When I awoke the sun was shining, and I heard voices near me. Looking up cautiously I saw that a number of young women and girls had come to the river-side to fill their water-pots, and were playing and laughing as they did so. I, without thinking, arose and called out, when they instantly dropped their pots, and giving a cry of alarm, scuttled off into the bushes.
I looked round and saw that along the way they had gone there was a small foot-track. I followed it up, and soon some of the fugitives turned round, and, seeing that I was alone and unarmed, began to come towards me. Presently one bolder than the rest came and touched me and called out something to her companions which was received with a shriek of laughter. They all came crowding round me, showing signs of astonishment at my hair and at my skin, which, after my prolonged immersion, was now almost restored to its natural colour.
They chattered away, and evidently asked me many questions, which, as I did not understand a word of their language, I was unable to answer. Finding they could learn nothing from me, two of them ran up the path, while the rest sat down round me and signed to me to do the same.
After we had been waiting ten minutes the two girls who had gone away returned, accompanied by four men, two of whom were armed with ancient flint-lock muskets and two with long spears, who made me get up, and tying a rope round my neck led me up into the centre of a large village.
The village was surrounded with a heavy stockade of tree trunks, inside of which were numerous enclosures of canes surrounding groups of huts, while in the centre, under the shade of a splendid silk-cotton tree, was a shed where four big drums surrounded a large and roughly carved image. To this shed I was led by my guards; and being made to sit on the ground with my legs on either side of one of the posts that supported the roof, my ankles were lashed together, and my hands being tied behind my back, I was secured so that there was no possibility of escape.
The whole population of the village turned out to look at me, and some of the children, little fat black imps, who at first were much afraid of the white man, losing their fear when they saw I was not able to move, came up and poked their fingers into my eyes and pulled my hair, at which they were much amused, and rubbed my skin to see if white was my real colour