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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The Kindness Of This Good Old Man Was Remarkable;
He Never Seemed Weary Of Obliging Them, Regretted His Inability To Do
More, And Solicited Them Very Pressingly To Remain With Him Another
Day.
They traversed a mountainous country intersected with streams of
excellent water, and at noon entered a small, but pleasant
Picturesque village, which was ornamented with noble and shady trees.
Here they waited a very short time, and continuing their route,
arrived towards evening at a capacious walled town, called Row,
wherein they passed the night. In many places, the wall, if it be
deserving the name, was no more than twelve or fourteen inches from
the ground, and the moat was of similar dimensions. The yard to which
they were conducted, shortly after their arrival, was within three or
four others, and so intricate were the passages leading to it, that
after a stranger gets in, he would be sadly puzzled to find his way
out again without a guide. Nevertheless, this was no security against
interruption, for the yard was speedily invaded by five or six
hundred individuals, who had been induced to visit them from
curiosity. As usual, they annoyed the travellers for a long time to
the best of their ability, till they completely wearied them out by
their importunity and forwardness. They then hung sheets round the
door-way of their dwelling, and laid down on their mats; and then
only, the natives began to disperse, and left them at their ease.
The governor of the town was a morose, surly, and ill-natured man.
He sent them only a few bananas, and a calabash of eggs, which were
all stale and unfit to be eaten, so that some of their people were
obliged to go supperless to bed. The governor ascribed the badness of
his fare to extreme poverty, yet his vanity exacted from their Jenna
messengers the most abject method of salutation, with which they were
acquainted. These men walked backwards from him several yards, to
throw dirt on their heads, and with the dust and filth still clinging
to their hair, they were compelled to address the chief with their
faces to the ground. The apartment of the travellers unfortunately
communicated with his, and the restless tongues of his numerous wives
prevented either of the Landers from dosing their eyes long after
sunset. In the centre of their yard grew a tree, round which several
stakes were driven into the ground. This tree was a fetish tree, and
the stakes also fetish, and therefore a strong injunction was issued
not to tie the horses to either of them. Calabashes, common articles
of earthenware, and even feathers, egg-shells, and the bones of
animals; indeed any kind of inanimate substance is made fetish by the
credulous, stupid natives, and like the horse-shoe, which is still
nailed to the door of the more superstitious of English peasantry,
these fetishes are supposed to preserve them from ghosts and evil
spirits. It is sacrilege to touch them, and to ridicule them, would
be dangerous.
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