430 



where Dr Laidley superintended an extensive trading depot in 

 1786, and for years continued the able head and manager of it. But 

 singular enough, with all our wealth, enterprise, desire to extend 

 commerce, and procure channels for the circulation of our home 

 manufactures, we are to the present moment ignorant of the 

 source and course of the Gambia ; having but hazy, legendary 

 records of the wild tribes adjacent to its banks, or of the chil- 

 dren of the desert, the " Foutah Foulahs" and *' Foutah Toros," 

 who, rushing down periodically from the interior, devastate districts, 

 plunder whole villages, and bear off into slavery men, women, and 

 children. Our settlements in the Gambia are surrounded by war- 

 like and powerful nations, the kings of Barra, Combo, Badaboo, Kat- 

 tabar, WooUie being the chief. 



The kings of Barra long ruled with despotic sway all the minor 

 sovereigns, and, as their dominions lay adjacent to ours, and ex- 

 tended for several miles along the right bank of the river, we had to 

 conciliate their favour, and submit to their unjust, tyrannical, and 

 insatiable exactions, to preserve intact our struggling settlements 

 of Bathurst, and secure the lives and properties of our merchants 

 trading in the river to Pisania. 



The head man of the kings of Barra was, and indeed still is, the 

 *' Alkadee of Jillifree," from time immemorial the most powerful chief 

 in the Gambia among the adjacent nations and with the distant tribes. 

 These kings are mentioned by several travellers in Western Africa, — 

 by Johnson in 1621, Stibbs in 1723, Moore in 1737, Dr Laid- 

 ley, the special friend of the gallant Houghton, in 1791, the enter- 

 prising Mungo Park in 1795, and again, when he left Pisania, upon 

 his last fatal expedition to the Niger, in May 1805, by Snelgrove, 

 Winterbottom, Meredith, Houghton, Murray, and many other writ- 

 ers, — as great chiefs, who held the principal sway in the kingdom of 

 Barra. They collected the king's dues (for in former times the kings 

 of Barra levied a duty of £18 on all vessels proceeding up the river 

 Gambia beyond Jillifree), and monopolized the salt trade as far as 

 the kingdom of Woollie; in consideration of which, the kings en- 

 gaged to redress the wrongs of all traders, factors, agents, or ca- 

 boceers, who held commerce with them ; and did so effectually, by 

 sending a war-man and canoe to any bey, chief, or " sooma," who 

 dared to molest friends belonging to them, that is, under their im- 

 mediate care. 



