The interior was a perfect labyrinth, and the houses similar to those in the town of Yahassu, on the Barra side of the river, but smaller and dirty. My guide pointed out to me several small edifices of palm-sticks and bamboo, like miniature houses, raised upon piles inside the village gate, and informed me that these were where the people kept their corn. The doors to these granaries were merely bolted, and a piece of paper, inscribed with a verse from the Koran in Arabic characters, was fastened to each as a protection from thieves. My cicerone said,
“They put dem writings on the bolts, and then think nobody can open the doors.”
“Yes; and them Mandingos won’t touch them when they’re leff so--they ’fraid to.”
“Me? No, I don’t care for grisgris. By’mby I show you my farm; when these foolish people sleep on dark night, I take as much corn as I want for planting time. They think it must be devil,” and he chuckled at the joke.
My co-religionist informed me that the deer usually devoured half his crops, and that leopards, and animals “that howled like drunken men at night,” by which graphic description he meant hyenas, were so numerous and bold in their raids on the poultry and dogs that the thorn hedges, which I had noticed surrounding the village, were erected for their special behoof. Beguiling the time with such artless conversation, he led me round the village, and finally halted before a hut, which he asked me to enter, saying it was his. As I thought he had been unusually civil and obliging for an English-speaking negro, I did not like to refuse, though I do not care to invade the sanctity of such houses and inhale the odour thereof. I saw some six or seven women suckling babies and pounding kous-kous, whom I learned were the wives of my host, and sat down as far from them and as near to the door as possible; while their lord and master produced a dirty-white piece of paper and a lead pencil, and began writing away most laboriously.
After waiting a few minutes, and finding that my obliging friend was still hard at work, I got up and said I was going. He added a few finishing touches to his manuscript, came forward, and handed it to me. I read as follows:--
Thomas Henry, services to European stranger from steamer.