Page:A pilgrimage to my motherland.djvu/99

90 in one place may be seen spinners offering their yarn to those who weave; in another, weavers offering their cloths; then those who sell iron-ware, sitting in their own quarters, and next to them the dealers in beads and other ornaments: here is the meat-market, and there the wood-market, and the clothing-market, and the place for the sale of live-stock, etc. etc. One man manages the entire affair with the greatest ease. The same characteristics exist in all the other markets we visited from Lagos to Ilorin, but no where else were they so extensive.

We continued at Ijaye for a fortnight, spending the time in visiting the objects of interest in the neighborhood, taking photographic views, and otherwise making ourselves as comfortable as possible. On account of threatened hostilities between Ijaye and Oyo, the next town, we were unable to procure carriers when ready to resume our journey, and our interpreter, participating in the fears of the natives, would do little to help us in procuring them. We were finally obliged to go to seek them ourselves, in which we succeeded by lending each carrier a shirt, for so great is the respect entertained for the civilized, that even the assumption of the garb affords protection and the liberty of passing unmolested through a hostile country.