With Them Were Two Or Three Negro Musicians, Who, When The Labours Of The Day Were Over, Cheered Their Countrymen

With their instruments, at the sound of which they danced and sang in company, while the few Englishmen be longing

To the party, amused themselves with angling on the banks of the stream, in which, though not very expert, they were tolerably successful. In this pleasing manner, stemming a strong current by day, and resting from their toil at night, Richard Lander and his little band, totally unapprehensive of danger, and unprepared to overcome or meet it, proceeded slowly up the Niger. At some distance from its mouth, and on his way thither, they met King Jacket, a relative of King Boy, and one of the heartless and sullen chiefs, who rule over a large tract of marshy country on the banks of the Brass River. This individual was hailed by our travellers, and a present of tobacco and rum was offered to him, he accepted it with a murmur of dissatisfaction, and his eyes sparkled with malignity, as he said in his own language, 'White man will never reach Eboe this time.' This sentence was immediately interpreted to Lander by a native of the country, a boy, who afterwards bled to death from a wound in the knee, but Lander made light of the matter, and attributed Jacket's prophecy, for so it proved, to the petulance and malice of his disposition. Soon, however, he discovered his error, but it was too late to correct it, or evade the danger which threatened him.

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