The Brass people grow neither yams, nor bananas, nor grain of any kind, cultivating only the plantain as an article of food, which, with the addition of a little fish, forms their principal diet.  Yams, however, are frequently imported from Eboe, and other countries by the chief people, who resell great quantities of them to the shipping that may happen to be in the river.  They are enabled to do this by the very considerable profits which accrue to them from their trading transactions with people residing further inland, and from the palm oil which they themselves manufacture, and which they dispose of to the Liverpool traders.  The soil in the vicinity of Brass is, for the most part, poor and marshy, though it is covered with a rank, luxuriant and impenetrable vegetation.  Even in the hands of an active, industrious race, it would offer almost insuperable obstacles to general cultivation; but, with its present possessory, the mangrove itself can never be extirpated, and the country will, it is likely enough, maintain its present appearance till the end of time.

The dwelling in which the Landers resided, belonged to King Boy, and stood on the extreme edge of the basin, and was constructed not long since, by a carpenter, who came up the river for the purpose from Calabar, of which place he was a native:  he received seven slaves for his labour.  This man must evidently have seen European dwellings, as there was decidedly an attempt to imitate them.  It was of an oblong form, containing four apartments, which were all on the ground-floor, lined with wood, and furnished with tolerably-made doors and cupboards.  This wood bore decided marks of its having once formed part of a vessel, and was most likely the remains of one which, according to report, was wrecked not long ago on the bar of the river.  The house had recently been converted into a kind of seraglio by King Boy, because ho had, to use his own expression, “plenty of wives,” who required looking after.  It also answered the purpose of a store-house for European goods, tobacco, and spirituous liquors.  Its rafters were of bamboo, and its thatch of palm leaves.  The apartment which the Landers occupied, had a window overlooking the basin, outside of which was a veranda, occupied at the time by Pascoe and his wives.  The whole of its furniture consisted of an old oaken table, but it was supplied with seats, made of clay, which were raised about three feet from the ground.  These, together with the floor, which was of mud, were so soft and wet as to enable a person to thrust his hand into any part of them without any difficulty whatever.  In one corner, communicating with the other apartments, was a door destitute of a lock, and kept always ajar, except at night, when it was closed.  One of the sides of the room was decorated with an old French print, representing the Virgin Mary, with a great number of chubby-faced angels ministering to her, at whose feet was a prayer on “Our Lady’s good deliverance.”  The whole group was designed and executed badly.