This Town Lies In A Great Bay Which Is Very Deep[247], And There The People Were Chiefly Desirous To

Procure basins and cloth, though they bought a few other trifles, as knives, horse-tails, and horns; and some of

Our people who were on shore sold a cap, a dagger, a hat, and other such articles. They shewed us a coarse kind of cloth, which I believe was of French manufacture: The wool was very coarse, and the stuff was striped with various colours, as green, white, yellow, &c. Several of the negroes at this place wore necklaces of large glass beads of various colours. At this place I picked up a few words of their language, of which the following is a short specimen:

Mattea! Mattea! Is their salutation. Dassee! Dassee! I thank you. Sheke, Gold. Cowrte, Cut. Cracca, Knives. Bassina, Basins. Foco, foco, Cloth. Molta, Much, or great plenty[248]

[Footnote 247: This abrupt account of a town, &c. seems to refer back to that of St John, which they had just left. - E.]

[Footnote 248: This language seems partly corrupted. - _Hakluyt_.

Two of the words in this short specimen have been evidently adopted from the Portuguese, _bassina_ and _molta_. - E.]

In the morning of the 8th, we had sight of the Portuguese castle of Mina, but the morning being misty we could not see it distinctly till we were almost at Don Johns town, when the weather cleared up and we had a full view of the fort, beside which we noticed a white house on a hill, which seemed to be a chapel.

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