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Two hundred miles up the river Gambia is our most distant mili- 

 tary station, McCarthy's Island, which we purchased from the king of 

 Kattabar. It is about nine miles in length, and one to one and a half 

 in breadth, and forms the principal depot for the merchants' goods, con- 

 sisting of blue and white bafts, cotton prints, sugar, guns, gunpowder, 

 tobacco, salt, and rum — the white man's fire water, which has been and 

 is the burning curse — the poisonous draught — the fatal fountain from 

 whence flows the long list of crimes which stain the wild Indian's 

 and the savage African's career for centuries. To it may be traced 

 the bloodiest records in the history of the Old and New World ; and 

 the moral, religious, civilized Europeans have a fearful account to 

 answer for. 



Beyond M'Carthy's Island the river becomes wilder, more ro- 

 mantic, the banks loftier and more thinly inhabited. Alligators, hippo- 

 potami, baboons and monkeys, of great size, and uncommon strength 

 and ferocity, crowd the banks, and follow the steamer or boats with 

 barking and howling, little intimidated by the discharge of fire-arms. 

 The natives entertain a respect, mingled with fear, for the large ba- 

 boons, and class them with the devil. Indeed, when passing a hill, 

 said to be the especial resort of the devil, the natives salute, not 

 by profound bows, genuflexions, retreating backwards, or flinging 

 dust upon their heads, but by turning their backs, and dancing 

 an antic bolero for some minutes ; and they are so firmly per- 

 suaded of the necessity of this ceremony, that no promise or 

 reward will induce one of them to pass the Devil's Hill sans 

 salutation. 



The far-famed Falls of Barraconda, beyond which few white men 

 have advaiiced, are nothing more or less than shoals, formed by the 

 river rushinor over a ledge of sunken rocks, extending diagonally 

 across the channel. In the rains, a vessel can pass over the Falls, 

 and the whole country is inundated for miles. 



A few hunters for ivory, or wandering traders, occasionally fre- 

 quent the Falls, but no factories or settlements extend to this dis- 

 tance. Captain Stibbs, who was despatched by the Duke of Chandos, 

 Director of the Royal African Company, in 1723, proceeded beyond 

 the Falls of Barraconda, until the river became too shallow to float 

 the boats, even when the channel was 160 yards broad. He de- 

 scribes the few natives he met with as a harmless people, who sup- 

 plied him abundantly with fowls and provisions; but he found hini- 



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