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When the Captain was seated, a small ram, and several calabashes of palm-wine, were brought forward.
Previously to its becoming dark, we were invited to drink palm-wine on the outside of our hut; and, afterwards retiring within, our native companions employed themselves busily enough in roasting and eating their yams, while we enjoyed the refreshing beverage of tea.
As on the journey up the country, we had, on our return, great numbers of idle people following us, either from motives of curiosity or interest, and teazing us to give them palm-wine, iron, &c. The road, in various places, was extremely rugged and narrow, with steep declivities from the sides to the centre, and very slippery from the rain that had fallen in the morning.
Jeffery two severe blows with a stick, about a month since, which compelled him to give up the pursuit of a fellow, who had been endeavouring to impose two calabashes of water upon him, instead of palm-wine. During the last week, we have had little communication with the natives, and our supplies of palm-wine, &c., have consequently run short.
A portion of the hunters were engaged in collecting wood, and bringing in bundles in order to keep up the fires during the night. The king having imbibed a good quantity of palm-wine, waxed valiant, and seizing his spear, advanced in front of the camp, flourishing his weapon, and addressing in stentorian tones some fetish or spirit of the air in the forest.
They were well received, however, by the negro inhabitants of a considerable village on the sea-shore, near the mouth of this river, who entertained Cowley and his companions with palm-wine, in a large hut in the middle of the town, all the rest of the habitations being small low huts.
The following is the mode adopted for procuring the sap of the palm-tree, commonly known by the name of palm-wine: the lower branches of the tree having been cut off near the trunk, the sap exudes abundantly from the extremity of the divided part, and is received in calabashes appended thereto, which are secured from the aggressions of insects by enclosing the mouth of the vessel with the end of the branch, by leaves, and secured with wooden pins.
In the short hours before the darkness, we would encounter all the types of men which go to make up Indian country life the red-slippered banker jogging on his pony beneath a white umbrella, the vendor of palm-wine urging a donkey almost lost beneath the swollen skins, barefooted ryots with silent feet and strident tongues, crowds of boys and children driving buffaloes and cows, all coming homeward from their labour with the evening.
The next day we were employed in the same way in getting on shore as many of the stores as we could fish up from the wreck. Mr Sedgwick was well pleased at the appearance of the case of wine. "It is just what my patients want," he observed; "and though I can manufacture palm-wine and arrack, they will not answer the purpose nearly so well. Indeed, the arrack is poisonous stuff at the best."
Next morning we got under way early (6.50) and proceeded up the river. The canoe-men, seeing pots of palm-wine on the banks, insisted upon landing to slake their eternal thirst. The mode in which the liquor is sold shows a trustfulness on the part of the seller which may result from firm belief in his 'fetish. Any passer-by can drink wine
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