CAPTAIN TUCKEY'S NARRATIVE. 93 



one of their countrymen on board returning from slavery, 

 they greeted us with cheers, after their fashion, and clapping 

 of hands. A great quantity of shell fish, of the Mya genus, 

 are taken out of the mud round Kampenzey island by the 

 natives ; and tiie fish, stuck on wooden skewers, as the 

 French do frogs, and half dried, are an object of trafific ; 

 their state of half putrefaction being entirely to the taste of 

 the Negroes. In a raw state they are uneatable, having no 

 flavour of the oyster, though confounded with that fish by 

 the English who have visited the river. 



At noon, Ave weighed with a light breeze at S. W., and ran 

 along the main bank until opposite the entrance of Max- 

 well's river, when, by the advice of a native on board, we 

 attempted to pass between tlie two easternmost of Draper's 

 islands, but found them joined by a bank with only 6 feet, 

 where deepest ; and keeping too close to the eastern island 

 we grounded in 2^ feet, but shoved the boat off w^ithout 

 difiiculty ; and by sending the gig ahead, passed round the 

 shoals through a very winding channel in 2, 3, and 4 

 fathoms; then ran along the south side of Monkey's 

 island of the chart (Zoonga Chinganga of the natives), and 

 the islands east of it, in 6, 7, 8, and 9 fathoms. Here we 

 lost the mangrove tract, and the soil became a stift^ clay, cut 

 into perpendicular low cliffs at the margin of the river, 



