On Hearing This The Serawoollies, Who Had
Travelled With Us From The Faleme River, Separated Themselves And
Their Slaves From The Coffle.
They had not, they said, the means of
maintaining their slaves in Gambia until a vessel should arrive, and
were unwilling to sell them to disadvantage; they therefore departed
to the northward for Kajaaga.
We continued our route through the
wilderness, and travelled all day through a rugged country covered
with extensive thickets of bamboo. At sunset, to our great joy, we
arrived at a pool of water near a large tabba-tree, whence the place
is called Tabbagee, and here we rested a few hours. The water at
this season of the year is by no means plentiful in these woods, and
as the days were insufferably hot Karfa proposed to travel in the
night. Accordingly about eleven o'clock the slaves were taken out
of their irons, and the people of the coffle received orders to keep
close together, as well to prevent the slaves from attempting to
escape as on account of the wild beasts. We travelled with great
alacrity until daybreak, when it was discovered that a free woman
had parted from the coffle in the night; her name was called until
the woods resounded, but, no answer being given, we conjectured that
she had either mistaken the road or that a lion had seized her
unperceived. At length it was agreed that four people should go
back a few miles to a small rivulet, where some of the coffle had
stopped to drink as we passed it in the night, and that the coffle
should wait for their return. The sun was about an hour high before
the people came back with the woman, whom they found lying fast
asleep by the stream. We now resumed our journey, and about eleven
o'clock reached a walled town called Tambacunda, where we were well
received. Here we remained four days on account of a palaver which
was held on the following occasion:- Modi Lemina, one of the slatees
belonging to the coffle, had formerly married a woman of this town,
who had borne him two children; he afterwards went to Manding, and
remained there eight years without sending any account of himself
during all that time to his deserted wife, who, seeing no prospect
of his return, at the end of three years had married another man, to
whom she had likewise borne two children. Lemina now claimed his
wife; but the second husband refused to deliver her up, insisting
that by the laws of Africa when a man has been three years absent
from his wife, without giving her notice of his being alive, the
woman is at liberty to marry again. After all the circumstances had
been fully investigated in an assembly of the chief men, it was
determined that the wife should make her choice, and be at liberty
either to return to the first husband, or continue with the second,
as she alone should think proper.
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