At every village attempts were made to induce us to remain a night.  Sometimes large pots of beer were offered to us as a temptation.  Occasionally the head man would peremptorily order us to halt under a tree which he pointed out.  At other times young men volunteered to guide us to the impassable part of the next bog, in the hope of bringing us to a stand, for all are excessively eager to trade; but food was so very cheap that we sometimes preferred paying them to keep it, and let us part in good humor.  A good-sized fowl could be had for a single charge of gunpowder.  Each native who owns a gun carries about with him a measure capable of holding but one charge, in which he receives his powder.  Throughout this region the women are almost entirely naked, their gowns being a patch of cloth frightfully narrow, with no flounces; and nothing could exceed the eagerness with which they offered to purchase strips of calico of an inferior description.  They were delighted with the large pieces we gave, though only about two feet long, for a fowl and a basket of upward of 20 lbs. of meal.  As we had now only a small remnant of our stock, we were obliged to withstand their importunity, and then many of their women, with true maternal feelings, held up their little naked babies, entreating us to sell only a little rag for them.  The fire, they say, is their only clothing by night, and the little ones derive heat by sticking closely to their parents.  Instead of a skin or cloth to carry their babies in, the women plait a belt about four inches broad, of the inner bark of a tree, and this, hung from the one shoulder to the opposite side, like a soldier’s belt, enables them to support the child by placing it on their side in a sitting position.  Their land is very fertile, and they can raise ground-nuts and manioc in abundance.  Here I observed no cotton, nor any domestic animals except fowls and little dogs.  The chief possessed a few goats, and I never could get any satisfactory reason why the people also did not rear them.

On the evening of the 2d of June we reached the village of Kawawa, rather an important personage in these parts.  This village consists of forty or fifty huts, and is surrounded by forest.  Drums were beating over the body of a man who had died the preceding day, and some women were making a clamorous wail at the door of his hut, and addressing the deceased as if alive.  The drums continued beating the whole night, with as much regularity as a steam-engine thumps on board ship.  We observed that a person dressed fantastically with a great number of feathers left the people at the dance and wailing, and went away into the deep forest in the morning, to return again to the obsequies in the evening; he is intended to represent one of the Barimo.

In the morning we had agreeable intercourse with Kawawa; he visited us, and we sat and talked nearly the whole day with him and his people.  When we visited him in return, we found him in his large court-house, which, though of a beehive shape, was remarkably well built.  As I had shown him a number of curiosities, he now produced a jug, of English ware, shaped like an old man holding a can of beer in his hand, as the greatest curiosity he had to exhibit.