CAPTAIN TUCKEY’S NARRATIVE. 145 
over them, without immense labour. ‘Two tufts of trees on 
the summits of the northern hills, we understood from a fish- 
erman, were the plantations round the banzas. ‘The only 
other information we could get from him was, that Yellala 
was the residence of the evil spirit, and that whoever saw 
it once would never see it a second time. 
This has been the only tolerable clear day since our en- 
tering the river; the sun being visible both at rising and 
setting, and the thermometer at two o’clock at 80°. ‘This heat 
produced a breeze in the evening stronger than any we be- 
fore experienced, and which continued all night. On a 
little sand beach, off which the boats were anchored, there 
is a regular rise and fall of water of eight inches; during 
the rise, the current is considerably slackened. 
Aug. 18. This morning at daylight I went up the river 
with the master in the gigs, to ascertain the utility of carry- 
ing the boats any farther. By crossing over from shore to 
shore as the current was found slackest, we found no diffi- 
culty in‘ getting up to Casan Yellala, which is about three 
miles above where the boats lay. We found it to be a ledge 
of rocks stretching across the north shore about two-thirds 
the breadth of the river (which here does not exceed half a 
mile), the current breaking furiously on it, but leaving a 
smooth channel near'the south shore,where the velocity of 
U 
