SALUTATION OF THENEW MOON. 
41 
mounted on fine horses, gallopping along the shore, and by 
the most horrid yells instigating their companions in the 
canoes to board us. This tumult was insulferable. We 
did not entirely get rid of our tormentors until our arrival at 
Cabra. Every evening our canoes were obliged to give them 
rice and millet for their supper^ in return for vrhich they 
presented the chief of the flotilla with a little bull, which was 
killed and distributed among the masters of the different 
canoes. The reports of the muskets which the negroes fired 
before the camp, frightened the horses of those Soorgoos 
who had ridden from the interior for the purpose of sharing 
the spoil. 
On the 17th of April, at six in the morning, the flotilla 
stood to the north. We had not proceeded above four or 
five miles, when we were obliged to stop and wait for one of 
the great canoes which had sprung a leak, and was in mo- 
mentary danger of sinking ; the sailors on board set about 
repairing it ; they plunged into the water with great agility 
and put oakum into the seams along the keel. About three 
in the afternoon all was put to rights, and we again pursued 
our course. The river was very wide and deep, and its 
banks were naked and marshy ; it took a little turn to the 
east, and afterwards to the north : in every direction nothing 
was visible but marshes, without trees of any kind. At sun- 
set the new moon was saluted by several discharges of mus- 
ketry, which so terrified the Soorgoos, that they hastened 
ashore, and 1 heard some of them exclaim in their little canoes, 
" God preserve us from gunpowder 1 " The only arms used 
by these people, are lances and poniards. About seven o'clock 
we passed Caratoo, a little village on the right bank, and 
about nine, we stopped at an uninhabited place. 
At five in the morning, of the 18th of April, we con- 
tinued our voyage. The river turned eastward, and at seven 
o'clock we found its course changing to N. E. ; it then be- 
came rather narrow, the banks being all along very low and 
