The Kirree People Are A Savage-Looking Race; They Are Amazingly Strong And Athletic, And Are Also Well Proportioned.

Their only clothing is the skin either of a leopard or tiger fastened round their waist.

Their hair is plaited, and plastered with red clay in abundance; and their face is full of incisions in every part of it; these are cut into the flesh, so as to produce deep furrows, each incision being about a quarter of an inch long and dyed with indigo. It was scarcely possible to make out a feature of their face, and never were individuals more disfigured. The Eboe women have handsome features; and the Landers could not help thinking it a pity, that such savage-looking fellows as the men should be blessed with so handsome a race of females.

CHAPTER XXXIX.

At sunrise on the 6th November, their canoe was taken from before Kirree market-place, to the little sand bank or island in the middle of the river, where they waited till nine o'clock for the coming of two war canoes, which it was resolved should convoy them to the Eboe country, which they understood was situated three days journey down the Niger. At seven in the morning they bade adieu to Kirree, the scene of all their sorrows, accompanied by six large war canoes, and again took their station with the Damaggoo people. Independently of their convoy, they had a sumpter canoe in company, belonging to the Eboe people, from which the others were supplied with dressed provisions. For their part, they had neither money nor needles, nor indeed any thing to purchase a meal; and knowing this to be the case, their sable guardians neglected to take into consideration the state of their stomachs. However, they felt no very strong inclination to join them in their repast, though on one occasion they were invited to do so; for they felt an invincible disgust to it, from the filthy manner in which it had been prepared. Yams were first boiled, and then skinned, and mashed into a paste, with the addition of a little water, by hands that were far from being clean. As this part of the business requires great personal exertion, the man on whom it devolved perspired very copiously, and the consequences may easily be guessed at. In eating they use their fingers only, and every one dips his hand into the same dish.

It was ten at night, when they came abreast of a small town, where they stopped. It was long since they had tasted food, and they had suffered from hunger the whole day, without being able to obtain any thing. Soon after they had stopped for the night, their guards gave each of them a piece of roasted yam, and their poor famished people had also the good fortune to get some too, being the first they had had since leaving Damaggoo. The roasted yam, washed down with a little water, was to them as joyful a meal, as if they had been treated with the most sumptuous fare, and they laid themselves down in the canoe to sleep in content.

Long before sunrise on the 8th November, though it was excessively dark, the canoes were put in motion; for as the Eboe country was said to be at no great distance, the Eboe people who were with them, were desirous of arriving there as early in the day as possible. It proved to be a dull hazy morning, but at 7 o'clock the fog had become so dense, that no object, however large, could be distinguished at a greater distance than a few yards. This created considerable confusion, and the men fearing, as they expressed it, to lose themselves, tied one canoe to another, thus forming double canoes, and all proceeded together in close company. The Landers wished to be more particular in their observations of this interesting part of their journey, but were constrained to forego that gratification, on account of the superstitious prejudices of the natives, who were so infatuated as to imagine, that the Landers had not only occasioned the fog, but that if they did not sit or lie down in the canoe, for they had been standing, it would inevitably cause the destruction of the whole party, and the reason they assigned, was, that the river had never beheld a white man before; and, therefore, they dreaded the consequences of their rashness and presumption in regarding its waters so attentively. This and similar nonsense was delivered with such determination and earnestness, that they reluctantly laid down, and allowed themselves to be covered with mats, in order to quiet their apprehensions; for they did not forget that they were prisoners, and that a perseverance in standing up, would have exposed them to the mortification of being put down by force.

On the dispersion of the fog, the Landers were again permitted to look at the river, and shortly afterwards one of the Eboe men in their canoe, exclaimed, "There is my country;" pointing to a clump of very high trees, which was yet at some distance before them, and after passing a low fertile island, they quickly came to it. Here they observed a few fishing canoes, but their owners appeared suspicious and fearful, and would not come near them, though their national flag, which was a British union, sewed on a large piece of plain white cotton, with scollops of blue, was streaming from a long staff on the bow. The town, they were told, was yet a good way down the river. In a short time, however, they came to an extensive morass, intersected by little channels in every direction, and by one of these, they got into clear water, and in front of the Eboe town. Here they found hundreds of canoes, some of them even larger than any they had previously met with. When they had come alongside the canoes, two or three huge brawny fellows, in broken English, asked how they did, in a tone which Stentor might have envied; and the shaking of hands with their powerful friends was really a punishment, on account of the violent squeezes which they were compelled to suffer.

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