MANNERS OF THE BAGOS. 
163 
feet long, and five inches wide, which they wind round their 
waist, and pass between the thighs. These poor creatures 
perform all the work of the house ; they cook, and labour in 
the fields and at the salt-pits. 
The Bagos buy salt, and sell it with a profit to the 
Europeans who trade with Kakondy, receiving in exchange 
piece-goods, tobacco, rum, glass-ware, and other trifles. 
The women who are employed at the salt-works collect, 
at the ebb tide, the earth which is most impregnated with 
salt, and make heaps of it. After this first operation, they 
make large vessels or jars, of the earth mixed with straw, 
and pour into them water, which, in filtering through the 
earth, carries ofl^ all the saline particles. This water is after- 
wards poured into large coppers, in which it is boiled till 
nothing remains but the salt. Being collected into heaps, it 
is then sold to the inhabitants of Kakondy, who have a great 
market for it in the Fouta. 
The rain, which falls in torrents in the wet season, does 
not prevent the Bagos from attending to their aflkirs. Both 
men and women have a little mat, two feet and a half long 
and one foot wide, through which they pass a string which 
they tie round their heads, and this serves as a protection 
from the rain : this species of umbrella also skreens them 
from the sun. The women use it also to shelter their 
children, whom they carry constantly on their backs, from 
the burning heat of the sun. They take part of the strip of 
cotton which covers their loins to tie the child to their 
bodies : and this troublesome burden does not prevent them 
from working. Whilst they are young they shave their 
heads entirely. When they are taken in labour, they lie 
down on the ground even before a stranger, and bring forth 
without a groan. As soon as the child is born, they go and 
wash it in the river, and then resume their usual occupations, 
as if nothing had happened. 
The Bagos are accustomed to marry their children at a 
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