ssion from father to son. They are extremely
jealous of white men, designing, ferocious, and cowardly; but there are,
notwithstanding, a great variety of localities existing among them, and it
will be found that their climate and habits are closely assimilated.

To the Africans, the indispensible articles of life are reduced to a very
narrow compass, and they are unacquainted with the insatiate wants of
Europeans. The heat of the climate renders cloathing an incumberance, and
occasions a carelessness with regard to their dwellings: for the former,
they require only a stripe of linen, and their _gris-gris_; while a
building of mud, covered with an interwoven and thatched roof, forms the
latter, which is reared with little labour, and, when circumstances require
it, is abandoned without much regret.

The food of the Negro consists chiefly of rice, millet, &c. seasoned with
palm oil, butter, or the juices of the cocoa-nut tree mixed with herbs of
various kinds. They frequently regale themselves with other dishes,
kous-kous, and country mess, to which they sometimes add fowls, fish, and
flesh, heightened in the flavour by a variety of savory applications.

A contracted system of agriculture, conducted by their women and slaves, in
a very few days prepares the _lugars_, or cultivated fields; and the
harvest is distributed by the elders of the community, according to the
portion and wants of the society of the village, or is stored up to be
portioned out as circumstances may require.

Water is the ordinary drink of the Negroes; they, however, regale
themselves with a wine extracted from the palm tree, as before described,
which, in the luxury of indulgence, they frequently suck through a very
small kind of cane, until inebriety and stupidity absorb them in a perfect
state of apathy. They have also a very pleasant beverage, extracted from
the cocoa nut and banana tree, besides several descriptions of beer,
fermented from various roots and herbs. In the Rio Pongo, and adjacent
countries, especially in the Bashia branch of that river, the Soosees
extract a fermented and intoxicating liquor from a root growing in great
abundance, which they call _gingingey_, something similar to the sweet
potatoe in the West Indies. The distillation is commenced by forming a pit
in the earth, into which a large quantity of the root is put, and covered
with fuel, which is set on fire, and kept burning until the roots are
completely roasted: the