Akwoaay, Porto Sogoora, Greejee, Popoe, Ahguay, Grand Popoe, and some other towns on the lagoon, are all independent settlements, with their own chief or king and government, for they have repelled all advances made by the Dahomans. Upon my landing at Akwoaay, I was met by the gadadoo, who kindly invited me to his house to drink some peto with him. I accepted his invitation with great satisfaction, as also did the whole of my party. He had just completed a new house of two stories, which had been planned by a krooman who had at a former period been to England in a merchant-ship. He evinced no small satisfaction in showing us up-stairs, though his upper room was only capable of admitting a person in a crouching position; still it was enough to make an uncivilized African proud to imagine that he occupied a palace equal to the sovereign of England. His house was about twenty feet long by twelve broad, and, including both stories, ten feet in height. In reply to his question, what sort of a house the Queen of England occupied, I told him that her palace was much larger than his whole town, and ten times higher. At this he seemed astonished and incredulous. However, his kindness was nothing abated, and after we had satisfied ourselves with peto, he ordered fish to be cooked with palm-oil, and plenty of meal from the maize or Indian corn. While this meal was being prepared, the gadadoo accompanied us round the town, where I shot plenty of pigeons, which are here very numerous. At this place I measured a cotton-tree, and found it forty-two feet in circumference. Here I also found a root used for food of a description I have not seen in any other part of Africa. It is called by the natives _etay_, and is of the yam tribe. It tastes very sweet, and is about the firmness of an English potato, about eighteen inches long, and in the middle about ten inches thick. It tapers from the upper end, but not so much as a carrot. After our walk, the gadadoo led us again back to his house, and dinner being ready mine was served up by itself in two calabashes, the fish stewed in palm-oil in one, and boiled corn in the other. Unfortunately my host possessed neither spoon nor knife; but I sent my boy to the canoe for both; the rest of the party, of course, never made use of any convenience beyond their fingers, which they used with great dexterity, each endeavouring to cope with the others. This feeling of competition exists amongst them only when eating or stealing. They eat enormously at all times when they find an opportunity of doing so at the expense of others, but when at their own they are capable of sustaining hunger for a length of time. The old gadadoo seemed to enjoy the scene, looking on with as much pleasure as if he were partaking of the fare; as also did the crowd outside, who could at a little distance see all our manœuvres, the windows being so low. All seemed astonished to see a white man eat with a knife and fork.