ance will shew how
liable we are to form wrong conjectures of things, among people whose
language we are ignorant of. Had it not been for this discovery, I make no
doubt that these people would have been charged with this vile custom.

In the evening I took a walk with some of the gentlemen into the country on
the other side of the harbour, where we had very different treatment from
what we had met with in the morning. The people we now visited, among whom
was our friend Paowang, being better acquainted with us, shewed a readiness
to oblige us in every thing in their power. We came to the village which
had been visited on the 9th. It consisted of about twenty houses, the most
of which need no other description than comparing them to the roof of a
thatched house in England, taken off the walls and placed on the ground.
Some were open at both ends, others partly closed with reeds, and all were
covered with palm thatch. A few of them were thirty or forty feet long, and
fourteen or sixteen broad. Besides these, they have other mean hovels,
which, I conceived, were only to sleep in. Some of these stood in a
plantation, and I was given to understand, that in one of them lay a dead
corpse. They made signs that described sleep, or death; and circumstances
pointed out the latter. Curious to see all I could, I prevailed on an
elderly man to go with me to the hut, which was separated from the others
by a reed fence, built quite round it at the distance of four or five feet.
The entrance was by a space in the fence, made so low as to admit one to
step over. The two sides and one end of the hut were closed or built up in
the same manner, and with the same materials, as the roof. The other end
had been open, but was now well closed with mats, which I could not prevail
on the man to remove, or suffer me to do it. There hung at this end of the
hut a matted bag or basket, in which was a piece of roasted yam, and some
sort of leaves, all quite fresh. I had a strong desire to see the inside of
the hut but the man was peremptory in refusing this, and even shewed an
unwillingness to permit me to look into the basket. He wore round his neck,
fastened to a string, two or three locks of human hair; and a woman present
had several about her neck. I offered something in exchange for them, but
they gave me to understand they could not part with them, as it was the
hair of the person who lay in the hut. Thus I was led to believe that these
people di