ull. All hands
laid still,--not a word was spoken or paddle dipped. Then came the
next enormous swell under our stern;--the oars flew like
lightning;--the canoe rose as a feather on the crest of the surf;--in
a moment she shot through the cleft and reposed in smooth water near
the shore. As we sped through the gap, I might have touched the rocks
on both sides with my extended arms!

Such is the skill and daring of Kroomen.

FOOTNOTE:

[D] These Bagers are remarkable for their honesty, as I was convinced
by several anecdotes related, during my stay in this village, by my
trading clerk. He took me to a neighboring lemon-tree, and exhibited
an English brass steelyard hanging on its branches, which had been
left there by a mulatto merchant from Sierra Leone, who died in the
town on a trading trip. This article, with a chest half full of goods,
deposited in the "palaver-house," had been kept securely more than
twelve years in expectation that some of his friends would send for
them from the colony. The Bagers, I was told, have no _jujus_,
_fetiches_, or _gree-grees_;--they worship no god or evil
spirit;--their dead are buried without tears or ceremony;--and their
hereafter in eternal oblivion.

The males of this tribe are of middling size and deep black color;
broad-shouldered, but neither brave nor warlike. They keep aloof from
other tribes, and by a Fullah law, are protected from foreign violence
in consequence of their occupation as salt-makers, which is regarded
by the interior natives as one of the most useful trades. Their
fondness for palm-oil and the little work they are compelled to
perform, make them generally indolent. Their dress is a single
handkerchief, or a strip of country cloth four or five inches wide,
most carefully put on.

The young women have none of the sylphlike appearance of the
Mandingoes or Soosoos. They work hard and use palm-oil plentifully
both internally and externally, so that their relaxed flesh is bloated
like blubber. Both sexes shave their heads, and adorn their noses and
lower lips with rings, while they penetrate their ears with porcupine
quills or sticks. _They neither sell nor buy each other_, though they
acquire children of both sexes from other tribes, and adopt them into
their own, or dispose of them if not suitable. Their avails of work
are commonly divided; so the Bagers may be said to resemble the
Mormons in polygamy, the Fourierites in community, but to exceed both
in