340 
THE BISAGOS. 
hogs and poultry ; of fish there is no want, but the people 
abstain from it because it induces fever. Game is not common, 
maize, foigne, yams, potatoes, cassada, bananas, papaws, 
guavas and oranges, abound throughout the country ; some 
European vegetables are also met with ; millet is veiy scarce. 
At Bissao are to be seen many nations as different in their 
manners as their dress. 
The Bisagos occupy the Archipelago of the same name, 
at the mouth of the Rio Grande, and that part of the continent 
contiguous to it. They are the bravest and most powerful of 
the Negro tribes in all this part of Africa ; almost all of 
them have musquets or lances, which they use with much 
address ; obeying an infinite number of petty despots, each 
more cruel than the other, instead of one tyrant they have a 
thousand. The courts of these petty kings are still more 
tempestuous than those of great potentates, for I saw the 
whole family of a minister of one of these monarchs arrive at 
Bissao, which, by one of those capricious freaks so common 
among African princes, was sent to be sold at the European 
settlement; this family consisted of thirteen persons. The 
diet of these people is extremely simple, which is the more 
surprising, as the soil of their islands is so fertile ; a few 
bananas or palm-nuts appease their hunger, during the short 
voyages they make from their islands to the main. They 
spend much of their time in fishing, and trade in tortoise-shell. 
A deer-skin serves them for breeches ; interwoven rushes 
