8 TRAVELS IN THE 
in the country, and constant intercourse with the natives, had 
made himself completely master of it. Next to the language, 
my great object was to collect information concerning the coun- 
tries I intended to visit. On this occasion I was referred to 
certain traders called Slatees. These are free black merchants, 
of great consideration in this part of Africa, who come down 
from the interior countries, chiefly with enslaved Negroes for 
sale ; but I soon discovered that very little dependance could be 
placed on the accounts which they gave ; for they contradicted 
each other in the most important particulars, and_all of them 
seemed extremely unwilling that I should prosecute my journey. 
These circumstances increased my anxiety to ascertain the truth 
from my own personal observations. 
In researches of this kind, and in observing the manners and 
customs of the natives, in a country so little known to the 
nations of Europe, and furnished with so many striking and 
uncommon objects of nature, my time passed not unpleasantly ; 
and I began to flatter myself that I had escaped the fever, or. 
seasoning, to which Europeans, on their first arrival in hot 
climates, are generally subject. But, on the 31st of July, I 
imprudently exposed myself to the night dew, in observing an 
eclipse of the moon, with a view to determine the longitude of 
the place : the next day I found myself attacked with a smart 
fever arid delirium ; and such an illness followed, as confined me 
to the house during the greatest part of August. My recovery 
was very slow : but I embraced every short interval of con- 
valescence to walk out, and make myself acquainted with the 
productions of the country. In one of those excursions, having 
