We Travelled With Great Alacrity Until Daybreak, When It Was
Discovered That A Free Woman Had Parted From The Coffle
In the night; her
name was called until the woods resounded, but no answer being given, we
conjectured that she
Had either mistaken the road, or that a lion had
seized her unperceived. At length it was agreed that four people should
go back a few miles to a small rivulet, where some of the coffle had
stopt to drink, as we passed it in the night, and that the coffle should
wait for their return. The sun was about an hour high before the people
came back with the woman, whom they found lying fast asleep by the
stream. We now resumed our journey, and about eleven o'clock reached a
walled town called Tambacunda, where we were well received. Here we
remained four days, on account of a _palaver_ which was held on the
following occasion. Modi Lemina, one of the Slatees belonging to the
coffle, had formerly married a woman of this town, who had borne him two
children; he afterwards went to Manding, and remained there eight years,
without sending any account of himself, during all that time, to his
deserted wife; who, seeing no prospect of his return, at the end of three
years had married another man, to whom she had likewise borne two
children. Lemina now claimed his wife, but the second husband refused to
deliver her up; insisting that by the laws of Africa, when a man has been
three years absent from his wife, without giving her notice of his being
alive, the woman is at liberty to marry again.
Enter page number
PreviousNext
Page 382 of 546
Words from 104092 to 104369
of 148366
