most charitable allowances for the Eboe people, they were,
notwithstanding, obliged to consider them the most inhospitable
tribe, as well as the most covetous and uncivil, that they were
acquainted with. Their monarch, and a respectable married female, who
had passed the meridian of her days, were the only individuals,
amongst several thousands, that showed them anything like civility or
kindness, and the latter alone acted, as they were convinced, solely
from disinterested motives.

All ranks of people here are passionately fond of palm wine, and
drank of it to excess, whenever they had an opportunity, which often
occurred, as great quantities of it are produced in the town and its
neighbourhood. It was a very general and favourite custom with them,
as soon as the sun had set, to hold large meetings and form parties
in the open air, or under the branches of trees, to talk over the
events of the day, and make merry with this exciting beverage. These
assemblies are kept up until after midnight, and as the revellers
generally contrive to get inebriated very soon after they sit down to
drink, the greater part of the evening is devoted to wrangling and
fighting, instead of convivial intercourse, and occasionally the most
fearful noises that it is possible for the mind to conceive.
Bloodshed, and even murder, it is said, not unfrequently terminate
these boisterous and savage entertainments. A meeting of this
description was held outside the yard of their residence every
evening, and the noise which they made was really terrifying, more
especially when the women and young people joined in the affray, for
a quarrel of some sort was sure to ensue. Their cries, groans, and
shrieks of agony were dreadful, and would lead a stranger to suppose,
that these dismal and piercing sounds proceeded from individuals
about to be butchered, or that they were extorted by the last pangs
of anguish and suffering. The Landers trembled with alarm for the
first night or two, imagining from these loud and doleful cries, that
a work of bloodshed and slaughter was in progress. They found it
useless to endeavour to sleep till the impression of the first wild
cry that was uttered, and the last faint scream had worn away. But by
degrees they became in some measure more reconciled to them, from the
frequency of their occurrence, or rather they felt less apprehension
than formerly, as to their origin; understanding with surprise that
they were only the e