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Mr Kingston having taken the Lark schooner to Sierra Leone, where she was condemned, was appointed to HMS Saracen, which soon afterwards arrived there. From that place the Saracen sailed for the river Gambia, soon after the 2nd of March.
On my arrival at Kamalia I was conducted to the house of a bushreen named Karfa Taura, the brother of him to whose hospitality I was indebted at Kinyeto. He was collecting a coffle of slaves, with a view to sell them to the Europeans on the Gambia as soon as the rains should be over. I found him sitting in his baloon, surrounded by several slatees who proposed to join the coffle.
On the morning following, we crossed a stream called Noulico, and about two o'clock, to my infinite joy, I saw myself once more on the banks of the Gambia, which at this place being deep and smooth, is navigable; but the people told me that a little lower down, the stream is so shallow that the coffles frequently cross it on foot.
With this view he made a contract with a negro merchant, named Loumein-Yoa, who understood the language of the Mandingoes, to serve him as an interpreter and guide on a pacific expedition and overture. Having passed the river Gambia, when the heat compelled him to avail himself of the cooling shade of the forest, he suspended his arms upon a tree, to rest himself.
We could easily have hired hammocks or horses, or, these failing, have walked the distance, six or seven miles. True, Oyster Creek, the shallow western outlet of the Gambia, has still a ferry: a bridge was lately built, but it fell before it was finished. It would, however, have been pleasurable to pass a night away from the fever-haunts of Bathurst.
Ninety miles beyond Cape Verde placed us in the Gambia waters, off the lands of the Guinea region.
"Your Lordship will recollect that I always spoke of the rainy season with horror, as being extremely fatal to Europeans; and our journey from the Gambia to the Niger will furnish a melancholy proof of it. "From this account I am afraid that your Lordship will be apt to consider matters as in a very hopeless state; but I assure you I am far from desponding.
Travellers, on going from the Gambia towards the interior, pay customs in European merchandize. On returning they pay in iron and shea-toulou: these taxes are paid at every town. The term which signifies a man of free condition is Horia; that of a slave, Jong.
In the evening we walked out to see an adjoining village, belonging to a slatee named Jemaffoo Momadoo, the richest of all the Gambia traders. We found him at home, and he thought so highly of the honour done him by this visit, that he presented us with a fine bullock, which was immediately killed, and part of it dressed for our evening's repast.
His letter to his father-in-law apparently shews the same confidence in the prospects of the expedition: "Kayee, River Gambia, 26th April 1806. "That I have not wrote you sooner, you may be sure was not from want of attention, but from want of time, and because I knew that you must have received every information respecting our procedure from Alexander.
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