icated with
fewer than 200 daily. They sent ambassadors forward regularly from one
tribe to another, in order to prepare for our approach, a custom that not
only saved us an infinity of time, but also great personal risk. Indeed,
I doubt very much whether we should ever have pushed so far down the
river, had we not been assisted by the natives themselves. I was
particularly careful not to do anything that would alarm them, or to
permit any liberty to be taken with their women. Our reserve in this
respect seemed to excite their surprise, for they asked sundry questions,
by signs and expressions, as to whether we had any women, and where they
were. The whole tribe generally assembled to receive us, and all, without
exception, were in a complete state of nudity, and really the loathsome
condition and hideous countenances of the women would, I should imagine,
have been a complete antidote to the sexual passion. It is to be observed,
that the women are very inferior in appearance to the men. The latter are,
generally speaking, a clean-limbed and powerful race, much stouter in the
bust than below, but withal, active, and, in some respects, intelligent;
but the women are poor, weak, and emaciated. This, perhaps, is owing to
their poverty and paucity of food, and to the treatment they receive at
the hands of the men; but the latter did not show any unkindness towards
them in our presence.

Although I desired to avoid exciting their alarm, I still made a point of
showing them the effects of a gunshot, by firing at a kite, or any other
bird that happened to be near. My dexterity--for I did not trust Fraser,
who would, ten to one, have missed his mark--was generally exerted, as I
have said, against a kite or a crow; both of which birds generally
accompanied the blacks from place to place to pick up the remnants of
their meals. Yet, I was often surprised at the apparent indifference with
which the natives not only saw the effect of the shot, but heard the
report. I have purposely gone into the centre of a large assemblage and
fired at a bird that has fallen upon their very heads, without causing a
start or an exclamation, without exciting either their alarm or their
curiosity.

Whence this callous feeling proceeded, whether from strength of nerve,
or because they had been informed by our forerunners that we should show
off before them, I know not, but I certainly expected a very different
effect from that which my firing generally