This Religious Observance, They Were Told, Was Invariably Performed, Whenever The Brass People Have Occasion To Leave Their Country By Water, Or Return To It By The Same Means; It Is Called A Meat And Drink Offering, And Is Celebrated At Every Meal.

A custom very similar to this prevails at Yarriba, at Badagry, Cape Coast Castle, and along the western coast

Generally; the natives of those places never take a glass of spirits without spilling a quantity of it on the ground as "a fetish." In the morning, they observed a branch of the river running off in a westerly direction, the course of the main body being southwest.

They stopped awhile at various little villages during the day, to purchase yams, bananas, and cocoa-nuts, and the curiosity of their poor inhabitants at their appearance was intense. They were chiefly fishermen or husbandmen, and notwithstanding the uncouth and remarkable dress of the Landers, they behaved to them without rudeness and even with civility, so that their inquisitiveness was not disagreeable. Speaking trumpets, it was imagined, were quite a novelty with the men at Brass, by the extraordinary rapture which they displayed for their music, which certainly was anything but melodious. It has been already stated that two of these instruments were in the canoe, for the convenience of issuing orders, and during the whole of the day, they were not ten minutes together from the mouths of the officers, so great was the desire of all of them to breathe through them, and which adds considerably to the deafening noises made by their constant quarrelling with each other. This was a great annoyance to the Landers, but they were constrained to submit to it in silence; besides, it was entirely superfluous, for the voices of the people were of themselves loud and powerful enough for all the common purposes of life; and when they have a mind to strain their brazen lungs, no speaking trumpet that has ever been made, be it ever so large, could match the quantity of horrid sound which they made; it would, in fact, drown the roaring of the sea.

In addition to the officers and attendants in the canoe formerly mentioned, they had one drummer, the king's steward, and his lady's maid, and two persons to bale out water, besides three captains, to give the necessary directions for the safety of the canoe. The noise made by these people on their starting, in bawling to their fetish through the trumpets, was beyond all description. Their object was to secure them a safe journey, and most certainly, if noise could do so, they were pretty certain of it.

The villages that they passed in the course of the day, were very numerous, and not distant more than two or three miles from each other, on the banks of the river. They were surrounded by more cultivated land than they had seen for the previous fortnight; the crops consisting of yams, bananas, plantains, indian corn, &c. &c., not having seen so much since they left Kacunda.

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