It Would Be Hard To Guess Whence These Unkindly Feelings Originated, But They Felt That They Had Not Deserved Them, Yet The Consciousness Of Their Own Insignificance Sadly Militated Against Every Idea Of Self-Love Or Self-Importance, And Taught Them A Plain And Useful Moral Lesson.

Although they made the most charitable allowances for the Eboe people, they were, notwithstanding, obliged to consider them the most inhospitable tribe, as well as the most covetous and uncivil, that they were acquainted with.

Their monarch, and a respectable married female, who had passed the meridian of her days, were the only individuals, amongst several thousands, that showed them anything like civility or kindness, and the latter alone acted, as they were convinced, solely from disinterested motives.

All ranks of people here are passionately fond of palm wine, and drank of it to excess, whenever they had an opportunity, which often occurred, as great quantities of it are produced in the town and its neighbourhood. It was a very general and favourite custom with them, as soon as the sun had set, to hold large meetings and form parties in the open air, or under the branches of trees, to talk over the events of the day, and make merry with this exciting beverage. These assemblies are kept up until after midnight, and as the revellers generally contrive to get inebriated very soon after they sit down to drink, the greater part of the evening is devoted to wrangling and fighting, instead of convivial intercourse, and occasionally the most fearful noises that it is possible for the mind to conceive. Bloodshed, and even murder, it is said, not unfrequently terminate these boisterous and savage entertainments. A meeting of this description was held outside the yard of their residence every evening, and the noise which they made was really terrifying, more especially when the women and young people joined in the affray, for a quarrel of some sort was sure to ensue. Their cries, groans, and shrieks of agony were dreadful, and would lead a stranger to suppose, that these dismal and piercing sounds proceeded from individuals about to be butchered, or that they were extorted by the last pangs of anguish and suffering. The Landers trembled with alarm for the first night or two, imagining from these loud and doleful cries, that a work of bloodshed and slaughter was in progress. They found it useless to endeavour to sleep till the impression of the first wild cry that was uttered, and the last faint scream had worn away. But by degrees they became in some measure more reconciled to them, from the frequency of their occurrence, or rather they felt less apprehension than formerly, as to their origin; understanding with surprise that they were only the effects of a simple quarrel, and excite from the inhabitants no more than a casual remark, although it is said that in fits of ungovernable passion, the most heinous crimes are consummated in these frantic revels.

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