This Fleet Consisted Of Forty Sail, Equipped In The Same Manner As Those We Had Seen Before, Belonged To The Little District Of Tettaha, And Were Come To Oparree To Be Reviewed Before The King, As The Former Fleet Had Been.

There were attending on his fleet some small double canoes, which they called Marais, having on their fore-part a kind of double bed place laid over with green leaves, each just sufficient to hold one man.

These, they told us, were to lay their dead upon; their chiefs I suppose they meant, otherwise their slain must be few. Otoo, who was present, caused at my request some of their troops to go through their exercise on shore. Two parties first began with clubs, but this was over almost as soon as begun; so that I had no time to make my observations upon it. They then went to single combat, and exhibited the various methods of fighting, with great alertness; parrying off the blows and pushes which each combatant aimed at the other, with great dexterity. Their arms were clubs and spears; the latter they also use as darts. In fighting with the club, all blows intended to be given the legs, were evaded by leaping over it; and those intended for the head, by couching a little, and leaping on one side; thus the blow would fall to the ground. The spear or dart was parried by fixing the point of a spear in the ground right before them, holding it in an inclined position, more or less elevated according to the part of the body they saw their antagonist intending to make a push, or throw his dart at, and by moving the hand a little to the right or left, either the one or the other was turned off with great ease. I thought that when one combatant had parried off the blows, &c. of the other, he did not use the advantage which seemed to me to accrue. As for instance, after he had parried off a dart, he still stood on the defensive, and suffered his antagonist to take up another, when I thought there was time to run him through the body.[2]

These combatants had no superfluous dress upon them; an unnecessary piece of cloth or two, which they had on when they began, were presently torn off by the by-standers, and given to some of our gentlemen present. This being over, the fleet departed; not in any order, but as fast as they could be got afloat; and we went with Otoo to one of his dock-yards, where the two large pahies or canoes were building, each of which was an hundred and eight feet long. They were almost ready to launch, and were intended to make one joint double pahie or canoe. The king begged of me a grappling and rope, to which I added an English jack and pendant (with the use of which he was well acquainted), and desired the pahie might be called Britannia.

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