of Gambia consists of various kinds of idolatry; they place great reliance
on sorcery and other diabolical things, yet all believe in God. There are
many Mahometans among them, who trade to many countries, yet are not
settled in houses, because the natives are ignorant[1]. They live very
much in the same manner with the natives of Senegal, and have the same
kinds of provisions; but they cultivate more sorts of rice. They eat dogs
flesh, which I never heard of being used anywhere else. They are clothed
in cotton garments, and have great abundance of cotton in their country,
which may be the reason of the Gambians not going naked, as those of
Senegal do, where cotton is very scarce. The women dress in the same
manner; and, when they are very young, take great delight in delineating
figures on their necks, breasts, and arms, with the point of a hot needle,
which are never obliterated, and which resemble the flowers and ornaments
which are wrought on silk handkerchiefs. The country is excessively hot,
and the heat increases as we go to the south; besides which, we found it
much hotter up the river than at sea, owing to the immense number of trees
with which the country everywhere abounds. Some of these trees are of very
great dimensions. Near a spring where our sailors were in use to fill our
water casks, not far from the banks of the river, there grew an
exceedingly large tree, but its height was by no means proportional to its
thickness; for, though it measured seventeen cubits in girth near the
ground, its height, by estimation, was only twenty paces. This tree was
hollow, but the branches were very large, avid extended to a great
distance, forming a thick and ample shade. But there were many other trees
much larger than this, by which the richness and fertility of the soil may
be easily conceived; and the country is intersected by numerous streams.

There are many elephants in this country, but the natives are ignorant of
the art of taming these animals, as is practised in other countries. One
day, while we lay at anchor in the middle of the river, we observed three
elephants come out from the wood and walk by the river side, on which we
sent our boat with some of the people towards them, but they immediately
returned into the wood. These were all I ever saw alive; but, sometime
afterwards, Guumi-mensa[2], one of the Negro lords, shewed me a dead young
elephant, which he had killed after a chase of two days. The Negroes hu