CAPTAIN TUCKEY'S NARRATIVE. 161 



for if one is badly treated, he runs ofl', and goes over to the 

 territory of another Chenoo, where he is received by some 

 proprietor of land, which inevitably produces a feud 

 between the people of the two districts. The trading or 

 marketable slaves are those purchased from the itinerant 

 black slave merchants, and are either taken in war, kidnap- 

 ped, or condemned for crimes ; the first two of these classes, 

 however, evidently form the great mass of the exjjorted 

 slaves ; and it Avould seem that the kidnapped ones (or as the 

 slave merchants who speak English call it " catching in the 

 bush"), are by far the most numerous. This practice how- 

 ever is certainly unknown at present on the banks of this 

 river as far as we have yet proceeded. 



The property which a man dies possessed of devolves 

 to his brothers or uterine uncles, but prescriptively, as 

 it would appear, for the use of the family of the deceased ; 

 for they are bound by custom (which is here tantamount to 

 our written laws) to provide in a proper manner for the 

 wives and children of the deceased ; and the wives they may 

 make their own, as in the Mosaic dispensation. 



Crimes are punished capitallj^ by decapitation, by gra- 

 dual amputation of the limbs, by burning and by drowning. 

 The only capital crimes, however, seem to be poisoning, 

 and adultery with the wives of the great men. This latter 



Y 



