I Inquired For My Two Attendants,
Johnson And Demba, And Learnt With Great Sorrow That Neither Of Them
Was Returned.
Karfa, who had never before heard people converse in
English, listened to us with great attention.
Everything he saw
seemed wonderful. The furniture of the house, the chairs, &c., and
particularly beds with curtains, were objects of his great
admiration, and he asked me a thousand questions concerning the
utility and necessity of different articles, to some of which I
found it difficult to give satisfactory answers.
On the morning of the 10th Mr. Robert Ainsley, having learned that I
was at Tendacunda, came to meet me, and politely offered me the use
of his horse. He informed me that Dr. Laidley had removed all his
property to a place called Kayee, a little farther down the river,
and that he was then gone to Doomasansa with his vessel to purchase
rice, but would return in a day or two. He therefore invited me to
stay with him at Pisania until the doctor's return. I accepted the
invitation, and being accompanied by my friend Karfa, reached
Pisania about ten o'clock. Mr. Ainsley's schooner was lying at
anchor before the place. This was the most surprising object which
Karfa had yet seen. He could not easily comprehend the use of the
masts, sails, and rigging; nor did he conceive that it was possible,
by any sort of contrivance, to make so large a body move forwards by
the common force of the wind. The manner of fastening together the
different planks which composed the vessel, and filling up the seams
so as to exclude the water, was perfectly new to him; and I found
that the schooner, with her cable and anchor, kept Karfa in deep
meditation the greater part of the day.
About noon on the 12th Dr. Laidley returned from Doomasansa and
received me with great joy and satisfaction, as one risen from the
dead. Finding that the wearing apparel which I had left under his
care was not sold or sent to England, I lost no time in resuming the
English dress and disrobing my chin of its venerable encumbrance.
Karfa surveyed me in my British apparel with great delight, but
regretted exceedingly that I had taken off my beard, the loss of
which, he said, had converted me from a man into a boy. Dr. Laidley
readily undertook to discharge all the pecuniary engagements which I
had entered into since my departure from the Gambia, and took my
draft upon the association for the amount. My agreement with Karfa
(as I have already related) was to pay him the value of one prime
slave, for which I had given him my bill upon Dr. Laidley before we
departed from Kamalia; for in case of my death on the road I was
unwilling that my benefactor should be a loser. But this good
creature had continued to manifest towards me so much kindness that
I thought I made him but an inadequate recompense when I told him
that he was now to receive double the sum I had originally promised;
and Dr. Laidley assured him that he was ready to deliver the goods
to that amount whenever he thought proper to send for them.
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