and revelry.  He requested them to wait eight days longer, when he expected his people back from the Bocqua market.  “I think,” he added, “that the chief of Bocqua’s messenger and our people will be a sufficient protection.”  The Landers readily assented to his proposal, and told him that as all their presents were expended, they would send him some from the sea coast, if he would allow a person to accompany them thither, on whom he could depend to bring them back to him.  He expressed himself much gratified with this offer, and said that his own son should accompany them, and that although his people had never been lower down the river than to a place called Kirree, about a day’s journey from hence, he had no doubt that they should reach the sea in safety.  He then promised with solemnity, that he would consent to their departure in the time that he had specified, and having shaken hands, they parted.

The Landers, however, found that the old chief was not so punctual to his word as they had a right to expect, for he was every day consulting his fetish and his mallams, and they were all unanimous in their opinion, that the departure of the white men should be delayed for a short time.  This to them was a most vexatious proceeding.  Their determination of departing was not, however, to be shaken, although the entrails of some fowls which the chief consulted, declared that the time of their departure was very inauspicious.  According to the chief’s own arrangement, the people of the Landers were to embark in the leaky canoe, with the heaviest of the luggage, and themselves were to travel in one of the chief’s canoes, and to take along with them whatever was of most consequence.  To this regulation they could not raise any plausible objection, because their old canoe had been partially repaired.

A little after four in the afternoon of the 4th November, their luggage was conveyed to the river side, and they proceeded to load the canoes.  Long before five, every thing on their parts had been got in readiness for quitting the town, and they sat in the canoe till after sunset, waiting the arrival of the boatmen, who did not seem at all disposed to hurry themselves in making their appearance.  They began at length to be wearied with anxiety, and impatient to be stirring.  Hundreds of people had been gazing on them for a long while, many of whom had taken the pains to come, from different parts of the town in boats for that purpose and the curiosity of all having been amply indulged, they were moving off in all directions, so that the Landers were almost deserted.