134 
THE AUTHOR ENTERS BONDOU. 
breathe more freely, and the joy which I felt on finding myself 
safe from the perfidy of the Poulas who inhabit that kingdom, 
made the distance to Boquequillé, the first village of Bondou, 
seem very short. I had a son of Almamy of Bondou for a 
fellow traveller. This prince lodged me in the best hut in 
the village, he neglected nothing by which I might recognize 
the hand to which T owed all this kindness. The heat which 
I felt at Boquequillé was excessive ; in these scorching countries 
a stranger would be almost induced to imagine himself in a 
constant fever ; it was impossible for me towards three o'clock 
in the afternoon to handle the barrel of my gun. When the 
rays of the sun had become less powerful, we resumed our 
journey ; after travelling two leagues we stopped near a well, 
round which many women were assembled. One of them 
exclaimed, " there is a white man !" In a moment they all 
scampered away, overturning their buckets and pitchers. 
One, however, who was bolder than the rest, came and took 
me by the hand ; her companions immediately followed her 
example, with that air of assurance which people sometimes 
affect at the moment when they are chilled with fright. All 
these Naiads were young, pretty, and well proportioned, and 
notwithstanding their jet black colour, it would have required 
the virtue of a stoic to behold them with indifference. I 
quitted these damsels with regret, and their adieus proved that 
my presence no longer excited terror, and that kindness and 
friendship had taken the place of that sentiment. 
