When we returned to our camp, the deaans all assembled at deaan Crindo's tent, who took notice of each individual man according to his merit, returning them thanks for their courage and conduct. He next made inquiry what men were lost on our side, and found no more than sixteen killed, and thirteen wounded. After that he sent out to number the dead bodies of the enemy, and found the total amounted to one hundred and seventy-five; among whom were sixteen persons of distinction; two of Woozington's younger sons, Metorolahatch and Rer Fungenzer; his nephews, Ry-Opheck and Rer Chula; the names of the rest I never heard. Deaan Crindo gave orders that the bodies of these sixteen great men should be cut to pieces and scattered about the field, that their friends might not bury them. Two or three days afterwards we marched farther into Merfaughla, plundering and spoiling all their plantations.

As these people are more addicted to smoke jermaughla than any others, it will be proper to give a description of it here. It is a plant that grows about five feet high, and bears a small long leaf with a cod, which contains about a dozen seeds like hempseed. These leaves and seeds are mingled together, and laid in the sun for three our four days successively, till they are very dry, and so prepared, are fit to be smoked. Their pipes are made of reeds, or rather small canes. Sometimes they make use of very long shell, which answers the end proposed. The quality of it is such that it makes them drunk; their eyes look red and fiery, and their looks fierce and savage. It is easy to know a man who smokes jermaughla; whilst the effects last, they are more vigorous and resolute, acting as it were like madmen. Those who are too much addicted to it are good for nothing but during the time they are intoxicated with it. My curiosity led me once to smoke a little myself; but it made my head so giddy, that I was drunk, as it were, for three days together, and so sick that I never meddled more with it.

Our spies were two days before they could discover

any cattle. At length, however, they informed us they had heard some bellow, whereupon a thousand men were detached to fetch them. They were gone a whole week; they returned, however, with above two thousand beeves, and two hundred and fifty captives, women and children. This great prize made them fond of a second expedition; so, upon a consultation, a new camp was formed, and fortified in the same manner as before; in which deaan Crindo remained with four thousand men, whilst two thousand went out to plunder; and on their return two thousand more were to go.

Deaan Afferrer, deaan Sambo, Rer Mimebolambo, and Rer Befaugher, went out with two thousand men. We had three or four for our guides who were perfectly well acquainted with the country, and knew where the cattle were usually fed. We were two days before we came to any of their tracks, and then they were driven off, and, as appeared by their marks, quite different ways. So our army divided, deaan Sambo and Rer Befaugher went northward, and we south-west. We marched in the tracks all day and all the next night, as it was moonshine. We found ourselves in the morning near the sea, where they had driven the beasts to the margin of the water, that the ebbing and flowing and the wash of the sea might efface their footsteps on the sands; as indeed it did in a great measure: but we continued our march all day, till we found out where they turned off towards the woods. The next morning our spies came in, and informed us, that they heard a cow bellow. We soon came to the plain, where we found a hundred at least, but these were not sufficient; and therefore, narrowly observing their footsteps, we traced them farther, and found eight or nine hundred more. Here were besides two or three hundred sheep, which we killed, the best of them we dressed, and left the others behind us. However, we were in great want of water, for we had none for nearly two days. At length one of our scouts discovered a pond, where the cattle used to drink, and this, though hot and foul, we eagerly

drank, as we could get no better. Till this time we saw no enemies, though we expected them, for we could see the cow-herds fly from their cattle, in order, no doubt, to alarm their masters. And as some of us

were taking up this water, as clean as we could, in our calabashes, and whilst one in particular was stooping down to wash his lamber, a volley of shot was fired amongst us before we perceived any body. We looked up and saw about eight or ten men, who ran back into the wood, which extended along on the other side of the water, within three or fourscore yards. We fired at them, but they vanished out of sight. None of us were hurt, but the man who was washing his lamber; he received a shot in his fundament, of which he instantly expired.

