[Illustration: Square stool belonging to the King of Bornou. (Fac-simile of early engraving.)]
Lander says that Benin and Portuguese cloths are sold at Egga by many of its inhabitants, so that it would appear that some kind of communication is kept up between the sea-coast and this place. The people are very speculative and enterprising, and numbers of them employ all their time solely in trading up and down the Niger. They live entirely in their canoes, over which they have a shed, that answers completely every purpose for which it is intended, so that, in their constant peregrinations, they have no need of any other dwelling or shelter than that which their canoes afford them....
"Their belief," says Lander, "that we possessed the power of doing anything we wished, was at first amusing
