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 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.
It was between seven and eight o'clock of the 30th April, before
carriers could be procured, and every thing got in readiness for
their departure. The sun was excessively hot, and the sky brilliantly
clear.
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