The Mandingos, or book-men, are great fetish makers, many of them being well versed in the Arabic tongue, and writing it in a neat character.  From the impression of their superior learning and address, their influence and numbers daily increase, many of them having become rulers and chiefs in places where they sojourned as strangers, The religion they profess in common with the Foolahs, Jolliffs, and other Mahomedan tribes, is peculiarly adapted to the sensual effiminacy of the Africans:  the doctrines of Mahomet contained in their book I have procured from a very intelligent chief in the Rio Pongo, and when I compare his account with others of his nation on this part of the coast, the Foolahs, and the Mahomedan tribes in the vicinity of the Island of Goree, I am persuaded the following is the portion of the Islam faith believed by them.

1st.  That God is above all, and not born of woman.

2d.  That Mahomet stands between God and man, to intercede for him; that he is superior to all beings born of woman, and is the favorite of God.  And,

3d.  That he has prepared for the meanest of his followers and believers seventy-two bouris, or black-eyed girls of superior beauty, who are to administer to all their pleasures, and participate with them in the enjoyment of the fountains and groves of paradise, and in the gratification of those appetites congenial to their nature and existence in this world.  This nearly amounts to the entire belief of Mahomet’s doctrine, which is nothing but a compound of this eternal truth and necessary fiction; namely, “that there is only one God, and Mahomet is the apostle of God:”  from hence, in the idiom of the Koran, the belief of God is inseparable from the apostolic character of Mahomet.  The fertile and politic imagination of this impostor admirably adapted his tenets to the prevailing and established customs; he tolerates polygamy, &c. and to add to the sanctity of his pernicious doctrines, he represents himself as having been visited by the angel Gabriel, in the cave of Hera, where he communicated to him the precepts of the Koran, in the month of Ramadan, which he enjoins as a fast; he interdicts wine, and inculcates the necessity of praying five times a day, facing the holy city, &c.; forming together a system of the most insidious character towards the establishment of pure Christianity.  In the performance of the duties of their belief, the Mahomedan nations of Africa, upon the coast, are exact and scrupulous, but they have no idea of the intellectual doctrines of the Islam faith, or the happiness described by Mahomet as enjoyed by superior saints in the beatitude of vision; they are as perplexed on this subject as they are in their conceptions of the divine nature, and discover a surprising contraction of mental powers, when considered as human beings endowed with reason.

The nations, upon the Windward Coast, are in general little influenced by belief in their actions.  Forgiveness of injuries they conceive incompatible with the nature of man; and a spirit of retaliation is very prevalent and hereditary, descending in succession from father to son.  They are extremely jealous of white men, designing, ferocious, and cowardly; but there are, notwithstanding, a great variety of localities existing among them, and it will be found that their climate and habits are closely assimilated.