anything but melodious.  It has been already stated that two of these instruments were in the canoe, for the convenience of issuing orders, and during the whole of the day, they were not ten minutes together from the mouths of the officers, so great was the desire of all of them to breathe through them, and which adds considerably to the deafening noises made by their constant quarrelling with each other.  This was a great annoyance to the Landers, but they were constrained to submit to it in silence; besides, it was entirely superfluous, for the voices of the people were of themselves loud and powerful enough for all the common purposes of life; and when they have a mind to strain their brazen lungs, no speaking trumpet that has ever been made, be it ever so large, could match the quantity of horrid sound which they made; it would, in fact, drown the roaring of the sea.

In addition to the officers and attendants in the canoe formerly mentioned, they had one drummer, the king’s steward, and his lady’s maid, and two persons to bale out water, besides three captains, to give the necessary directions for the safety of the canoe.  The noise made by these people on their starting, in bawling to their fetish through the trumpets, was beyond all description.  Their object was to secure them a safe journey, and most certainly, if noise could do so, they were pretty certain of it.

The villages that they passed in the course of the day, were very numerous, and not distant more than two or three miles from each other, on the banks of the river.  They were surrounded by more cultivated land than they had seen for the previous fortnight; the crops consisting of yams, bananas, plantains, indian corn, &c. &c., not having seen so much since they left Kacunda.  The villages had a pleasing appearance from the river.  The houses seemed to be built of a light-coloured clay, and being thatched with palm branches, they very much resembled our own cottages.  They were of a square form, with two windows on each side of the door, but have no upper rooms.

In many places they observed that the river had overflowed its banks, and was running between the trees and thick underwood.  In the widest part, it did not seem more than a mile and a half across, in fact, its width, contrary to the usual course of rivers, when approaching the sea, was sensibly diminishing, and was dwindling away into an ordinary stream.

“Perhaps,” says Richard Lander, “there cannot be a greater comfort under the sun, than sound and invigorating sleep to the weary, nor in our opinion, a greater grievance than the loss of it; because wakefulness at those hours, which nature has destined for repose, is, in nine cases out of ten, sure to be the harbinger of peevishness, discontent, and ill humour, and not unfrequently induces languor, lassitude, and disease.  No two individuals in the world have greater reason to complain of disturbed slumbers or nightly watching,