Natives In
Canoes Were Busy Spearing Fish In The Meadows And Creeks, And
Appeared To Be Taking Them In Great Numbers.
Spur-winged geese, and
others of the knob-nosed species, took advantage of the low gardens
being flooded, and came to pilfer the beans.
As we passed the Ruo,
on the 7th, and saw nothing of the Bishop, we concluded that he had
heard from his surgeon of our detention, and had deferred his
journey. He arrived there five days after, on the 12th.
After paying our Senna men, as they wished to go home, we landed them
here. All were keen traders, and had invested largely in native
iron-hoes, axes, and ornaments. Many of the hoes and spears had been
taken from the slaving parties whose captives we liberated; for on
these occasions our Senna friends were always uncommonly zealous and
active. The remainder had been purchased with the old clothes we had
given them and their store of hippopotamus meat: they had no fear of
losing them, or of being punished for aiding us. The system, in
which they had been trained, had eradicated the idea of personal
responsibility from their minds. The Portuguese slaveholders would
blame the English alone, they said; they were our servants at the
time. No white man on board could purchase so cheaply as these men
could. Many a time had their eloquence persuaded a native trader to
sell for a bit of dirty worn cloth things for which he had, but a
little before, refused twice the amount of clean new calico.
"Scissors" being troubled with a cough at night, received a present
of a quilted coverlet, which had seen a good deal of service.
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