. From the Niger to the Nile . re. The ruhng classes are composed of Hausa and Fulam,the lower classes from pagan Jukum and the surroundingtribes. My collection of calabashes was here greatly increasedand the poker-work designs on many of them showed thatsome of these people, especially the Hausas, have an unusualsense of the value of line. Like most walled towns, the ground inside Wase is partlytaken up with compounds, each of which consists of fiveor six huts, grouped round a small space, and enclosed witha mud wall. These are generally occupied by one family,and its branches. The size of th
. From the Niger to the Nile . re. The ruhng classes are composed of Hausa and Fulam,the lower classes from pagan Jukum and the surroundingtribes. My collection of calabashes was here greatly increasedand the poker-work designs on many of them showed thatsome of these people, especially the Hausas, have an unusualsense of the value of line. Like most walled towns, the ground inside Wase is partlytaken up with compounds, each of which consists of fiveor six huts, grouped round a small space, and enclosed witha mud wall. These are generally occupied by one family,and its branches. The size of the compound varies withthe importance of its owner. The rest of the space insidethe walls is filled with millet and guinea corn. In the midstof these fields a high erection is generally to be seen onwhich sits a boy who is continually calling to frighten o£Ethe birds, and the people for the most part are engagedscaring them away by shouting and pulling strings on whichare suspended old gourds, calabashes, &c. The town wall. w WITH THE SUEVEY PARTY 87 is decayed in places now, and many of the compounds aredeserted. About half a mile to southward stands the celebratedWase Rock, an immense mass of igneous rock rising sheerout of the plain. It is about 1000 ft. high and was, as faras I could judge, the pipe of a volcano, of which all the resthad been denuded away. Around this innumerable legendshave sprung up. It is supposed to be the haunt of evilspirits, and I was assured that two blackmen had, at differenttimes, chmbed to the top, and both these had been seizedwith madness, either as a punishment for having dared toinvade the haunts of the demons of the mountain, or elsethrough horror at the sights which they had witnessed. The shooting round Wase was luckily very good, as owingto the famine it would otherwise have been very difficultto feed my carriers. In the space of an hour one couldgenerally get as many francohns (a kind of partridge), guinea-fowl, pigeons, or wild duck and
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