182 JOURNEY ACROSS THE MOUNTAINS. 
little English, came to my aid. He helped to interpret what 
I said, and thus peace was restored among us. 
The merchants spent the remainder of the day in ex- 
amining their goods and I amused myself in looking about 
the neighbourhood of the village. I saw several furnaces 
for smelting iron, a metal which is found in great abun- 
dance among the mountains. These furnaces, which are 
from five to ten feet high, and eighteen or twenty feet in 
circumference, have a chimney at top, and four holes at the 
base, in the direction of east, west, north and south. At a 
little distance from the village, there are some small streams, 
which descend from the mountains and run rapidly over beds 
of granite. Here I took the opportunity of bathing, and some 
of the Mandingoes washed their clothes. 
At half-past five, on the morning of the 27th, we left the 
village of Lantegue, to cross the chain of mountains of that 
name, proceeding to the S. E. Some of these mountains ap- 
peared to be three hundred and fifty and four hundred fathoms 
above the elevated plain on which we were. I observed some 
very beautiful granite of a whitish-grey colour. We passed not 
far from a little village, where the Foulahs were tending their 
cattle. As we crossed the chain of mountains, I saw the poor 
negroes, with loads on their heads, leaping from precipice to 
precipice, and every moment expected to see them fall into 
the yawning gulphs beneath. From the depths proceeds a 
dull murmur, produced by the numerous springs which rise 
among the mountains. They fall into the plain beneath, 
where they form a sort of river. When we descended we 
saw nothing but mountains on every side, though none ap- 
peared so high as those which 1 had seen in the morning. 
At the part where we crossed the chain, it extends in the 
direction from N. E. to S. S. E. I did not perceive any 
snow. I saw some very beautiful black granite, both in 
strata three or four feet thick and in blocks. I also saw 
grey, white, and pale rose-coloured granite of a very beau- 
