HOSPITABLE RECEPTION AT BOIE. 
241 
with orang-e, banana, and papaw- trees. It is easy to con- 
ceive the pleasure felt by a traveller, who had just traversed 
districts producing only bitter or tasteless fruits, on arriving 
in a country abounding in the richest gifts of nature. Fouta 
Jallon is indebted to the Portuguese for these valuable produc- 
tions. They are not indigenous in Africa, and the Negro knows 
them by no other names than those which they bear in the 
Portuguese language. The sone, however, which I saw for the 
first time in this riimhdé, and which produces exquisite fruit, 
hanging in a bunch like grapes, is an African tree. 
We had scarcely left this rumbcle, v/hen we met an old 
man who begged me to take off my hat : he then laid hold of 
my head with both his hands and rubbed them over his face, 
expressing the greatest satisfaction at having seen a white man 
before he died. After crossing a bridge made of the trunk of 
a tree, over the river of Boié, which unites with the Faleme, 
we entered Boié, a very pretty village in a charming situation. 
We were waiting for some one to ofier us an asylum, when 
Boubakar, the chief of the village, arrived, accompanied by his 
three wives ; he was returning from his plantations where he 
had been directing the labours of his slaves. When these 
women perceived me, they covered themselves with their veils. 
Boubakar desired them to uncover themselves, and to salute 
me; he then took me into one of his huts. They immediately 
shewed me so much kindness, that I was reminded of the 
attentions I had received in the house of Fonebé. They 
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