FENERAL OBSERVATIONS. 363 
to have strings of beads round their necks and arms and 
legs, and in default of these, strings of the cowrie shell, or 
of the round seeds of various plants. 
Their canoes are generally hollowed out of the trunk of 
the bombax or cotton tree, or of a species of ficus, the 
common size being about twenty-four feet in length, and 
from eighteen to twenty inches in width; and they are all 
pushed forwards with long paddles, the men standing up- 
right; they use neither sails, nor any substitute for them. 
A rude hoe of iron, stuck into a wooden handle, is the 
implement used for agricultural purposes ; but the climate 
is so fine, that, by merely scratching the surface of the 
ground, they succeed in raising good crops. The great 
scarcity of provisions, experi€nced by the party who pro- 
ceeded up the river, was occasioned entirely by the long 
drought, and that want of precaution in laying up a stock 
against such a contingency, which, it would seem, is here 
rather the effect of indolence and thoughtlessness, than 
any distrust in the right and security of property ; which 
indeed is so well understood, that almost all the disputes 
among the natives arise from their tenacity in the division 
of property, whether in land or stock. 'This participation is 
frequently so minute, that, as Captain Tuckey observes, a 
fowl or a pig may sometimes have three or four proprietors. 
PopuLaTIoN anc Conpirion oF THE PEOPLE.— 
Though the population evidently increased, the farther 
the party proceeded into the interior, the banks of 
the river were but thinly inhabited in the very best and 
