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Updated: May 16, 2025
At length it was agreed that four people should go back a few miles to a small rivulet, where some of the coffle had stopt to drink, as we passed it in the night, and that the coffle should wait for their return. The sun was about an hour high before the people came back with the woman, whom they found lying fast asleep by the stream.
Next day his fellow-travellers, having better horses, went on ahead, and he was walking barefoot, driving his own poor animal before him, when he met a coffle, or caravan, of about seventy slaves coming from Sego. They were tied together by their necks with thongs of bullock's hide twisted like a rope, seven slaves upon a thong, and a man with a musket between every seven.
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.
Here we remained four days on account of a palaver which was held on the following occasion: Modi Lemina, one of the slatees belonging to the coffle, had formerly married a woman of this town, who had borne him two children; he afterwards went to Manding, and remained there eight years without sending any account of himself during all that time to his deserted wife, who, seeing no prospect of his return, at the end of three years had married another man, to whom she had likewise borne two children.
Park having travelled in company with a coffle of thirty-five slaves, thus describes his feelings as they came near the coast: "Although I was now approaching the end of my tedious and toilsome journey, and expected in another day to meet with countrymen and friends, I could not part with my unfortunate fellow-travellers, doomed as I knew most of them to be, to a life of slavery in a foreign land, without great emotion.
Several of the people belonging to the coffle, on hearing the shot fired, came running; and amongst others the guide appointed us by Keminoom, who insisted that I should instantly shoot the thief dead; otherwise he said I did not fulfil the orders of his master, who had directed me to shoot every person that stole from me.
In the rainy season the bridge is carried away, but the natives constantly rebuilt it, and on that account exact a small tribute from every passenger. Being informed that, two hundred Jalonkas had assembled to intercept and plunder the coffle, they altered their course, and about midnight arrived at a town called Koba.
About eleven o'clock, as we were resting by a small rivulet, some of the people discovered a hive of bees in a hollow tree, and they were proceeding to obtain the honey, when the largest swarm I ever beheld flew out, and attacking the people of the coffle, made us fly in all directions. I took the alarm first, and I believe was the only person who escaped with impunity.
At some periods, furthermore, slave prices fell so rapidly that the prospect of profit for the speculator vanished. At Columbus, Georgia, in December, 1844, for example, it was reported that a coffle from North Carolina had been marched back for want of buyers.
During this day's travel two slaves, a woman and a girl, belonging to a slates of Bala, were so much fatigued that they could not keep up with the coffle; they were severely whipped, and dragged along until about three o'clock in the afternoon, when they were both affected with vomiting, by which it was discovered that they had EATEN clay.
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