Ascend the Main Stream of the Roankiddi. 363 



had asked for, fresh phickcd from the slender cocoa-stem, as 

 well as a sugar-cane, and some ginger [Zingiber officinalis) ; all 

 these refreshments were handed us amid much hilarity by a 

 lot of daughters of Eve, young, not the least shy, but by no 

 means attractive, whom a present of two small mirrors in 

 return sent away in a state of enthusiastic delight. On'our 

 return to Dr. Cook's hut on the shore, several natives had 

 approached who bartered mussels and fresh fruit for tobacco, 

 which they preferred to everything, besides a number of 

 young females, who were retailing, from small bags hung 

 round their persons, the different animals they had collected 

 the same mornins^ at ebb-tide amonf? the coral reefs. 



One of the white settlers offered his services as guide, to 

 pilot us up the Roankiddi river as far as a village of the natives 

 about two miles inland, where the chief of the nation dwelt, 

 and several American missionaries had formed a settlement. 

 Before reaching the main stream, which is about 100 feet 

 wide and is densely wooded on either side, we had to j^ass 

 various small branches and canals, which appeared to be arti- 

 ficially constructed, and wind about in a succession of extra- 

 ordinary meanderings beneath an elastic covering of conical 

 mangrove roots. For about a mile inwards there was nothing 

 but dreary, swampy, unlovely mangrove forest, after which 

 the vegetation on either shore began to assume an unusually 

 variegated but thoroughly tropical appearance. Palms, bread- 

 fruit trees, pandanus trees, papayas, caladias, Barringtonias, 

 were the chief representatives of this abounding forest flora. 



202 



