194 PARTICULARS RESPECTING BAMBOUK. 
and the Mandingoes of Gambia, visit the country to purchase 
g-old, which may be obtained at a very low price. 
The Bamboukians profess the Mahometan religion, but 
they disregard its most rigorous laws, for they drink to intoxi- 
cation of a liquor made with honey ; they leave it to ferment 
for eight days in the sun, with millet which has been pre- 
viously made to shoot in water. 
The king of Bambouk, who reigns over a country, the 
possession of which is envied by all his neighbours, when he 
is attacked, retires with all his treasures to a mountain com- 
manded by a fort, the elevation of which is its only defence. 
The continual invasions to which the Bamboukians are 
liable have rendered them so suspicious, that they seldom 
permit strangers to enter their rich country ; especially 
Europeans, whose cupidity is known to them, and against 
whom they have had to defend themselves. If we may judge 
from the ruins of the forts erected by the Portuguese, they 
might doubtless have retained them by renewing their feeble 
garrisons, which disease and the climate must have annually 
diminished. 
