them from
curiosity. As usual, they annoyed the travellers for a long time to
the best of their ability, till they completely wearied them out by
their importunity and forwardness. They then hung sheets round the
door-way of their dwelling, and laid down on their mats; and then
only, the natives began to disperse, and left them at their ease.

The governor of the town was a morose, surly, and ill-natured man.
He sent them only a few bananas, and a calabash of eggs, which were
all stale and unfit to be eaten, so that some of their people were
obliged to go supperless to bed. The governor ascribed the badness of
his fare to extreme poverty, yet his vanity exacted from their Jenna
messengers the most abject method of salutation, with which they were
acquainted. These men walked backwards from him several yards, to
throw dirt on their heads, and with the dust and filth still clinging
to their hair, they were compelled to address the chief with their
faces to the ground. The apartment of the travellers unfortunately
communicated with his, and the restless tongues of his numerous wives
prevented either of the Landers from dosing their eyes long after
sunset. In the centre of their yard grew a tree, round which several
stakes were driven into the ground. This tree was a fetish tree, and
the stakes also fetish, and therefore a strong injunction was issued
not to tie the horses to either of them. Calabashes, common articles
of earthenware, and even feathers, egg-shells, and the bones of
animals; indeed any kind of inanimate substance is made fetish by the
credulous, stupid natives, and like the horse-shoe, which is still
nailed to the door of the more superstitious of English peasantry,
these fetishes are supposed to preserve them from ghosts and evil
spirits. It is sacrilege to touch them, and to ridicule them, would
be dangerous.

It was between seven and eight o'clock of the 30th April, before
carriers could be procured, and every thing got in readiness for
their departure. The sun was excessively hot, and the sky brilliantly
clear. They crossed two or three rivulets of cool delicious water, as
they had done on the preceding day, and then passed through an
insignificant village, whose chief sent them a calabash of bruised
corn, mixed with water, to drink. At noon, they arrived at the foot
of a very elevated hill, and perceived a town perched on its summit,
and knew it to be the same to which they had been directed. They
d