This River
Lies 13 Leagues Beyond Cape Palmas, Having A Rock To The Westwards About
A League Out To Sea,
And there juts out from the river a point of land
on which grow five trees which may be discerned
Two or three leagues off
when coming from the westwards; but the river itself cannot be seen till
close upon it, and then a small town may be seen on either side, each of
which has a _diago_ or captain. The river is small, but the water is
fresh and good[238]. Two miles beyond the river, where the other town
lies, another point runs oat to sea, which is green like a meadow,
having only six trees growing upon it, all distant from each other,
which is a good mark to know it by, as I have not seen as much bare land
on the whole coast[239]. In this place, and three or four leagues to the
westwards, there grow many palm trees, from which the natives have their
palm wine, all along shore. These trees are easily known almost two
leagues off, as they are very straight, tall and white bodied, and
thickest in the middle, having no limbs or boughs, but only a round bush
of leaves at the top. In this top the natives bore a hole, to which they
hang a bottle or empty gourd, and in this they receive the juice that
runs from the tree, which is their wine.
[Footnote 238: From the indicated distance eastwards from Cape Palmas,
and the description in the text, the river and point in question seem
those called Tabou, in long. 7 deg. 10' W. from Greenwich. - E.]
[Footnote 239: It is hardly necessary to observe that these are very bad
land-marks, being subject to alteration from many causes; besides that
this description is above 250 years old. - E.]
From Cape Palmas to Cape _Tres-puntas_ or Three-points, the distance is
100 leagues east[240]; and from Cape Three-points to the port where we
proposed to sell our cloth are other 40 leagues[241]. The language here,
as far as I could judge, seemed to differ little from that formerly
mentioned. The people likewise dress much in the same manner, or almost
naked, but they were gentler in their manners and better looking. They
chiefly coveted manillios and margarites, and cared very little for the
rest of our wares. About 9 o'clock A.M. some boats came off to us from
both towns, bringing with them some elephants teeth, and having made me
swear by the water of the sea that I would do them no harm, three or
four of them came on board, and we entertained them with such things as
we had, of which they eat and drank as freely as ourselves. We then
bought all their teeth, of which they had 14, 10 being small. On going
away, they desired us to come to their towns next day. Not wishing to
trifle our time at this place, I desired the master to go on the 26th
with two of our merchants to one of the towns, while I went with one
merchant to the other town, the two towns being three miles asunder.
Taking with us to both places some of every kind of merchandise that we
had, the master got nine rather small teeth at one town, while at the
other I got eleven not large.
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