Next To The Language, My Great
Object Was To Collect Information Concerning The Countries I Intended To
Visit.
On this occasion I was referred to certain traders called Slatees.
These are free black merchants, of great consideration
In this part of
Africa, who come down from the interior countries chiefly with enslaved
negroes for sale; but I soon discovered that very little dependance could
be placed on the accounts they gave; for they contradicted each other in
the most important particulars, and all of them seemed extremely
unwilling that I should prosecute my journey. These circumstances
increased my anxiety to ascertain the truth from my own personal
observations.
In researches of this kind, and in observing the manners and customs of
the natives, in a country so little known to the nations of Europe, and
furnished with so many striking and uncommon objects of nature, my time
passed not unpleasantly; and I began to flatter myself that I had escaped
the fever, or seasoning, to which Europeans, on their first arrival in
hot climates, are generally subject. But, on the 3d of July, I
imprudently exposed myself to the night dew, in observing an eclipse of
the moon, with a view to determine the longitude of the place; the next
day I found myself attacked with a smart fever and delirium; and such an
illness followed, as confined me to the house during the greatest part of
August. My recovery was very slow; but I embraced every short interval of
convalescence to walk out and make myself acquainted with the productions
of the country.
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