Their town contains not more than thirty or forty houses, all irregularly clustered together, all thatched with reeds; yet each has a kind of yard inclosed with mud walls, like our hovels or hog-styles in England.  Instead of a locked and bolted door, the entrance is only closed by a mat, having nothing to be stolen; and for bedsteads they have only a few billets covered by a mat; yet some have hangings of mats, especially about their beds.  Their furniture consists of two or three earthen pots to hold water, and to boil such provisions as they can get; a gourd or two for palm-wine; half a gourd to serve as a drinking cup; a few earthen dishes for their loblolly or pottage; a basket for the maria [wife], to gather cockles; and a knapsack for the man, made of bark, to carry his provisions, with his pipe and tobacco.  When a negro man goes from home, he has always his knapsack on his back, in which he has his provisions and tobacco, his pipe being seldom from his mouth; besides which, he has always his do-little sword by his side, made by themselves of such iron as they get from the Europeans; his bow also, and quiver full of poisoned arrows, pointed with iron like a snake’s-tongue, or else a case of javelins or darts, having iron heads of good breadth and made sharp, sometimes both.

The men of this country are large and well-made, strong and courageous, and of civilized manners for heathens; as they keep most faithfully to their wives, of whom they are not a little jealous.  I could not learn their religion; for though they have some idols, they seem to know that there is a God in heaven, as, when we asked them about their wooden puppets, they used to lift up their hands to heaven.  All their children are circumcised, but I could not learn the reason why.  They are very just and true in their dealings, and theft is punished with instant death.  When any one dies, a small thatched roof is erected over his bier, under which are set earthen pots kept always full of water, and some earthen plates with different kinds of food, a few bones being stuck up around the body.  To the south of this bay, some thirty or forty leagues into the interior country, there are very fierce people, who are cannibals, and sometimes infest the natives of Sierra Leona.

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The inhabitants of Sierra Leona feed on rice, of which they only cultivate what is indispensibly needful for their subsistence, in small patches near their dwellings, which they clear by burning the woods.  They likewise sow another very small grain, called pene, of which they make bread, not much unlike winter savory.  They rear a few poultry about their houses, using no other animal food, except when they sometimes get a fawn of the wild deer, a few of which are found in the mountains, or some wild fowl.  They feed also on cockles and oysters, of which there are vast quantities on the rocks and trees by the sea-side, but these have rather an insipid