Timbo lies on a rolling plain. North of it, a lofty mountain range rises at the distance of ten or fifteen miles, and sweeps eastwardly to the horizon. The landscape, which declines from these slopes to the south, is in many places bare; yet fields of plentiful cultivation, groves of cotton-wood, tamarind and oak, thickets of shrubbery and frequent villages, stud its surface, and impart an air of rural comfort to the picturesque scene.

I soon proposed a gallop with my African kindred over the neighborhood; and, one fine morning, after a plentiful breakfast of stewed fowls, boiled to rags with rice, and seasoned with delicious “palavra sauce,” we cantered off to the distant villages. As we approached the first brook, but before the fringe of screening bushes was passed, our cavalcade drew rein abruptly, while Ahmah-de-Bellah cried out: “Strangers are coming!” A few moments after, as we slowly crossed the stream, I noticed several women crouched in the underwood, having fled from the bath. This warning is universally given, and enforced by law, to guard the modesty of the gentler sex.

In half an hour we reached the first suburban village; but fame had preceded us with my character, and as the settlement was cultivated either by serfs or negroes liable to be made so, we found the houses bare. The poor wretches had learned, on the day of my reception, that the principal object of my journey was to obtain slaves, and, of course, they imagined that the only object of my foray in their neighborhood, was to seize the gang and bear it abroad in bondage. Accordingly, we tarried only a few minutes in Findo, and dashed off to Furo; but here, too, the blacks had been panic struck, and escaped so hurriedly that they left their pots of rice, vegetables, and meat boiling in their sheds. Furo was absolutely stripped of inhabitants; the veteran chief of the village did not even remain to do the honors for his affrighted brethren. Ahmah-de-Bellah laughed heartily at the terror I inspired; but I confess I could not help feeling sadly mortified when I found my presence shunned as a pestilence.

The native villages through which I passed on this excursion manifested the great comfort in which these Africans live throughout their prolific land, when unassailed by the desolating wars that are kept up for slave-trade. It was the height of the dry season, when every thing was parched by the sun, yet I could trace the outlines of fine plantations, gardens, and rice-fields. Every where I found abundance of peppers, onions, garlic, tomatoes, sweet potatoes, and cassava; while tasteful fences were garlanded with immense vines and flowers. Fowls, goats, sheep, and oxen, stalked about in innumerable flocks, and from every domicil depended a paper, inscribed with a charm from the Koran to keep off thieves and witches.

My walks through Timbo were promoted by the constant efforts of my entertainers to shield me from intrusive curiosity. Whenever I sallied forth, two townsfolk in authority were sent forward to warn the public that the Furtoo desired to promenade without a mob at his heels. These lusty criers stationed themselves at the corners with an iron triangle, which they rattled to call attention to the king’s command; and, in a short time, the highways were so clear of people, who feared a bastinado, that I found my loneliness rather disagreeable than otherwise. Every person I saw, shunned me. When I called the children or little girls,—they fled from me. My reputation as a slaver in the villages, and the fear of a lash in the town, furnished me much more solitude than is generally agreeable to a sensitive traveller.

Towards nightfall I left my companions, and wrapping myself closely in a Mandingo dress, stole away through bye-ways to a brook which runs by the town-walls. Thither the females resort at sunset to draw water; and, choosing a screened situation, where I would not be easily observed, I watched, for more than an hour, the graceful children, girls, and women of Timbo, as they performed this domestic task of eastern lands.

I was particularly impressed by the general beauty of the sex, who, in many respects, resembled the Moor rather than the negro. Unaware of a stranger’s presence, they came forth as usual in a simple dress which covers their body from waist to knee, and leaves the rest of the figure entirely naked. Group after group gathered together on the brink of the brook in the slanting sunlight and lengthening shadows of the plain. Some rested on their pitchers and water vessels; some chatted, or leaned on each other gracefully, listening to the chat of friends; some stooped to fill their jars; others lifted the brimming vessels to their sisters’ shoulders—while others strode homeward singing, with their charged utensils poised on head or hand. Their slow, stately, swinging movement under the burden, was grace that might be envied on a Spanish paseo. I do not think the forms of these Fullah girls,—with their complexions of freshest bronze,—are exceeded in symmetry by the women of any other country. There was a slender delicacy of limb, waist, neck, hand, foot, and bosom, which seemed to be the type that moulded every one of them. I saw none of the hanging breast; the flat, expanded nostrils; the swollen lips, and fillet-like foreheads, that characterize the Soosoos and their sisters of the coast. None were deformed, nor were any marked by traces of disease. I may observe, moreover, that the male Fullahs of Timbo are impressed on my memory by a beauty of form, which almost equals that of the women; and, in fact, the only fault I found with them was their minute resemblance to the feminine delicacy of the other sex. They made up, however, in courage what they lacked in form, for their manly spirit has made them renowned among all the tribes they have so long controlled by distinguished bravery and perseverance.

