Such was the everyday state of the square; but the scene was still more animated and interesting on the occasion of the Tuesday weekly market. On that day enormous crowds of people gathered from the whole surrounding country to buy and sell wholesale, and many were the delightful glimpses of native life and character continually presenting themselves to the eyes of the observant traveller. He even found a means whereby to turn the market to his own advantage. Mansong being slow in carrying out his promise to supply canoes to be turned into boats, Park opened a shop himself for the purpose of exchanging some of his articles for cowries, by which he hoped to purchase the necessary means of transport. He made such a tempting display that he had at once a great run of business, and became the envy of all the merchants of the place. In one day he secured 25,000 cowries. While thus peacefully employed, every effort was being made on the part of the Moors and native merchants in order to set Mansong against the white man, and get him killed, or sent back by the way he had come. They even did not hesitate to say that his object was to kill the king and his sons by means of charms. Mansong, however, was not to be prevailed on by such instigations, though his behaviour showed some belief in the reported magical powers. After much delay, Park succeeded in obtaining two canoes, to join which together he and Bolton, the sole remaining capable man, now set themselves with great vigour. The rotten parts were replaced, the holes were repaired, and after eighteen days’ hard labour the united canoes were launched and christened His Majesty’s schooner _Joliba_, the length being forty feet, and the breadth six. Being flat-bottomed, it drew only one foot of water. While Park was thus toiling with feverish energy to complete his preparations, Martyn seems to have been taking life very easily. From a letter written from Sansandig to a friend at Goree we get an idea of the sort of man he was, and how much he assisted in the work of the expedition. “Whitebread’s beer,” says the Lieutenant, “is nothing to what we get at this place, as I feel by my head this morning, having been drinking all night with a Moor, and ended by giving him an excellent thrashing.” Could the contrast possibly be greater between Park and this man--the one possessed with a consuming desire to accomplish a work seemingly beyond mortal power, slaving with the strength of half-a-dozen ordinary men, uncrushed by a myriad misfortunes, his hero’s spirit equal to every difficulty and danger; the other spending his time in drunken orgies, seemingly as careless of his life as indifferent to the great mission that was partly his.