The only dress that the natives wear, is a
piece of cotton cloth round the loins. The women wear small ear-rings
of silver, but use no paint, nor do they bedaub their persons with
any sort of pigment.

On the morning subsequently to their arrival, a large double bank
canoe arrived at Kacunda, and they shortly found that the king's
brother had come in her to pay them a visit. He was saluted on
landing with a discharge from five old rusty muskets. A messenger was
immediately despatched to the Landers, announcing that he was ready
to see them. Their meeting was very cordial, and they shook hands
heartily with him, and explained to him their business. He brought a
goat as a present, and in return Richard Lander presented him with a
pair of silver bracelets, but he did not appear to be much interested
about them, or indeed to care at all for them, but looking round
their room, he perceived several little things to which he took a
fancy, and which being of no value whatever to them, were readily
presented to him.

They had now become great friends, and he commenced giving them a
dreadful account of the natives down the river, and advised them by
no means to go amongst them, but return by the way they had come. He
said to them with much emphasis, "If you go down the river, you will
surely fall into their hands and be murdered." "Go we must," said
Richard Lander, "if we live or die by it, and that also on the
morrow." He was then asked if he would send a messenger with them,
for that he might ensure their safety, coming from so powerful a
person as the chief of Kacunda. But he replied directly, "No, if I
were to do such a thing, the people at the next town would assuredly
cut off his head;" but, he added, "if you will not be persuaded by me
to turn back, and save your lives, at least you must not leave this
by day light, but stop until the sun goes down, and then you may go
on your journey, you will then pass the most dangerous town in the
middle of the night, and perhaps save yourselves." He was asked, if
the people of whom he spoke had muskets, or large canoes. To which he
replied, "Yes, in great numbers, they are very large and powerful,
and no canoe can pass down the river in the day time, without being
taken by them and plundered; and even at night, the canoes from here
are obliged to go in large numbers, and keep close company with each
other to make a formidable appearance in case of their being seen by
them."

The