KAGNABAK island, bissagos aeciiipelago. 583 
was organised for me. The game consisted of gazelles, and as a 
result fifteen of these graceful animals were captured. As a climax 
to all this profuse exhibition of regard and hospitality, Tayacouane 
pushed his anxiety to show his wish to make himself agreeable to me 
by insisting upon my acceptance of a young Bijougotli girl. As I 
did not wish to mortally offend his complaisant Majesty, I yielded, 
after much expostulation, by accepting the present ; but, as may well 
be imagined, the verbal acceptance of the savoury dark-skinned beauty 
ended it. 
Omitting details minute and picturesque, I will now give my 
impressions of the island and its resources, as I find these recorded 
day by day in my note-book. According to my calculation Kngnabak 
contains a population of about nineteen hundred all told. They are 
all Bijougoths of a fine black colour and of perfect symmetry. The 
women are undoubtedly exceedingly ugly as a rule, and disgustingly 
filthy, notwithstanding their being almost nude. 
This island, which, from a commercial point of view, is the most 
important ono of the whole archipelago, is very advantageously 
situated between Boubak Island and the mainland. Up to very lately 
it acknowledged as its ruler Titiak, whose authority extended to all 
the other Bissagos Islands, but his successor, Tayacouane, the same 
potentate who gave me so cordial a welcome, inherited neither his 
prestige nor his inlluence. I have already remarked that the most 
humble chief of the smallest island was called king. Among the 
Bissagos royalty scarcely implies more than an exceedingly limited 
moral authority. There is no court, no civil list, no treasury. There 
are no duties or imposts. The peaceable monarchs of these miniature 
possessions confine themselves to superintending the ceremoTiies 
attendant on the rite of circumcision, to sacrificing to the gods, and 
occasionally to meting out justice. They are assisted in these scarcely 
onerous duties by the old men of the country, who give their services 
quite gratuitously. This primitive organisation is quite in keeping 
with the iazy habits of the natives, to whom any sort of work is an 
abomination, and who have no other object in life but to assure 
themselves of their daily bread, without troubling themselves about 
the morrow. In Kagnabak there are twenty-two villages ruled over 
by twenty-two chiefs, all dignified by the title of king. As I spent 
three weeks on this island, I was enabled to visit the whole of these 
villages, which resembled each other in a remarkable degree. 
They are all situated at a distance of one kilometre from the beach. 
The reason for this appears to be that formerly the slavo ships which 
scoured the Senegambian coast were in the habit of sending armed 
crews ashore. These marauders fell suddenly at night upon the 
villages on the seashore, and carried oft their inhabitants. In order to- 
render such raids impossible the kings ordered all villages to be built at 
a kilometre distance inland — that is to say, in the heart of the forests. 
Then they left dogs to watch at the deserted villages. When the 
slavers returned they were compelled, in order to reach the new 
villages, to march in Indian file a long distance inland. Meanwhile 
the Bissagos, warned by the barking of the dogs, placed themselves in 
ambush, and in the obscurity of the night were enabled to massacre 
the greater number of the slavers. 
