Travels Of Richard And John Lander Into The Interior Of Africa For The Discovery Of The Course And Termination Of The Niger By Robert Huish
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Three Balls Were Lodged In One Of The
Animals, But He Made Off With Them; He Was, However, Soon After Found
Dead By The Negroes.
The most formidable animals, however, were the
lions, ounces, and leopards, which were seen at some distance, but
the sailors could not obtain a shot at them.
At one of their halting
places, the baboons appeared like an army consisting of several
thousands, some of the tallest placed in front, marshalled under the
guidance of a leader, the smaller ones being in the middle, and the
rear brought up by the larger ones. The sailors showed some
disposition to enter into an acquaintance with the leader of the
army, but the desire was by no means mutual, for nature has very
kindly infused into the hearts of these creatures a strong distrust
in the friendly advances of their brother bipeds, knowing them to be,
in many of their actions, false, hollow, and deceitful, a proof of
which, one of the leaders of the army received in a very striking and
forcible manner, in the shape of a bullet, which passed directly
through his body. The baboons were, however, determined that their
treacherous friends should not obtain possession of the body of their
murdered leader, for before the sailors could arrive at the spot
where the deceased general lay, his indignant and patriotic
companions had carried his body away. On following these creatures to
their haunts in the recessess of the forest, places were found, where
the branches had been so intertwined, and the ground beaten so
smoothly, as to make it rather difficult to believe that the labour
had not been accomplished by human hands.
On the 26th of January, Jobson arrived at Tenda, and he immediately
despatched a messenger to Buckar Sano, the chief merchant on the
Gambia, who soon after arrived with a stock of provisions, which he
disposed of at reasonable prices. In return for the promptitude, with
which Buckar Sano had replied to his message, Jobson treated him with
the greatest hospitality, placing before him the brandy bottle as the
most important object of the entertainment. Buckar Sano seemed by no
means unwilling to consider it in that character, for he paid so many
visitations to it that he became so intoxicated, that he lay during
the whole of the night dead drunk in the boat. Buckar Sano, however,
showed by his subsequent conduct, that drunkenness was not a vice, to
which he was naturally addicted, and that the strength of the spirit
had crept upon him, before he was aware of the consequences that were
likely to ensue. On any subsequent occasion, when the brandy bottle
was tendered to him, he would take a glass, but on being pressed to
repeat it, he would shake his head with apparent tokens of disgust;
after the exchange of some presents, and many ridiculous ceremonies,
Buckar Sano was proclaimed the white man's alchade, or mercantile
agent. Jobson had, however, some reason to doubt his good faith, from
the accounts which he gave of a city four months journey in the
interior, the roofs of the houses of which were covered with sheets
of gold.
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