We Landed At A Small Town, To See The Manners Of The
People, And About 60 Of Them Came About Us, Being At First Shy, And
Seemingly Afraid Of Us; But Seeing We Did Them No Harm, They Came Up In
A Familiar Manner, And Took Us By The Hand.
We then went into their
town, which consisted of about twenty small hovels, covered over with
large leaves.
All the sides were open, and the floor was raised like a
scaffold about a yard high, where they work many ingenious things of the
barks of trees, and there also they sleep. In some of these hovels they
work in iron, making very pretty heads for javelins, tools for making
their boats, and various other things, the women working as well as the
men.
[Footnote 232: That is grains of paradise, so the Italians called Guinea
pepper when they first saw it, not knowing what it was. We took the name
from them, and hence came the name of the Grain Coast - Astl. I. 152, a.]
[Footnote 233: Margarits may possibly have been mock pearl beads; the
manels or manellios were bracelets of some kind. - E.]
While we were among them, several of the women danced and sung after
their manner, by way of amusing us, but the sound was by no means
agreeable to our ears. Their song was continually,
Sakere, sakere, ho! ho!
Sakere, sakere, ho! ho!
And with these words they kept leaping, dancing and clapping their
hands. The only animals we saw among them were two goats, a few small
dogs, and some hens. Having seen these things, we went on board our
ships; and on seeing us depart, the chief of the other town sent two of
his servants after us with a basket of grains, making signs to us that
when we had slept, or next day, we should have plenty of grains if we
came for them: Then shewing us his grains, he went away. Accordingly,
next morning being the 17th, thinking that some business might be done
with the negroes as the captain sent for us, I sent the master with the
rest of the merchants on shore, remaining myself on board, because they
had esteemed our goods so lightly the day before. The captain
accordingly came to our people after they went up the river, bringing
grains with him, but not seeing me he made signs to know where I was,
and was answered in the same manner that I was on board ship. He then
inquired by signs who was captain, or Diago as they call it, and the
master of the ship being pointed out to him, he began to shew his
grains, but held them so unreasonably dear that no profit could be made
of them; on which, and because they seemed to have no store, the master
came away with only about 50 pounds of grains. Going on shore at the
small town on their way back to the ships, some one of our people
plucked a gourd which gave great offence to the negroes, on which many
of them came with their darts and large targets, making signs for our
men to depart; which our men did, as they had only one bow and two or
three swords among them.
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