386 GARDENS AND VILLAGES. 



pearance of a large number of tall, dead trees standing without 

 bark, and maize growing between them. The old gardens con- 

 tinue to yield manioc for years after the owners have removed to 

 other spots for the sake of millet and maize. But, while vegeta- 

 ble aliment is abundant, there is a want of salt and animal food, 

 so that numberless traps are seen, set for mice, in all the forests 

 of Londa. The vegetable diet leaves great craving for flesh, and 

 I have no doubt but that, when an ordinary quantity of mixed 

 food is supplied to freed slaves, they actually do feel more com- 

 fortable than they did at home. Their assertions, however, mean 

 but little, for they always try to give an answer to please, and if 

 one showed them a nugget of gold, they would generally say that 

 these abounded in their country. 



One could detect, in passing, the variety of character found 

 among the owners of gardens and villages. Some villages were 

 the pictures of neatness. We entered others enveloped in a 

 wilderness of weeds, so high that, when sitting on ox-back in the 

 middle of the village, we could only see the tops of the huts. 

 If we entered at midday, the owners would come lazily forth, pipe 

 in hand, and leisurely puff away in dreamy indifference. In some 

 villages weeds are not allowed to grow ; cotton, tobacco, and dif- 

 ferent plants used as relishes are planted round the huts ; fowls 

 are kept in cages, and the gardens present the pleasant spectacle 

 of different kinds of grain and pulse at various periods of their 

 growth. I sometimes admired the one class, and at times wished 

 I could have taken the world easy for a time like the other. Ev- 

 ery village swarms with children, who turn out to see the white 

 man pass, and run along with strange cries and antics ; some run 

 up trees to get a good view: all are agile climbers throughout 

 Londa. At friendly villages they have scampered alongside our 

 party for miles at a time. We usually made a little hedge around 

 our sheds ; crowds of women came to the entrance of it, with chil- 

 dren on their backs, and long pipes in their mouths, gazing at us 

 for hours. The men, rather than disturb them, crawled through 

 a hole in the hedge, and it was common to hear a man in running 

 off say to them, " I am going to tell my mamma to come and see 

 the white man's oxen." 



In continuing our W.N.W. course, we met many parties of 

 native traders, each carrying some pieces of cloth and salt, with 



