During the rainy season, which begins in June and lasts till October, the stores of provisions in establishments along the Atlantic coast often become sadly impaired. The Foulah and Mandingo tribes of the interior are prevented by the swollen condition of intervening streams from visiting the beach with their produce. In these straits, the factories have recourse by canoes to the smaller rivers, which are neither entered by sea-going vessels, nor blockaded for the caravans of interior chiefs. Among the tribes or clans visited by me in such seasons, I do not remember any whose intercourse afforded more pleasure, or exhibited nobler traits, than the BAGERS, who dwell on the solitary margins of these shallow rivulets, and subsist by boiling salt in the dry season and making palm-oil in the wet. I have never read an account of these worthy blacks, whose civility, kindness, and honesty will compare favorably with those of more civilized people. The Bagers live very much apart from the great African tribes, and keep up their race by intermarriage. The language is peculiar, and altogether devoid of that Italian softness that makes the Soosoo so musical. Having a week or two of perfect leisure, I determined to set out in a canoe to visit one of these establishments, especially as no intelligence had reached me for some time from one of my country traders who had been dispatched thither with an invoice of goods to purchase palm-oil. My canoe was comfortably fitted with a waterproof awning, and provisioned for a week.