The natives of the countries bordering on the Gambia, though
distributed into a great many distinct governments, may, I think, be
divided into four great classes - the Feloops, the Jaloffs, the
Foulahs, and the Mandingoes.
Among all these nations, the religion
of Mohammed has made, and continues to make, considerable progress;
but in most of them the body of the people, both free and enslaved,
persevere in maintaining the blind but harmless superstitions of
their ancestors, and are called by the Mohammedans kafirs, or
infidels.
Of the Feloops, I have little to add to what has been observed
concerning them in the former chapter. They are of a gloomy
disposition, and are supposed never to forgive an injury. They are
even said to transmit their quarrels as deadly feuds to their
posterity, insomuch that a son considers it as incumbent on him,
from a just sense of filial obligation, to become the avenger of his
deceased father's wrongs. If a man loses his life in one of these
sudden quarrels which perpetually occur at their feasts, when the
whole party is intoxicated with mead, his son, or the eldest of his
sons (if he has more than one), endeavours to procure his father's
sandals, which he wears ONCE A YEAR, on the anniversary of his
father's death, until a fit opportunity offers of revenging his
fate, when the object of his resentment seldom escapes his pursuit.
This fierce and unrelenting disposition is, however, counterbalanced
by many good qualities:
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