United States or Northern Mariana Islands ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Being rigid bushreens, they were accommodated with two of Karfa's huts, and sold their goods to very great advantage. On the 24th of January Karfa returned to Kamalia with a number of people and thirteen prime slaves whom he had purchased. He likewise brought with him a young girl whom he had married at Kancaba, as his fourth wife, and had given her parents three prime slaves for her.
The coffle, on its departure from Kamalia, consisted of twenty-seven slaves for sale, the property of Karfa and four other slatees; but we were afterwards joined by five at Maraboo and three at Bala making in all thirty-five slaves.
All these fetters and bolts are made from native iron; in the present case they were put on by the blacksmith as soon as the slaves arrived from Kancaba, and were not taken off until the morning on which the coffle departed for Gambia. In other respects the treatment of the slaves during their stay at Kamalia was far from being harsh or cruel.
During my stay at Kamalia I was present at four different feasts of this kind, and the ceremony was the same in each, whether the child belonged to a bushreen or a kafir.
Sometimes, however, they are rewarded by finding pieces of gold, which they call sanoo birro, "gold-stones," that amply repay them for their trouble. A woman and her daughter, inhabitants of Kamalia, found in one day two pieces of this kind; one of five drachms, and the other of three drachms, weight.
I passed a walled town called Kamalia without stopping, and at noon rode through a large town called Samee, where there happened to be a market, and a number of people assembled in an open place in the middle of the town, selling cattle, cloth, corn, &c. I rode through the midst of them without being much observed, every one taking me for a Moor.
This done, Kamalia passed the powder through a camel's-hair cloth; and then repassed it through a finer cloth. Meanwhile a coffee-pot, containing exactly four cups of water, was boiling. This was taken off, one cup of water poured out, and three cups full of the powder, after she had ascertained its impalpability between her finger and thumb, were stirred in with a stick of cinnamon.
But, soon after his arrival at Kamalia, he fell into a severe and dangerous fit of sickness, by which he was closely confined for upwards of a month. His life was preserved by the hospitality and benevolence of Karfa Taura, a Negro, who received him into his house, and whose family attended him with the kindest solicitude.
So far from its being a long and tedious process, as it may appear in narrating, old Kamalia allowed herself only two minutes for each person; so that from the time of her leaving the room to her return, no more than eight minutes had elapsed."
All the merchants and slaves who composed the coffle, were now assembled at Kamalia and its vicinity; the day of departure for the Gambia was frequently fixed, and afterwards postponed.
Word Of The Day