This Town Lies In A Great Bay Which Is Very Deep[247], And There The People Were Chiefly Desirous To

Procure basins and cloth, though they bought a few other trifles, as knives, horse-tails, and horns; and some of

Our people who were on shore sold a cap, a dagger, a hat, and other such articles. They shewed us a coarse kind of cloth, which I believe was of French manufacture: The wool was very coarse, and the stuff was striped with various colours, as green, white, yellow, &c. Several of the negroes at this place wore necklaces of large glass beads of various colours. At this place I picked up a few words of their language, of which the following is a short specimen:

Mattea! Mattea! Is their salutation. Dassee! Dassee! I thank you. Sheke, Gold. Cowrte, Cut. Cracca, Knives. Bassina, Basins. Foco, foco, Cloth. Molta, Much, or great plenty[248]

[Footnote 247: This abrupt account of a town, &c. seems to refer back to that of St John, which they had just left. - E.]

[Footnote 248: This language seems partly corrupted. - _Hakluyt_.

Two of the words in this short specimen have been evidently adopted from the Portuguese, _bassina_ and _molta_. - E.]

In the morning of the 8th, we had sight of the Portuguese castle of Mina, but the morning being misty we could not see it distinctly till we were almost at Don Johns town, when the weather cleared up and we had a full view of the fort, beside which we noticed a white house on a hill, which seemed to be a chapel. We stood in towards the shore, within two English miles of Don Johns town, where we anchored in seven fathoms. We here found, as in many places before, that the current followed the course of the wind. At this place the land by the sea is in some places low, and in others high, everywhere covered with wood. This town of Don John[249] is but small, having only about twenty huts of the negroes, and is mostly surrounded by a fence about the height of a man, made of reeds or sedge, or some such material. After being at anchor two or three hours, without any person coming off to us, we manned our boats and put some merchandize into them, and then went with our boats very near the shore, where we anchored. They then sent off a man to us, who told us by signs that this was the town belonging to Don John, who was then in the interior, but would be home at sunset. He then demanded a reward, as most of these people do on first coming aboard, and on giving him an ell of cloth he went away, and we saw no more of him that night. In the morning of the 9th we went again near the shore with our boats, when a canoe came off to us, from the people in which we were informed by signs that Don John was not yet come home, but was expected that day. There came also a man in a canoe from another town a mile from this, called Don Devis[250], who shewed us gold, and made signs for us to go there.

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