My Recovery Was Very Slow, But I Embraced Every Short
Interval Of Convalescence To Walk Out, And Make Myself Acquainted
With The Productions Of The Country.
In one of those excursions, having rambled farther than usual, on a
hot day, I brought on a return of my fever, and on the 10th of
September I was again confined to my bed.
The fever, however, was
not so violent as before; and in the course of three weeks I was
able, when the weather would permit, to renew my botanical
excursions; and when it rained, I amused myself with drawing plants,
&c., in my chamber. The care and attention of Dr. Laidley
contributed greatly to alleviate my sufferings; his company and
conversation beguiled the tedious hours during that gloomy season,
when the rain falls in torrents; when suffocating heats oppress by
day, and when the night is spent by the terrified travellers in
listening to the croaking of frogs (of which the numbers are beyond
imagination), the shrill cry of the jackal, and the deep howling of
the hyaena, a dismal concert, interrupted only by the roar of such
tremendous thunder as no person can form a conception of but those
who have heard it.
The country itself being an immense level, and very generally
covered with wood, presents a tiresome and gloomy uniformity to the
eye; but although Nature has denied to the inhabitants the beauties
of romantic landscapes, she has bestowed on them, with a liberal
hand, the more important blessings of fertility and abundance. A
little attention to cultivation procures a sufficiency of corn, the
fields afford a rich pasturage for cattle, and the natives are
plentifully supplied with excellent fish, both from the Gambia river
and the Walli creek.
The grains which are chiefly cultivated are - Indian corn (zea mays);
two kinds of holcus spicatus, called by the natives soono and sanio;
holcus niger, and holcus bicolor, the former of which they have
named bassi woolima, and the latter bassiqui. These, together with
rice, are raised in considerable quantities; besides which, the
inhabitants in the vicinity of the towns and villages have gardens
which produce onions, calavances, yams, cassavi, ground nuts,
pompions, gourds, water-melons, and some other esculent plants.
I observed likewise, near the towns, small patches of cotton and
indigo. The former of these articles supplies them with clothing,
and with the latter they dye their cloth of an excellent blue
colour, in a manner that will hereafter be described.
In preparing their corn for food, the natives use a large wooden
mortar called a paloon, in which they bruise the seed until it parts
with the outer covering, or husk, which is then separated from the
clean corn by exposing it to the wind, nearly in the same manner as
wheat is cleared from the chaff in England. The corn thus freed
from the husk is returned to the mortar and beaten into meal, which
is dressed variously in different countries; but the most common
preparation of it among the nations of the Gambia is a sort of
pudding which they call kouskous.
Enter page number
PreviousNext
Page 5 of 88
Words from 2054 to 2572
of 45803
