near the doorway, they rush backwards in a state of the greatest alarm and trepidation; but when we are at the opposite side of the hut they draw as near as their fears will permit them, in silence and caution. "Egga is a town of vast extent, and its population must be immense. Like all the towns on the banks of the Niger, it is inundated every year.
Egga is the principal market town in this part of Africa, and is attended by buyers and sellers for many miles round. Women here are the chief, if not the only traders, most of them are of graceful and prepossessing exterior, and they all practise those petty tricks and artifices in their dealings, with which the market women of more civilized countries are not unacquainted.
They entered the Tshadda on the 2d August, and sailed 104 miles up the stream, till the want of provisions compelled them to return to the Niger. They remained for some time at Kacunda, Egga, and Rabba, but their efforts to open a trade with the natives were by no means successful. At Rabba, they were compelled to return, in consequence of the steamer's engine having sustained some damage.
These include, in cases 10, 11, Nubian and Abyssinian baskets; Arabic quadrants; Egyptian water-bottles; sandals, and a variety of other manufactures from Ashantee, including a shuttle, and specimens of native cotton cloth; an iron bar used as a medium of exchange, and worth about one shilling on the African coast; gourd boxes and calabashes; cloths and other curiosities collected on the Niger Expedition; specimens of native silk from Egga; a skin bottle for holding galena to colour the eyelids; opaque glass beads from Abyssinia; all kinds of arms from French Guiana, Fernando Po, Abyssinia, and Nubia, including a Nubian spear, enveloped with a snake's skin from Thebes.
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