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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Perfect Salutation Be Unto You, (And) May God Cause
Your Mornings And Evenings To Be Most Happy, With Multiplied
Salutations (From Us).
"After our salutation unto you (some) ostrich feathers will reach
you, (as a present,) from the bounty and blessings of God (we have in
our country), and we, together with you, thank God (for what he has
bestowed).
And salutation be unto your hired people, (your suite) and
peace be unto our people, who praise God.
(Signed,) From the
PRINCE OF YAOURI."
Of this letter, Mr. Salame says, that it is the worst of the African
papers which he had seen, both as to its ungrammatical and
unintelligible character. Indeed, his Yaourick majesty seemed to be
sadly in need of words to make himself intelligible. It must be
remarked, that the words between parentheses are not in the original,
but supplied by the translator for the purpose of reducing the letter
to some kind of meaning.
CHAPTER XXXVI.
Owing to the reputed badness of the path, that by which the Landers
had entered Yaoorie, was rejected for a more northerly one, leading
in almost a direct line to the river Cubbie. About mid-day they
arrived at the walls of a pretty considerable town, called Guada, and
halted near a small creek of a river flowing from Cubbie, and
entering the Niger a little lower down. Here, as soon as they had
taken a slight refreshment, they sent their beasts across the Niger
to proceed by land to Boossa, and embarked in two canoes, which were
each paddled by four men. On entering the Niger, they found it
running from two to three miles an hour, and they proceeded down the
river till the sun had set; and the moon was shining beautifully on
the water, as they drew near to a small Cumbrie village on the
borders of the river, where they landed and pitched their tent. The
inhabitants of many of the numerous walled towns and open villages on
the banks of the Niger, and also of the islands, were found to be for
the most part Cumbrie people, a poor, despised, and abused, but
industrious and hard-working race. Inheriting from their ancestors a
peaceful, timid, passionless, incurious disposition, they fall an
easy prey to all who choose to molest them; they bow their necks to
the yoke of slavery without a murmur, and think it a matter of
course; and perhaps no people in the world are to be found who are
less susceptible of intense feeling, and the finer emotions of the
human mind, on being stolen away from their favourite amusements and
pursuits, and from the bosom of their wives and families, than these
Cumbrie people, who are held in general disesteem. Thousands of them
reside in the kingdom of Yaoorie, and its province of Engarski, and
most of the slaves in the capital have been taken from them.
As they proceeded down the Niger by a different channel from that by
which they had ascended it to Yaoorie, they had fresh opportunities
of remarking the more striking features on its banks.
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