OBI OSAl’S WIVES. 
231 
other cruel superstitions to which the Commissioners had 
drawn his serious attention. This, if tme, negatived 
all his assertions that such practices did not exist. 
Some of the officers accompanied Obi to his palace 
after the conference. They went up the creek — till it had 
so contracted in width, that there was hardly passage for 
the canoes, on account of the overhanging trees — and 
then paddled to the extremity of a smaller creek, where 
the canoe grounded. The King was carefully mounted 
on the shoulders of one of his slaves, and cai’rled to his 
house. The same method was proposed to our officers ; 
who, however, finding from the difficulty the men had 
to get through the mud with their burden, that there 
was some chance of being pitched head-foremost into it, 
preferred the minor inconvenience of getting up to their 
knees by using their own locomotives. 
On arriving at the palace, the King invited them to 
sit on his throne ; a mud couch, covered with matting. 
Obi gave them palm-wine, and began to relate the result 
of his visit to the white man’s ship ; of all the won- 
derful things he had seen, and the still stranger things 
they had told him ; of its being wrong to buy and sell 
slaves, &c. He had a numerous and willing audience in 
his wives, who crowded round the door of their chamber, 
expressing their astonishment at all they heard by loud 
exclamations and various gestures. They were of dif- 
ferent ages, some being young and good-looking, but 
all fat enough. At another door were about twenty of a 
more mature age, which the interpreter said were 
