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Their appearance is extremely barbarous and repulsive. They rub red clay softened with oil over their heads and bodies, and invariably wear a large semicircular piece of blue glass in the upper and lower lip, with ear-pendants of red wood. They make fetishes like the natives of Yariba.
The doors and the pillars of the verandahs are adorned with fairly well executed carvings, representing such scenes as a boa killing an antelope, or a pig, or a group of warriors and drummers. According to Clapperton the people of Yariba have fewer of the characteristics of the negro race than any natives of Africa with whom he was brought in contact.
It would be much better, urged Houtson, to go to Badagry, no great distance from Sackatoo, the chief of which, well-disposed as he was to travellers, would doubtless give them an escort as far as the frontiers of Yariba. Houtson had lived in the country many years, and was well acquainted with the language and habits of its people.
The natives say they are not aborigines of Borghoo, but that they are descendants of the natives of Houssa and Nyffé. They speak a Yariba dialect, but the Wow-wow women are pretty, which those of Yariba are not. The men are muscular and well-made, but have a dissipated look. Their religion is a lax kind of Mahommedanism tinctured with paganism.
Although Mansolah did not treat the brothers Lander quite as graciously as he had treated Clapperton, he allowed them to go eight days after their arrival. Of the many details given in the original account of the Landers' journey, of Katunga and the province of Yariba, we will only quote the following:
The first chapter introduces us to a triad of charming girls, whose careless talk soon turns upon the soldiers' expected arrival in Yariba and the proper reception to be given them by the Yariba damsels. How long the fair disputants preserve the jewel of consistency forms the motif of the book.
At Tchow the caravan met a messenger with a numerous escort, sent by the King of Yariba to meet the explorers, and shortly afterwards Katunga was entered. This town is built round the base of a rugged granite mountain. It is about three miles in extent, and is both framed in and planted with bushy trees presenting a most picturesque appearance.
Amongst these, the plantain, the palm, and the cocoa-nut tree, were seen flourishing in great abundance, and the aspect of the country strikingly resembled some parts of Yariba. A considerable traffic is carried on here in slaves and bullocks, which are alike exposed in the daily market. The bullocks are bred by the Fellatas, who reside there for no other purpose.
Clapperton, therefore, thought it desirable to attach him to the expedition as far as Katunga, the capital of Yariba. The expedition disembarked at Badagry, on the 29th November, 1825, ascended an arm of the Lagos, and then, for a distance of two miles, the Gazie creek, which traverses part of Dahomey.
The caboceer of this town indeed told them so, and said he hoped that they would be enabled to settle the war with the Nyffee people and the Fellatas, and the rebellion of the Houssa slaves, who had risen against the king of Yariba. When Lander shook hands with him, he passed his hand over the heads of his chiefs, as confirming on them a white man's blessing.
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