Note (return) — TIMBUCTOO TO HOUSA.

They have a class of men whose peculiar business it is to adjust all disputes concerning land; the office is hereditary; the offender pays the compensation, and also the fees of these officers; the innocent pays nothing. When lands are bought, these officers measure them. There is a plant resembling a large onion, which serves as a land-mark; if these are removed, (which cannot be easily done without discovery) reference is had to the records of the sale, of which every owner is in possession; they express the sum received; the quantity, situation, and limits of the land. These are given by the seller, and are written in the language and character of the country, very different from the Arabic. The same letters are used at Timbuctoo. They write from right to left. The character 81 was perfectly unintelligible to Shabeeny. Children, whose father is dead, succeed to the same portion of their grandfather's property as their father would, had he out outlived his father, though there are other issue of the grandfather. The rules of succession are the same as at Timbuctoo.