These Are Very Common, Particularly About The Beginning Of
The Dry Season, When The Labour Of The Harvest Is Over, And Provisions
Are Plentiful.
Schemes of vengeance are then meditated.
The chief man
surveys the number and activity of his vassals, as they brandish their
spears at festivals; and elated with his own importance, turns his whole
thoughts towards revenging some depredation or insult, which either he or
his ancestors may have received from a neighbouring state.
Wars of this description are generally conducted with great secrecy. A
few resolute individuals, headed by some person of enterprise and
courage, march quietly through the woods, surprise in the night some
unprotected village, and carry off the inhabitants and their effects,
before their neighbours can come to their assistance. One morning during
my stay at Kamalia, we were all much alarmed by a party of this kind. The
King of Fooladoo's son, with five hundred horsemen, passed secretly
through the woods, a little to the southward of Kamalia, and on the
morning following plundered three towns belonging to Madigai, a powerful
chief in Jallonkadoo.
The success of this expedition encouraged the governor of Bangassi, a
town in Fooladoo, to make a second inroad upon another part of the same
country. Having assembled about two hundred of his people, he passed the
river Kokoro in the night, and carried off a great number of prisoners.
Several of the inhabitants who had escaped these attacks were afterwards
seized by the Mandingoes, as they wandered about in the woods, or
concealed themselves in the glens and strong places of the mountains.
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