him several presents, no
doubt through interested motives; probably he supplies them with slaves.
His character is notoriously bad; it was only the other day that he had
one of his wives cut to pieces, for some very trifling offence.

A SHOOTING EXCURSION.

On taking my leave of the Resident, I fixed the day for our shooting
excursion. We were to go to a place called Pritie, on the northern shore
of Babao Bay, and distant some fifteen miles from the ship, which
rendered it necessary therefore to make an early start.

Daylight on Monday morning accordingly found us on the northern shore of
the bay, but we soon ascertained that our guide knew very little about
the matter; and what was still worse, there was no getting near the
shore, a bank of soft mud fronting it for some distance, at this time of
tide, and particularly in the vague direction our guide gave us of
Pritie. The day was fast advancing; so we made our way back to a cliffy
projection we had passed before light, where, after some difficulty, we
got on shore. Whilst the breakfast was cooking, I made a sketch of the
bay, and took a round of angles, all the charts and plans I had seen
being very erroneous.

Our guide appeared to take our not going to Pritie greatly to heart; but
we made the best of our way to some clear spots on the side of the high
land seen from the boat. We met a few natives, who all agreed there were
plenty of deer close by, which we believed, for we saw numbers of very
recent tracks. But the jungle was impenetrable; so, after rambling for an
hour or two, at the expense of nearly tearing the clothes off our backs,
and emulating the folly of the wise man of Thessaly, we again determined
to make for Pritie, or at least to try and find it. The tide too now
served, and after a pull of some hours, carefully examining every creek
and bight, we spied at length two canoes hauled up among a patch of
mangroves. Landing, we soon found some houses, and a person to show us
the road to Pritie; for we had still a walk of three miles across a well
watered flat piece of country. We were highly pleased with this, to us,
novel sight; and our enjoyment was heightened by beholding the tricks and
grimaces of some impudent monkeys perched on the tops of the lofty trees,
out of shot range, and too nimble to be hit with a ball.

VALE OF PRITIE.

We at last reached our destination, on the eastern side of a beautiful
stream. Immediately to the northward some loft