This, However, I Have Frequently Seen, Although, In The Inland Parts, The Poorer Class Of Inhabitants Are So Very Rarely Indulged With This Precious Article That To Say A Man Ate Salt With His Victuals Is The Same As Saying He Is A Very Rich Man.

I have myself suffered great inconvenience from the scarcity of this article.

The long use of vegetable food creates so painful a longing for salt that no words can sufficiently describe it.

The negroes in general, and the Mandingoes in particular, are considered by the whites on the coast as an indolent and inactive people - I think without reason. The nature of the climate is, indeed, unfavourable to great exertion; but surely a people cannot justly be denominated habitually indolent whose wants are supplied, not by the spontaneous productions of nature, but by their own exertions. Few people work harder, when occasion requires, than the Mandingoes; but not having many opportunities of turning to advantage the superfluous produce of their labour, they are content with cultivating as much ground only as is necessary for their own support. The labours of the field give them pretty full employment during the rains; and in the dry season the people who live in the vicinity of large rivers employ themselves in fishing. The fish are taken in wicker baskets or with small cotton nets, and are preserved by being first dried in the sun and afterwards rubbed with shea butter, to prevent them from contracting fresh moisture.

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