330 MR park's first journey. 
the absence of picturesque beauty is compensated 
by the fertility of the soil. Besides rice, millet, 
maize, and esculent vegetables, the natives culti- 
vate indigo and cotton in the vicinity of their towns 
and villages. Their domestic animals are almost 
the same as in Europe ; the ass is employed in 
carrying burdens ; but the plough is unknown, 
and the substitution of animal for human labour 
unpractised in agriculture. The most common wild 
animals are the elephant, panther, hyaena, and jackal. 
The negroes of the Gambia have no idea of tam- 
ing the elephant, and, when the practice is men- 
tioned, term it a white man's lie. The shrill bark 
of the jackal, and the deep howl of the hyaena, ming- 
ling with the incessant croaking of frogs, and the 
tremendous peals of midnight thunder, — form no 
pleasant symphony. The Gambia is deep and 
muddy, and its banks are covered with impenetrable 
thickets of mangroves. The stream contains sharks, 
crocodiles, and river-horses, (an animal which may 
be more properly denominated the river-elephant,) 
in immense numbers, with various kinds of excel- 
lent fish. The negroes live chiefly on vegetable 
food ; they reduce their corn to meal in a mortar, 
and most commonly use it in the form of kouskous, 
a species of pudding dressed in the steam of broth 
made with animal food. The shea-toulou, a tree, 
which, in food, is substituted for butter, and in do- 
mestic purposes for oil, is obtained in great quan- 
