Note A, p. 100.

In preparing their corn for food, the natives use a large wooden mortar called a paloon, in which they bruise the seed until it parts with the outer covering, or husk, which is then separated from the clean corn, by exposing it to the wind, nearly in the same manner as wheat is cleaned from the chaff in England. The corn thus freed from the husk, is returned to the mortar, and beaten into meal; which is dressed variously in different countries; but the most common preparation of it among the nations of the Gambia, is a sort of pudding, which they call kouskous. It is made by first moistening the flour with water, and then stirring and shaking it about in a large calabash, or gourd, till it adheres together in small granules, resembling sago. It is then put into an earthen pot, whose bottom is perforated with a number of holes; and this pot being placed upon another, the two vessels are luted together, either with a paste of meal and water, or cow-dung, and placed upon the fire. In the lower vessel is commonly some animal food and water, the steam or vapour of which ascends through the perforations in the bottom of the upper vessel, and softens and prepares the kouskous, which is very much esteemed throughout all the countries that I visited. I am informed, that the same manner of preparing flour is very generally used on the Barbary coast, and that the dish so prepared is there so called by the same name. It is therefore probable, that the Negroes borrowed the practise from the Moors.

For gratifying a taste for variety, another sort of pudding, called realing, is sometimes prepared from the meal of corn; and they have also adopted two or three different modes of dressing their rice. Of vegetable food, therefore, the natives have no want; and although the common class of people are but sparingly supplied with animal food, yet this article is not wholly withheld from them.—Park's Travels, in 1795, 1796, and 1797, pp. 10, 11. Lond. 1799, 4to.

Note B, p. 103.

I cannot withhold the following notice of the worthy Major's death, extracted from a work lately published, entitled Travels, in Western Africa, in the years 1818, 1819, 1820 and 1821, by Major William Gray. Lond. 1825, 8vo.

"On that day (24th December) Major Peddie was attacked with a violent fever, from which he experienced little relief until the morning of the 1st of January 1817, when, thinking himself better, he left his bed, but was soon obliged to resume it, and in a few hours breathed his last.

"This was a sad commencement of the new year, and the melancholy event cast a heavy gloom on the minds of every individual connected with the expedition. It made so deep an impression on some, that it was with much difficulty they could be prevailed on not to abandon the enterprise. Never was a man more sincerely beloved, nor more truly regretted, by all who knew him. His remains were deposited, amidst the heartfelt regrets of his friends and companions, on the following day, in the court-yard of Mr Beatman, under the shade of two orange-trees; and an appropriate epitaph, written by Captain Campbell, and carved on a slab of native mahogany, was placed on his grave." pp. 67.

Note C, p. 108.

When we had reached the other side of the river, they drew the piroque on land. This is the only way that the people of the country have to secure their little boats, which the surge would instantly fill, when they cannot cast anchor at a sufficient distance from the shore.

This manoeuvre did not occupy a long time, and I bent my steps to the village of Sor. I was kindly welcomed as usual; and I requested them to point out to me the best place for hunting; for I had that day left my interpreter, because I had gained a sufficient knowledge of the language of the country to understand all that the negroes said to me, and to make myself understood by them. They led me in a direction whence I had seen a troop of antelopes scamper off; but I thought no more of the chase after I had seen a tree, the enormous dimensions of which completely rivetted my attention. It was a calabash tree, otherwise called the monkey-bread tree, which the Woloffs call goui in their language. Its height was nothing extraordinary, being but about sixty feet; but its trunk was of prodigious dimensions. I spanned it thirteen times with my arms stretched out, but it was more; and, for greater exactness, I at last measured it with twine, and found its circumference to be sixty-five feet, its diameter consequently nearly twenty-two feet. I believe there has never been any thing seen equal to it in any country; and, I am persuaded that, had our ancient travellers known it, they would not have failed to have included it among the wonders of the world. It is also very astonishing that this tree has been totally neglected by those who have given us the history of Senegal, especially as there are but few common to the country.

The trunk of the one which I saw was twenty-two feet in diameter, about eight or twelve feet in height, with many branches, some of which stretched out horizontally, and touched the ground with their tops. These were very large, some being about forty-five or fifty-five feet in length. Each branch would have made one of the largest trees in Europe; and the tout ensemble of the monkey-bread tree looked less like a single tree than a forest. This was not all. The negro who conducted me took me to a second, which was sixty-three feet in circumference, that is twenty-one feet in diameter, and appeared to be about one hundred and ten feet in length, without counting the root which was concealed under the waters of a neighbouring river, the depth of which I had no means of ascertaining. The same negro told me of a third which was not far from the place where we were, and added that, without leaving the island, I would see a great many more which were not much inferior in size, pp. 54, 55.—Histoire Naturelle du SÉnÉgal; avec le Relation abrÉgÉe d'un Voyage fait en ce Pays, pendant les annÉes, 1749, 1750, 1751, 1752 and 1753. Par M. Adanson, Correspondant de l'Academie Royale des Sciences, Paris, 1757, 4to.

It was night before we reached CognÉ. Our route was bordered with gum-trees, the yellow flowers of which, arranged in circular bunches, spread a delicious perfume. We also saw some rates. The bark of this tree yields a yellow dye; its leaf is without indentation, and of a beautiful green; it is not very high; the wood is white, and the bark is easily reduced to powder. This was the first time that I saw the baobab, that enormous tree which has been described by Adanson, and which bears his name. I measured one, and found it to be forty feet in circumference. Stripped at this time of its foliage, it resembled an immense wooden tower. This majestic mass is the only monument of antiquity to be met with in Africa. I am astonished that the negroes have not paid to this tree the same honours that the Druids did to the oak; for to them the baobab is perhaps the most valuable of vegetables. Its leaves are used for leaven, its bark furnishes indistructible cordage; and the bees form their hives in the cavities of its trunk. The negroes, too, often shelter themselves from storms in its time-worn caverns. The baobab is indisputably the monarch of African trees, p. 41.—Travels in the interior of Africa, to the sources of the Senegal and Gambia, by G. Mollien. Lond. 1820, 4to.

Mollien was one of the shipwrecked in the Medusa, and who got to the shores of the desert in the boats.—Trans.

Note D, p. 110.

The kingdom of Kajaaga, in which I was now arrived, is called by the French Gallam; but the name that I have adopted is universally used by the natives.—Park's Travels, c.v.p.1.

Note E, p. 111.

About eight o'clock, we passed a large town called Kabba, situated in the midst of a beautiful and highly cultivated country; bearing a greater resemblance to the centre of England, than what I should have supposed had been the middle of Africa. The people were everywhere employed in collecting the fruit of the Shea-trees, from which they prepare the vegetable butter, mentioned in a former part of this work. These trees grow in great abundance all over this part of Bambaraa. They are not planted by the natives, but are found growing naturally in the woods; and, in clearing wood-land for cultivation, every tree is cut down but the Shea. The tree itself very much resembles the American oak; and the fruit, from the kernel of which, being first dried in the sun, the butter is prepared by boiling the kernel in water, has somewhat the appearance of a Spanish olive. The kernel is enveloped in a sweet pulp, under a thin green rind; and the butter produced from it, besides the advantage of its keeping the whole year without salt; is whiter, firmer, and, to my palate, of a richer flavour, than the best butter I ever tasted made from cows' milk. The growth and preparation of this commodity seem to be among the first objects of African industry in this and the neighbouring states; and it constitutes a main article of their inland commerce.—Park's Travels, pp. 202, 203.