The patriarchal landscape by the brook, with the Oriental girls over their water-jars, and the lowing cattle in the pastures, brought freshly to my mind many a Bible scene I heard my mother read when I was a boy at home; and I do not know what revolution might have been wrought on my spirit had I not suddenly become critical! A stately dame passed within twenty feet of my thicket, whose coiffure excited my mirth so powerfully that I might have been detected as a spy, had not a bitten lip controlled my laughter. Her ladyship belonged, perhaps, to the “upper-ten” of Timbo, whose heads had hitherto been hidden from my eyes by the jealous yashmacks they constantly wear in a stranger’s presence. In this instance, however, the woman’s head, like that of the younger girls, was uncovered, so that I had a full view of the stately preparation. Her lower limbs were clad in ample folds of blue and white cotton, knotted in an immense mass at the waist, while her long crisp hair had been combed out to its fullest dimensions and spliced with additional wool. The ebony fleece was then separated in strands half an inch in diameter, and plaited all over her skull in a countless number of distinct braids. This quill-like structure was then adorned with amber beads, and copiously anointed with vegetable butter, so that the points gleamed with fire in the setting sunlight, and made her look as if she had donned for a bewitching headdress a porcupine instead of a “bird of paradise.”

My trip to Timbo, I confess, was one of business rather than pleasure or scientific exploration. I did not make a record, at the moment, of my “impressions de voyage,” and never thought that, a quarter of a century afterwards, I would feel disposed to chronicle the journey in a book, as an interesting souvenir of my early life. Had I supposed that the day would come when I was to turn author, it is likely I might have been more inquisitive; but, being only “a slaver,” I found Ahmah, Sulimani, Abdulmomen, the Ali-Mami, and all the quality and amusements of Timbo, dull enough, when my object was achieved. Still, while I was there, I thought I might as well see all that was visible. I strolled repeatedly through the town. I became excessively familiar with its narrow streets, low houses, mud walls, cul-de-sacs, and mosques. I saw no fine bazaars, market-places, or shops. The chief wants of life were supplied by peddlers. Platters, jars, and baskets of fruit, vegetables, and meat, were borne around twice or thrice daily. Horsemen dashed about on beautiful steeds towards the fields in the morning, or came home at nightfall at a slower pace. I never saw man or woman bask lazily in the sun. Females were constantly busy over their cotton and spinning wheels when not engaged in household occupations; and often have I seen an elderly dame quietly crouched in her hovel at sunset reading the Koran. Nor are the men of Timbo less thrifty. Their city wall is said to hem in about ten thousand individuals, representing all the social industries. They weave cotton, work in leather, fabricate iron from the bar, engage diligently in agriculture, and, whenever not laboriously employed, devote themselves to reading and writing, of which they are excessively fond.

These are the faint sketches, which, on ransacking my brain, I find resting on its tablets. But I was tired of Timbo; I was perfectly refreshed from my journey; and I was anxious to return to my factory on the beach. Two “moons” only had been originally set apart for the enterprise, and the third was already waxing towards its full. I feared the Ali-Mami was not yet prepared with slaves for my departure, and I dreaded lest objections might be made if I approached his royal highness with the flat announcement. Accordingly, I schooled my interpreters, and visited that important personage. I made a long speech, as full of compliments and blarney as a Christmas pudding is of plums, and concluded by touching the soft part in African royalty’s heart—slaves! I told the king that a vessel or two, with abundant freights, would be waiting me on the river, and that I must hasten thither with his choicest gangs if he hoped to reap a profit. The king and the royal family were no doubt excessively grieved to part with the Furtoo Mongo, but they were discreet persons and “listened to reason.” War parties and scouts were forthwith despatched to blockade the paths, while press-gangs made recruits among the villages, and even in Timbo. Sulimani-Ali, himself, sallied forth, before daybreak, with a troop of horse, and at sundown, came back with forty-five splendid fellows, captured in Findo and Furo!

The personal dread of me in the town itself, was augmented. If I had been a Pestilence before, I was Death now! When I took my usual morning walk the children ran from me screaming. Since the arrival of Sulimani with his victims, all who were under the yoke thought their hour of exile had come. The poor regarded me as the devil incarnate. Once or twice, I caught women throwing a handful of dust or ashes towards me, and uttering an invocation from the Koran to avert the demon or save them from his clutches. Their curiosity was merged in terror. My popularity was over!

It was not a little amusing that in the midst of the general dismay, caused by the court of Timbo and myself, my colored brother Ahmah-de-Bellah, and his kinsman Abdulmomen, lost no chance of lecturing me about my soul! We kidnapped the Africans all day and spouted Islamism all night! Our religion, however, was more speculative than practical. It was much more important, they thought, that we should embrace the faith of their peculiar theology, than that we should trouble ourselves about human rights that interfered with profits and pockets. We spared Mahometans and enslaved only “the heathen;” so that, in fact, we were merely obedient to the behests of Mahomet when we subdued “the infidel!”

This process of proselytism, however, was not altogether successful. As I was already a rather poor Christian, I fear that the Fullah did not succeed in making me a very good Mussulman. Still, I managed to amuse him with the hope of my future improvement in his creed, so that we were very good friends when the Ali-Mami summoned us for a final interview. The parting of men is seldom a maudlin affair. The king’s relations presented me bullocks, cows, goats, and sheep. His majesty sent me five slaves. Sulimani-Ali offered a splendid white charger. The king’s wife supplied me with an African quilt ingeniously woven of red and yellow threads unravelled from Manchester cottons; while Ahmah-de-Bellah, like a gentleman of taste, despatched for my consolation, the two prettiest handmaidens he could buy or steal in Timbo!