Besides the Portuguese, two nations, who differ in their manner and language, inhabit this state: they are the Felups and the Bagnons, or Banions. The character of the former I have already explained; for they are the same here as in the empire of Foigni. The Bagnons are of a mild and gentle disposition, and are attached to a commercial intercourse with foreigners; they are also brave and industrious. The women are mild, economical, and much attached to their husbands and children; perhaps indeed, the world does not contain more industrious females, as they voluntarily devote themselves to labour from their youth. The king of Gereges and his negro subjects are idolaters. Pasqua, a large village of the Bagnons is next to, and about ten leagues distant from Gereges. This journey is commonly performed by land and without danger. The country is well cultivated, and those lands which are capable of inundation produce rice, while the other parts afford millet and all kinds of peas: they also grow immense quantities of gourds and water-melons. The oxen of this country are excellent and uncommonly large, probably in consequence of the pastures being abundantly rich in fine and tender grass; the sheep, however, are not so good, as they are very fat, and their flesh has a strong taste. Poultry, on the contrary, succeeds well, and is very fine. All the houses are sheltered from the excessive heat of the sun by large trees called cheese trees, which are always in leaf while their branches are susceptible of any direction. This country abounds in bats, which are generally as large as pigeons: their wings are very long, and are furnished with five or six pointed hooks, by means of which they fix themselves together from the branches of trees, and hang down like large parcels of any thing thrown over the boughs. Of all volant animals, this is the only one which has milk to nourish its young; it is eaten by the Negroes. On the road to this village there may be observed a kind of round pyramids of earth, some of which are about seven feet high: they resemble the monuments raised to the memory of the great men of the country; but they are in fact the buildings of ants, and are as firm and compact as if they were formed of mortar. On breaking them, a multitude of ants fiercely issue out, and endeavour to punish the disturbers of their repose. These ants are whitish, and about the size of a barley-corn: their nests have only a single aperture at about one third of its height; and the ants attain it by means of a path, which runs round the pyramid from the bottom to the entrance.