ESTABLISHMENTS ON THE GAMBIA. 
43 
racter: they never pardon an injury, but transfer their hatred to 
their children as a sacred inheritance^ so that a son must necessa- 
rily avenge the offence received by his father. At their festivals 
they drink a quantity of mead, and their drunkenness ahnost al- 
ways produces quarrels : if on these occasions a man lose his lile, 
his eldest son takes his sandals and wears them every year on the 
anniversary of his death, till he have had an opportunity to avenge 
it; and the murderer seldom escapes this determined resentment. 
The Felups, however, notwithstanding this ferocious and unruly 
disposition, have several good qualities ; they are very grateful, 
have the greatest affection for their benefactors, and restore 
•\vhatever is entrusted to their cure, with the most scrupulous 
iidelity. 
The Yolofs are active, pov/erful, and warlike; they inhabita 
part of the vast territory w hich extends between tlie Senegal and 
that occupied by the Mandingos on the banks of the Gambia. 
I shall speak of them more fully in the description which I sliall 
give of the Senegal, and in \\ hich I shall include some account 
of the different people w ho inhabit its banks. 
The Foulahs have a complexion of a rather deep black colour, 
silky hair, and small and agreeable features; their manners are 
mild, and they love a pastoral and agricultural life. Tliey are 
dispersed through several kingdoms on the coast of the river 
Ganibia as shepherds and farmers; and they pay a tribute to the 
sovereign of the country which they cultivate. They are natives 
of the kingdom of Bondou, situated between the Gambia and the 
Senegal, near Bambouk : they leave thei^ country in large bodies 
in search of distant territories, where they can extend their in- 
dustry ; and after making, what they conceive, a fortune^, they 
return to enjoy the result of their labours. 
To recur to the establishments which have been formed by 
Europeans on the river Gambia, it should be stated that t\m 
Portuguese replaced the French oii that river, and that the for- 
mer were succeeded by the English. They established them- 
selves at a distance of fourteen leagues from its mouth, on a little 
isle not more than seventy or eighty fathoms in length, by forty 
or fifty in width. They built a tolerably strong fort flanked by 
three bastions, and constructed several redoubts on different parts 
of the isle; but in the war from 1()88 to 169-^, several attacks 
were made on this settlement by the French with various success, 
and which ended in a convention for a permanent neutrality be- 
tween France and England in that part of the world. The pos- 
sessions of the French were confirmed by the treaty of 1783; 
and at present the only post which the French possess in the 
Gambia, is Albreda on the territories of the king of Barra, to 
whom they pay a duty of 810 livres. It is a possession at the 
T O 
X' 
