When night began to fall around us the storm increased, and I could detect, by the low chatter and anxious looks of the rowers, that they were alarmed. As far as my eye reached landward, I could descry nothing but a continuous reef on which the chafed sea was dashing furiously in columns of the densest spray. Of course I felt that it was not my duty, nor would it be prudent, to undertake the guidance of the canoe in such circumstances. Yet, I confess that a shudder ran through my nerves when I saw my "head-man" suddenly change our course and steer the skiff directly towards the rocks. On she bounded like a racer. The sea through which they urged her foamed like a caldron with the rebounding surf. Nothing but wave-lashed rock was before us. At last I could detect a narrow gap in the iron wall, which was filled with surges in the heaviest swells. We approached it, and paused at the distance of fifty feet. A wave had just burst through the chasm like a storming army. We waited for the succeeding lull. All hands laid still,--not a word was spoken or paddle dipped. Then came the next enormous swell under our stern;--the oars flew like lightning;--the canoe rose as a feather on the crest of the surf;--in a moment she shot through the cleft and reposed in smooth water near the shore. As we sped through the gap, I might have touched the rocks on both sides with my extended arms! Such is the skill and daring of Kroomen. FOOTNOTE: [D] These Bagers are remarkable for their honesty, as I was convinced by several anecdotes related, during my stay in this village, by my trading clerk. He took me to a neighboring lemon-tree, and exhibited an English brass steelyard hanging on its branches, which had been left there by a mulatto merchant from Sierra Leone, who died in the town on a trading trip. This article, with a chest half full of goods, deposited in the "palaver-house," had been kept securely more than twelve years in expectation that some of his friends would send for them from the colony. The Bagers, I was told, have no _jujus_, _fetiches_, or _gree-grees_;--they worship no god or evil spirit;--their dead are buried without tears or ceremony;--and their hereafter in eternal oblivion. The males of this tribe are of middling size and deep black color; broad-shouldered, but neither brave nor warlike. They keep aloof from other tribes, and by a Fullah law, are protected from foreign violence in consequence of their occupation as salt-makers, which is regarded by the interior natives as one of the most useful trades. Their fondness for palm-oil and the little work they are compelled to perform, make them generally indolent. Their dress is a single handkerchief, or a strip of country cloth four or five inches wide, most carefully put on.