The Chief Sat Down On The Turf, With The
Landers On Each Side Of Him, While His Men Stood Around Leaning On Their
Weapons.
Employing an interpreter who understood the Haussa language, the
chief stated, that he had taken them for a hostile
Party, who meditated a
midnight attack upon the village, to carry away the inhabitants as
slaves, but that his heart had relented when he saw them approach in
peaceful and friendly guise, and that he had thought that they were
"_children of heaven_" who had dropped from the skies. "And now," said he
"white men, all I ask is your forgiveness." "That you shall have most
heartily," said the travellers, shaking hands with him cordially; and
they internally returned thanks to God for this signal preservation.
Fifty miles farther on, they came to Damugoo, the chief of which place
gave them a very kind reception, and sent a canoe, manned by some of his
subjects to accompany and guide them to the coast. Yet he was a
tyrannical despot, and told the travellers to cut off the heads of his
people, if they annoyed them by crowding to see them. Here they saw
manifest traces of European intercourse; the natives wore Manchester
cottons, and the chief presented the travellers with a case bottle of
rum, a liquor which they had not tasted since they left Kiama.
About a mile from Damugoo, they saw two streams which appeared to be
branches of the Niger; one of which came from the eastward, while the
other flowed from the westward.
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