CAPTAIN TUCKEY’S NARRATIVE. 87 
curiosity. ‘Their general cargoes were salt, and palm nuts, 
from the latter of which they extract oil. ‘The salt is pro- 
cured from the north shore, in the district of Boolambemba, 
near Fathomless Point. In one of these canoes were also 
an elephant’s tooth and a boy for sale. | 
From the natives who were on board we learnt that the 
King of Sonio resides at Banza Sonio, on a fresh water river, 
the entrance of which is the creek marked in Maxwell’s chart 
«¢ Raphael’s creek,” and that a boat would be twelve hours 
ascending to the town, though the current is trifling. We 
also now learnt how the human bones came in the place 
where they were seen by the Naturalists nearShark Point, 
and which, without an explanation, might have led to the 
supposed cannibalism of the natives; we were however 
assured that they were the remains of criminals, who had 
suffered for the crime of poisoning, this spot being the place 
of execution of a certain district. When a common man is 
convicted of this crime, his head is first severed, and his 
body then burnt ; but the punishment of a culprit of su- 
perior rank is much more barbarous, the members being 
amputated one by one, so as to preserve life, and one of each 
sent to the principal towns of the kingdom, to be there 
burnt. The trial is always by a kind of ordeal. 
This afternoon the transport weighed with the sea 
