Travels in the Interior of Africa — Volume 01 by Mungo Park

Author:Mungo Park [Park, Mungo]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781546675860
Google: RCqStAEACAAJ
Publisher: CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform
Published: 2017-05-14T03:01:18+00:00

CHAPTER VIII.

ADVENTURES BETWEEN KEMMOO AND JARRA.

On the evening of the day of our departure from Kemmoo (the king’s eldest son and great part of the horsemen having returned) we reached a village called Marina, where we slept. During the night some thieves broke into the hut where I had deposited my baggage, and having cut open one of my bundles, stole a quantity of beads, part of my clothes, and some amber and gold, which happened to be in one of the pockets. I complained to my protectors, but without effect. The next day (February 14th) was far advanced before we departed from Marina, and we travelled slowly, on account of the excessive heat, until four o’clock in the afternoon, when two negroes were observed sitting among some thorny bushes, at a little distance from the road. The king’s people, taking it for granted that they were runaway slaves, cocked their muskets, and rode at full speed in different directions through the bushes, in order to surround them, and prevent their escaping. The negroes, however, waited with great composure until we came within bowshot of them, when each of them took from his quiver a handful of arrows, and putting two between his teeth and one in his bow, waved to us with his hand to keep at a distance; upon which one of the king’s people called out to the strangers to give some account of themselves. They said that “they were natives of Toorda, a neighbouring village, and had come to that place to gather tomberongs.” These are small farinaceous berries, of a yellow colour and delicious taste, which I knew to be the fruit of the rhamnus lotus of Linnæus.

The lotus is very common in all the kingdoms which I visited; but is found in the greatest plenty on the sandy soil of Kaarta, Ludamar, and the northern parts of Bambarra, where it is one of the most common shrubs of the country. I had observed the same species at Gambia.

As this shrub is found in Tunis, and also in the negro kingdoms, and as it furnishes the natives of the latter with a food resembling bread, and also with a sweet liquor which is much relished by them, there can be little doubt of its being the lotus mentioned by Pliny as the food of the Libyan Lotophagi. An army may very well have been fed with the bread I have tasted, made of the meal of the fruit, as is said by Pliny to have been done in Libya; and as the taste of the bread is sweet and agreeable, it is not likely that the soldiers would complain of it.

We arrived in the evening at the village of Toorda; when all the rest of the king’s people turned back except two, who remained with me as guides to Jarra.

February 15.—I departed from Toorda, and about two o’clock came to a considerable town, called Funingkedy. As we approached the town the inhabitants were much alarmed; for, as one of my guides wore a turban, they mistook us for some Moorish banditti.

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