Page:A pilgrimage to my motherland.djvu/98

Rh to request his permission to fish in the brook. He replied, that as long as neither he nor his people make any palaver with the water, the water could make no palaver with them, white man could do as he liked, but when the palaver came, he must keep it to himself. The most noticeable feature of Ijaye is its market, covering an area of over twenty acres, and attended three times per week by from fifteen to twenty thousand persons. In it are found, besides native produce, commodities from almost every section of the globe: swords, sandals, silk-yarn, otto of rose, paper, beads, etc., from Egypt and other Mediterranean States of Africa; and cloths, cutlery, tin and earthen wares, guns, gunpowder, rum and tobacco, from England, the United States, France, Germany and the Brazils. Among the principal articles of native produce were sheep, goats, fowls, butter, Indian-corn or maize, rice, yams, (Dioscorea Bulbifera,) casava, (Jatropha Jan-ipha,) sweet-potatoes, ( Convolvulus Batatas,) Guinea-corn, (Sorghum vulgare,) beans, several varieties; cotton, raw and manufactured; clothing; mechanical and agricultural implements of iron, (native smelting;) brass, pewter and glass rings, and other trinkets, etc. As large and populous as is the market, it is conducted with the greatest order. There is a particular place appropriated for the sale of each class of goods: thus