On entering the Niger, they found it running from two to three miles an hour, and they proceeded down the river till the sun had set; and the moon was shining beautifully on the water, as they drew near to a small Cumbrie village on the borders of the river, where they landed and pitched their tent.  The inhabitants of many of the numerous walled towns and open villages on the banks of the Niger, and also of the islands, were found to be for the most part Cumbrie people, a poor, despised, and abused, but industrious and hard-working race.  Inheriting from their ancestors a peaceful, timid, passionless, incurious disposition, they fall an easy prey to all who choose to molest them; they bow their necks to the yoke of slavery without a murmur, and think it a matter of course; and perhaps no people in the world are to be found who are less susceptible of intense feeling, and the finer emotions of the human mind, on being stolen away from their favourite amusements and pursuits, and from the bosom of their wives and families, than these Cumbrie people, who are held in general disesteem.  Thousands of them reside in the kingdom of Yaoorie, and its province of Engarski, and most of the slaves in the capital have been taken from them.

As they proceeded down the Niger by a different channel from that by which they had ascended it to Yaoorie, they had fresh opportunities of remarking the more striking features on its banks.  The river, as might naturally be expected, was much swollen, and its current more impetuous, than when they passed upon their voyage to Yaoorie.  In the earlier part of the evening they landed at a small Cumbrie village, and their canoes were pulled upon a sandy beach for the night in security.

At seven o’clock on the following morning, they were once more upon the Niger, and about noon they observed a herd of Fellata cows grazing on the banks of the river, and a very short distance from them, they saw an immense crocodile floating on the surface like a long canoe, for which it was at first mistaken, and watching an opportunity to seize one of the cows, and destroy it by dragging it into the river.  As soon as the terrific reptile was perceived by the canoemen, they paddled as softly as possible towards him, intending to wait at a short distance till the crocodile should have accomplished his object, when they agreed to pull rapidly towards the shore, and reap the fruit of the reptile’s amazing strength, by scaring him off from his prey, or destroying him with harpoons, for the skin of the crocodile is not in this country considered impenetrable.  Their intentions were, however, frustrated by the sudden disappearance of the crocodile, which dived the moment he perceived the canoe so near him, making a loud plashing noise, and agitating the water in a remarkable manner in his descent.  They waited some time, in hopes he would rise again, but they were not again gratified with the sight of the monster.