504 FUNERAL OBSERVANCES. 



next bog, in the hope of bringing us to a stand, for all are excess- 

 ively eager to trade ; but food was so very cheap that we some- 

 times preferred paying them to keep it, and let us part in good 

 humor. A good-sized fowl could be had for a single charge of 

 gunpowder. Each native who owns a gun carries about with him 

 a measure capable of holding but one charge, in which he receives 

 his powder. Throughout this region the women are almost en- 

 tirely naked, their gowns being a patch of cloth frightfully narrow, 

 with no flounces ; and nothing could exceed the eagerness with 

 which they offered to purchase strips of calico of an inferior de- 

 scription. They were delighted with the large pieces we gave, 

 though only about two feet long, for a fowl and a basket of up- 

 ward of 20 lbs. of meal. As we had now only a small remnant 

 of our stock, we were obliged to withstand their importunity, and 

 then many of their women, with true maternal feelings, held up 

 their little naked babies, entreating us to sell only a little rag for 

 them. The fire, they say, is their only clothing by night, and the 

 little ones derive heat by sticking closely to their parents. Instead 

 of a skin or cloth to carry their babies in, the women plait a belt 

 about four inches broad, of the inner bark of a tree, and this, hung 

 from the one shoulder to the opposite side, like a soldier's belt, 

 enables them to support the child by placing it on their side in a 

 sitting position. Their land is very fertile, and they can raise 

 ground-nuts and manioc in abundance. Here I observed no cot- 

 ton, nor any domestic animals except fowls and little dogs. The 

 chief possessed a few goats, and I never could get any satisfactory 

 reason why the people also did not rear them. 



On the evening of the 2d of June we reached the village of Ka- 

 wawa, rather an important personage in these parts. This village 

 consists of forty or fifty huts, and is surrounded by forest. Drums 

 were beating over the body of a man who had died the preceding 

 day, and some women were making a clamorous wail at the door 

 of his hut, and addressing the deceased as if alive. The drums 

 continued beating the whole night, with as much regularity as a 

 steam-engine thumps on board ship. We observed that a person 

 dressed fantastically with a great number of feathers left the peo- 

 ple at the dance and wailing, and went away into the deep forest 

 in the morning, to return again to the obsequies in the evening ; 

 he is intended to represent one of the Barimo. 



