A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels — Volume 08Kerr, Robert
History
A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels — Volume 08
Kerr, Robert
Voyages and travels
The king of Sierra Leona resides at the bottom of the bay, and is called
by the Moors _Borea_, or Captain _Caran_, _caran_, _caran_, having other
petty kings or chiefs under him; one of whom, called Captain _Pinto_, a
wretched old man, dwells at a town within the second cove; and on the
other side of the bay is Captain _Boloone_. The dominions of _Borea_
stretch 40 leagues inland, from which he receives a tribute in
cotton-cloth, elephants teeth, and gold; and has the power of selling
his people as slaves, some of whom he offered to us. Some of them have
been converted to Christianity by the Portuguese priests and Jesuits,
who have a chapel, in which is a table inscribed with the days that are
to be observed as holy. The king and a few of his principal attendants
are decently clothed in jackets and breeches; but the common people have
only a slight cotton-cloth round their waists, while the women have a
kind of short petticoat or apron down to their knees; all the rest of
their bodies, both men and women, being quite naked; the young people of
both sexes having no dress whatever. All the people, both men and women,
have all parts of their bodies very curiously and ingeniously _traced
and pinked_ [tatooed], and have their teeth filed very sharp. They pull
off all the hair from their eye-lids. The men have their beards short,
black, and cropped, and the hair on their heads strangely cut into
crisped paths or cross alleys; while others wear theirs in strange
jagged tufts, or other foolish forms; the women's heads being all close
shaved.
Their town contains not more than thirty or forty houses, all
irregularly clustered together, all thatched with reeds; yet each has a
kind of yard inclosed with mud walls, like our hovels or hog-styles in
England. Instead of a locked and bolted door, the entrance is only
closed by a mat, having nothing to be stolen; and for bedsteads they
have only a few billets covered by a mat; yet some have hangings of
mats, especially about their beds. Their furniture consists of two or
three earthen pots to hold water, and to boil such provisions as they
can get; a gourd or two for palm-wine; half a gourd to serve as a
drinking cup; a few earthen dishes for their _loblolly_ or pottage; a
basket for the _maria_ [wife], to gather cockles; and a knapsack for the
man, made of bark, to carry his provisions, with his pipe and tobacco.
When a negro man goes from home, he has always his knapsack on his back,
in which he has his provisions and tobacco, his pipe being seldom from
his mouth; besides which, he has always his _do-little_ sword by his
side, made by themselves of such iron as they get from the Europeans;
his bow also, and quiver full of poisoned arrows, pointed with iron like
a snake's-tongue, or else a case of javelins or darts, having iron heads
of good breadth and made sharp, sometimes both.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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