preparing their corn for food, the natives use a large wooden mortar
called a _paloon_, in which they bruise the seed until it parts with the
outer covering, or husk, which is then separated from the clean corn, by
exposing it to the wind, nearly in the same manner as wheat is cleaned
from the chaff in England. The corn thus freed from the husk, is
returned to the mortar, and beaten into meal; which is dressed variously
in different countries; but the most common preparation of it among the
nations of the Gambia, is a sort of pudding, which they call kouskous.
It is made by first moistening the flour with water, and then stirring
and shaking it about in a large calabash, or gourd, till it adheres
together in small granules, resembling sago. It is then put into an
earthen pot, whose bottom is perforated with a number of holes; and this
pot being placed upon another, the two vessels are luted together,
either with a paste of meal and water, or cow-dung, and placed upon the
fire. In the lower vessel is commonly some animal food and water, the
steam or vapour of which ascends through the perforations in the bottom
of the upper vessel, and softens and prepares the kouskous, which is
very much esteemed throughout all the countries that I visited. I am
informed, that the same manner of preparing flour is very generally used
on the Barbary coast, and that the dish so prepared is there so called
by the same name. It is therefore probable, that the Negroes borrowed
the practise from the Moors.

For gratifying a taste for variety, another sort of pudding, called
_realing_, is sometimes prepared from the meal of corn; and they have
also adopted two or three different modes of dressing their rice. Of
vegetable food, therefore, the natives have no want; and although the
common class of people are but sparingly supplied with animal food, yet
this article is not wholly withheld from them.--Park's Travels, in 1795,
1796, and 1797, pp. 10, 11. Lond. 1799, 4to.

NOTE B, p. 103.

I cannot withhold the following notice of the worthy Major's death,
extracted from a work lately published, entitled Travels, in Western
Africa, in the years 1818, 1819, 1820 and 1821, by Major William Gray.
Lond. 1825, 8vo.

"On that day (24th December) Major Peddie was attacked with a violent
fever, from which he experienced little relief until the morning of the
1st of January 1817, when, thinking himself better, he left his bed, but
was soon obliged to r