CAPTAIN TUCKEY’S NARRATIVE. 177 
We purchased half a dozen fowls, but were obliged to pay 
for water, at the rate of three beads for a canteen. There 
is here a good deal of lignum vite, the largest seen about 
four inches in diameter. 
Aug. 24. Though the guide was promised at day-light, I 
found that the people of the banza wished to throw every 
obstacle in the way of our proceeding, assuring us, that the 
people further on would shoot us from the bushes, &c. &e. 
which produced the effect of making the men that had 
brought our things from Cooloo refuse to proceed any 
further. Atlength I was under the necessity of secretly pro- 
mising one of the gentlemen a piece of baft for his good 
offices ; when he immediately offered himself as a guide, and 
five of his boys to carry our provisions. Leaving therefore 
every thing but these and our water, under the care of the 
Cooloo men, we at last set off, at eleven o’clock. At the 
end of the banza we passed a blacksmith at work, fitting a 
hoe into a handle ; his bellows was composed of two skin 
bags, and his anvil a large stone. The progress seemed 
very slow, the iron never being brought to a red heat. Our 
route lay chiefly along the winding bottom of a valley 
between two ridges of hills ; the valley generally very fertile, 
but now without water, though furrowed by extremely deep 
beds of torrents. In the valley we found two towns, sur- 
Aa 
