252 FESSADOUGOU. 
he said he had procured at Sierra-Leone. He feared that 
he intended to desert, and begged me to write an amulet to 
prevent him. The man was very earnest in his request, 
and offered immediately to furnish me with ink and paper. 
However, as I did not wish to write European characters, 
for fear of exciting suspicion, 1 observed that having left 
my country very young I did not know how to make grigris, 
and 1 begged him to apply to some one more learned than 
I. Next day I saw the poor slave bearing on his head a 
burthen which he could scarcely carry, fastened to a rope 
the other end of which was tied round his leg, so that 
it was out of his power to run away ; for his prudent and 
suspicious master took care that he should not have a knife 
to cut the rope. 
Our host sent us a good supper of rice, which I added to 
my fowl. All the evening, and indeed till night was pretty 
well advanced, the young negroes and negresses amused them- 
selves by dancing to the sound of the tomtom. Their dancing 
was more decorous than that of the Wolof negroes in the 
neighbourhood of the Senegal. 
On the 14th of June, at seven in the morning, our 
caravan proceeded onward in the direction of E. S. E. After 
travelling three miles, we passed near the river, and advanced 
six miles eastward. We then turned half a mile to the 
north, to reach the village of Fessadougou, where we halted 
about noon. This village, which contains a population of 
about three or four hundred, is situated on the bank of a 
river, about half the width of the Dhioliba at Courouassa. I 
at first conjectured that it was a branch of that river; but I 
observed that the direction of its current, which flowed at 
the rate of about three miles and a half an hour, was from 
south to north. The Mandingoes informed me that it falls 
into the Dhioliba, not far from this place. The river is called 
the Yendan ; its banks are for the most part low and open. 
