Page:A pilgrimage to my motherland.djvu/52

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TO MY MOTHERLAND.
43

CHAPTER VI

MISCELLANEOUS.

African Cities—Forms of "Compounds"—Native Food—Cloth-ing—Industry—Percolator—Blacksmiths—Iron-smelting—Weaving—Farming Implements—Indigo—Palm-oil Facto-ries—"Taffi"—Traders—Personal Habits—Cola-nuts—Na-tive Affability—Onoshoko, "Father of the King"—Polygamy—Slavery—African Honor—ymmetry of Form—Calisthenics—Archery—Native Games of Skill—Stray Fact—Wild Bees—An Adventure—Funeral—Processions—Discovery of Abbeokuta.

IN African native cities there are no streets such as would be called so in a civilized country. The houses or compounds are scattered according to the discretion or taste of their owners; lanes, always crooked, and frequently very narrow, being left between them. These dwellings are sometimes very large, including in many instances accommodation for from twenty to two hundred inmates, especially in those of some of the wealthier chiefs, which are sometimes tenanted by over three hundred people.

The usual form of a compound is square, and is bounded by a wall against which the rooms are commonly built. The walls are of mud, but are