INTERIOR OF AFRICA. 359 
undertook to discharge all the pecuniary engagements which 
I had entered into since my departure from the Gambia, and 
took my draft upon the Association for the amount. My 
agreement with Karfa (as I have already related), was to pay 
him the value of one prime slave ; for which I had given him 
my bill upon Dr. Laidley, before we departed from Kamalia : 
for, in case of my death on the road, I was unwilling that my 
benefactor should be a loser. But this good creature had con- 
tinued to manifest towards me so much kindness, that I thought 
I made him but an inadequate recompence, when I told him 
that he was now to receive double the sum I had originally 
promised ; and Dr. Laidley assured him that he was ready 
to deliver the goods to that amount, whenever he thought 
proper to send for them. Karfa was overpowered by this 
unexpected token of my gratitude, and still more so, when 
he heard that I intended to send a handsome present to 
the good old schoolmaster, Fankooma, at Malacotta. He 
promised to carry up the goods along with his own, and Dr. 
Laidley assured him, that he would exert himself in assisting 
him to dispose of his slaves to the best advantage, the moment 
a slave vessel should arrive. These, and other instances of 
attention and kindness shewn him by Dr. Laidley, were not 
lost upon Karfa. He would often say to me, " my journey has 
" indeed been prosperous \" But, observing the improved state 
of our manufactures, and our manifest superiority in the arts 
of civilized life, he would sometimes appear pensive, and ex- 
claim with an involuntary sigh, fato Jing inta feng, "black 
« men are nothing/' At other times, he would ask me with 
