MARKET-DAY AT SA YANNA-LE-MAR. 57 
MARKET-DAY. 
Feh. Is^. — Having occasion to visit Savanna-le- 
Mar, I took the opportunity of crossing the Bay in a 
negro’s canoe. Saturday is market-day; and many 
of the black and coloured people resort on that day 
to the towns from the country, some on horseback, 
some on foot carrying their own loads, others driving 
donkeys, and others by sea in canoes, with provisions 
for sale. The concourse, the gossip, and the excite- 
ment of the market present great charms to the 
negro’s mind ; I have known, repeatedly, a woman 
to carry on her head a huge tray of yams to Savanna- 
le-Mar, a journey of twelve miles, and return the 
same evening ; when she had actually refused to sell 
her produce at Bluefields-house, close to her own 
door, for a price larger, actually larger, than she ex- 
pected to get at the market. 
At sunrise I walked down to the beach, and 
waited until the preparations were completed, much 
amused at the busy scene presented by the shore, 
usually so still and solitary. Three or four canoes 
lay half-launched at the water’s edge, around which 
were congregated nearly a hundred persons ; and 
more were continually arriving with trays or shal- 
low baskets of provisions and fruit on their heads. 
Heaps of yams, cocoes, sweet potatoes, plantains, 
pumpkins, oranges, sugar-canes, and other produce, 
calabashes of water, bottles, &c., were lying about, 
which with much clamour were being deposited in 
the canoes. The jabber was immense ; — a hundred 
negroes, many of them women, all talking at once 