Though I had been superstitiously addicted to observe certain fixed characters, or hieroglyphies, when they occurred to me in dreams, which was indeed but seldom, and used to find they foretold some things to me; yet I could not but observe a remarkable instance which we had here of relying on dreams, and I did not fail taking notice of it to deaan Afferrer, and thereupon to turn their superstitious devotions to their owleys into ridicule. For seeing me come in a hurry, and hearing guns go off, he asked, "What news?" Nothing," said I, “but a man was killed by the order of his gods." ." "How!" says the deaan," by the order of his gods? I do not understand you." "Why," says

I, a man prayed to his owley last night, and when he lay down, bid it not fail to come when he was asleep. The demon which attends his owley, according to his desire, came, and told him in a dream, or, which is the same thing, he dreamed he told him, that he must wash his lamber the next morning. He went along with us in obedience to this divine vision, to the watering place, though he had no other business there; and as he stooped to wash his lamber, was killed by a random shot, which he received in his posteriors from some of our fugitive enemies, who fired, ran away, and hurt nobody else." I was under no apprehensions of

deaan Afferrer's anger on this piece of raillery, for persecution on account of difference in religion is not thought of there.

I remember one instance, whilst I lived with deaan Mevarrow, of a piece of bigotry more blind and senseless, if possible, than this. A young man had an owley, the demon of which was called Ry-Leffu. He made his addresses one night to him, and Ry-Leffu in a dream told him, that his brother must shoot at him. Early in the morning he took above an hour's walk to his brother, told his dream, and desired him to perform the order of Ry-Leffu. His brother endeavoured to dissuade him from it, but the other insisted it must be done, or worse would ensue. "Well then," said he, "I will shoot near you, but take care to miss you." "No," said the bigoted idiot, "it must be executed according to order, without the least prevarication; for I am fully persuaded that the demon will defend me from all harm." At length he prevails on his brother, who loads his piece, and stands about thirty yards distant, and fires at his lower parts; but notwithstanding all his precaution he broke a leg; and then, blaming himself for his credulity, and being so easily overruled in an action he no ways approved of, ran with tears in his eyes to the assistance of the wounded bigot. In short, with the usual means, together with some of the fat of a sacrifice, laid on the owley of Ry-Leffu, the wound was healed, but he never recovered the free use of that leg.

We drove our cattle to the sea-side, the same way we came, by the verge of the water, and went round the bay called St. John's. I took particular notice of it; there is a ridge of rocks which seemed to extend quite across it, so as to leave no entrance; but were there a channel wide enough for ships to sail in, it would be a very commodious harbour, the waters being smooth within. Not far from hence, as I have heard, on the coast of Merfaughla, a French ship was cast away about two or three years before ours, and the whole crew destroyed; but the reason of their inhuman

murder, or the particular circumstances of it, I could never learn. They have no canoes, either here or in Anterndroea, for which reason the natives can have no commerce with ships. For they are very treacherous to white men of any in the island. Whether their little acquaintance with Europeans gives them a dread of them, I cannot say; but I am sensible they imagine that white men are extremely addicted to fighting, and not so tender-hearted as themselves. This received notion may be a great motive to their destroying them on very trivial provocations; for they are always jealous that the white men have some cruel designs upon them. So that they are ever on their guard, dreading the audacity and superior skill which the Europeans have over them in point of war.

As to their mercy. In such places where they have subdued them, as the French did in Antenosa, they made them all slaves, inverted the whole order of their government; and most of them being illiterate seamen, who took upon them to rule, they showed no regard, either to morality, civility, or indeed common decency; made no distinction of persons, confounded all order, and treated every black as if he were a brute; and so much inferior to themselves, as not to have the least right or title, in their opinions, to the common privileges of human creatures. So that to kill one of them was no more than killing a dog, or any other noxious animal whatsoever. I do not make this as a general reflection on the French only, though if credit were to be given to half that the natives say, they were guilty of the most scandalous and execrable actions. Our own countrymen (too much addicted to their follies and vices) are not exempt from the just cause of this scandal upon white men; for the conduct of our British pirates, and others too, who are not willing to be thought inhuman, has been barbarous to the last degree. And in the countries of Anterndroea and Merfaughla, where no stories are told but what are very strange; and as they cannot distinguish by experience, that wicked men