Travels in the Interior of Africa, vol 1 | Page 4

greatly to alleviate my
sufferings; his company and conversation beguiled the tedious hours
during that gloomy season, when the rain falls in torrents; when
suffocating heats oppress by day, and when the night is spent by the
terrified travellers in listening to the croaking of frogs (of which the
numbers are beyond imagination), the shrill cry of the jackal, and the
deep howling of the hyaena, a dismal concert, interrupted only by the
roar of such tremendous thunder as no person can form a conception of
but those who have heard it.
The country itself being an immense level, and very generally covered

with wood, presents a tiresome and gloomy uniformity to the eye; but
although Nature has denied to the inhabitants the beauties of romantic
landscapes, she has bestowed on them, with a liberal hand, the more
important blessings of fertility and abundance. A little attention to
cultivation procures a sufficiency of corn, the fields afford a rich
pasturage for cattle, and the natives are plentifully supplied with
excellent fish, both from the Gambia river and the Walli creek.
The grains which are chiefly cultivated are--Indian corn (zea mays);
two kinds of holcus spicatus, called by the natives soono and sanio;
holcus niger, and holcus bicolor, the former of which they have named
bassi woolima, and the latter bassiqui. These, together with rice, are
raised in considerable quantities; besides which, the inhabitants in the
vicinity of the towns and villages have gardens which produce onions,
calavances, yams, cassavi, ground nuts, pompions, gourds,
water-melons, and some other esculent plants.
I observed likewise, near the towns, small patches of cotton and indigo.
The former of these articles supplies them with clothing, and with the
latter they dye their cloth of an excellent blue colour, in a manner that
will hereafter be described.
In preparing their corn for food, the natives use a large wooden mortar
called a paloon, in which they bruise the seed until it parts with the
outer covering, or husk, which is then separated from the clean corn by
exposing it to the wind, nearly in the same manner as wheat is cleared
from the chaff in England. The corn thus freed from the husk is
returned to the mortar and beaten into meal, which is dressed variously
in different countries; but the most common preparation of it among the
nations of the Gambia is a sort of pudding which they call kouskous. It
is made by first moistening the flour with water, and then stirring and
shaking it about in a large calabash, or gourd, till it adheres together in
small granules resembling sago. It is then put into an earthen pot,
whose bottom is perforated with a number of small holes; and this pot
being placed upon another, the two vessels are luted together either
with a paste of meal and water, or with cows' dung, and placed upon
the fire. In the lower vessel is commonly some animal food and water,
the steam or vapour of which ascends through the perforations in the
bottom of the upper vessel, and softens and the kouskous, which is very
much esteemed throughout all the countries that I visited. I am

informed that the same manner of preparing flour is very generally used
on the Barbary coast, and that the dish so prepared is there called by the
same name. It is therefore probable that the negroes borrowed the
practice from the Moors.
Their domestic animals are nearly the same as in Europe. Swine are
found in the woods, but their flesh is not esteemed. Probably the
marked abhorrence in which this animal is held by the votaries of
Mohammed has spread itself among the pagans. Poultry of all kinds,
the turkey excepted, is everywhere to be had. The guinea-fowl and red
partridge abound in the fields, and the woods furnish a small species of
antelope, of which the venison is highly and deservedly prized.
Of the other wild animals in the Mandingo countries, the most common
are the hyaena, the panther, and the elephant. Considering the use that
is made of the latter in the East Indies, it may be thought extraordinary
that the natives of Africa have not, in any part of this immense
continent, acquired the skill of taming this powerful and docile creature,
and applying his strength and faculties to the service of man. When I
told some of the natives that this was actually done in the countries of
the East, my auditors laughed me to scorn, and exclaimed, "Tobaubo
fonnio!" ("A white man's lie!") The negroes frequently find means to
destroy the elephant by firearms; they hunt it principally for the sake of
the teeth, which they transfer in barter to those who sell them again to
the Europeans. The flesh they eat, and consider