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Updated: June 23, 2025
He, however, heard but little, though he found that Houssa was not, as supposed, a city, but a region embracing many kingdoms, the inhabitants of which were said to be superior in civilisation to those of the surrounding people. He remained here for a considerable time, and then visited Tripoli, after which he returned to Mourzouk, and started thence in April, 1800.
Even Park, to whom so brilliant a description of the city was given by some of his informants, was told by others that it was surpassed in opulence and size by Houssa, Walet, and probably by Jinnie.
He presently pretended to have received a letter from Sheikh El Khanemy warning him against the traveller, whom his correspondent characterized as a spy, and urging him to defy the English, who meant, after finding out all about the country, to settle in it, raise up sedition and profit by the disturbances they should create to take possession of Houssa, as they had done of India.
It occupies a long ridge, which slopes gently towards the north, and appeared to Clapperton the most populous town he had visited in the interior of Africa, for unlike most other towns in Houssa, where the houses are thinly scattered, it is laid out in regular well-built streets.
Curiously enough, at that precise moment, the question of law was a very pressing one with two young Houssa officers who sat on either side of Sanders' big table, wet towels about their heads, mastering the intricacies of the military code; for Tibbetts was entering for an examination and Hamilton, who had only passed his own by a fluke, had rashly offered to coach him.
He wished not unnaturally to spread a triumphant palm to his country and say "Behold! There are the talents that Sanders left I have increased them, by my care, twofold." He came down stream in some haste having completed the work of pacification and stopped at the Village of Irons long enough to hand to the Houssa warder four unhappy counsellors of the Isisi king.
In five weeks they came to Kano, the great emporium of Houssa, and indeed of Central Africa, which contains about 30,000 stationary inhabitants, in addition to the migratory crowds, who repair to it with merchandise from the farthest quarters of Africa. The walls are fifteen miles in circumference, but only a fourth part of this surface is covered with houses.
The tract of land which the two streams encircle is called Jinbala, and is inhabited by Negroes; and the whole distance, by land, from Jenne to Tombuctoo, is twelve days journey. From Kabra, at the distance of eleven days' journey, down the stream, the river passes to the southward of Houssa, which is two days journey distant from the river.
However, they soon met, and the rider immediately declared that he had left Jenna purposely on their account. The head of the horse was loaded with charms and fetishes, enveloped in pieces of red and blue cloth. His saddle was of Houssa manufacture, and uncommonly neat; in the interior such an article is only used by the principal people, and his bridle also was of curious workmanship.
They were said to be inhabited by a savage race of people called Yamyams, that is cannibals, who had formerly carried on an extensive traffic with the Houssa men, bringing elephants' teeth, and taking in exchange red cloth, beads, &c., but five years before, they had murdered a whole kafila of merchants, and afterwards eaten them, since which time, the Houssa people had been reasonably shy of dealing with them.
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