VOYAGE TO THE NIGER. 101 
best linguist, and our intercourse with the natives being very 
great, I could hardly ever avail myself of his aid. At a 
distance this all appears trivial, but to a traveller in my 
situation the frequent repetition of such trials is extremely 
disheartening. The natives, perceiving our wishes, brought 
chiefly arms on board, some apparently made in a hurry for the 
occasion; also calabashes, mats and sacks of plaited grass, 
honey, palm-wine, stuffs of their own manufacture, reels of 
cotton, earth-nuts, yams, goats, sheep, poultry and fat. In 
return they took cowries, cloth, wearing-apparel and particu- 
larly looking-glasses ; the latter being chiefly bought by the 
women. The women are often beautifully painted with red 
Camwood (?) pulverized and made into balls as large as a fist, 
and thus sold; the eyelids they paint with antimony, which - 
they brought with them on board in very neat cylindrical 
cases made of skins. 
Wednesday, September 15.—The intercourse with the 
natives continued. They bring, besides the things mentioned ; 
tobacco, which they call taba, in flat rolled disks ; also a chalk- 
like substance, prepared from burnt bones, with which they — 
rub the fingers when spinning, it is called Effu in the Aku — 
language, Alli in Houssa, they kept this in small calabashes, 
orin masses like elongated dice; whips of hippopotamus 
skins, called Uoji; some rice, grown on the e : 
and a few Limes. The process for ischarging th. 
seemed to me ingenious. They have a ade with a a some- _ 
= what broad handle into which they insert the hand,* and pull 
"up the string of the bow with the back of the handle, being —— 
thus sure not to hurt the hand, and are thus ready to 
: Alte whatever the arrow may have hit. On 
