While waiting for the tide at the mouth of that river, we visited a small island formed by the alluvial matter brought down with the stream, and collected by a ridge of rocks which run nearly across its embouchure. It is called Sandy Island, from its soil being almost wholly composed of that substance. It is about a mile in length, and from a quarter to half a mile in breadth, having a gentle rise towards the centre, where it is covered by a grove of palm trees. We met on it a party of about twenty of the Bagoo tribe, who had come thither to collect palm wine, for the celebration of a mournful ceremony over one of their chiefs, who had died a short time before. At a little distance from the spot where we met them, there is an arbour, on approaching which we were stopped, and told the place was sacred, as it contained their idols; of those we could not obtain even an indistinct view. Tallabunchia, which we also visited, is situated on the north bank of the river, about four miles above Sandy Island, in a plain, beautifully shaded with lofty palm trees, and a great profusion of orange, lime, plantain, and bananas. The town is straggling and irregular, and contains about 200 inhabitants. The houses are about sixteen feet high, and divided, by a partition of split cane, into two apartments, one of which serves as a store for their rice, &c. and the other for a dwelling. The men are strong and well formed, but of an extremely savage appearance; their whole apparel consists of a fathom of cotton cloth wrapped round their waists; they practise cutting the incisor teeth and tattooing the breasts and arms; holes are pierced through the whole circle of the ear, in which are inserted bits of a coarse kind of grass. The dress of the women is still less decent or becoming; a strip of cotton bound round the loins, in the shape of what surgeons call a T bandage, is their only covering; a band of twisted grass round the upper parts of the thigh, one immediately above, and another below the knee, with one over the ankle, constituted the female ornaments. The children were quite naked, and had large copper rings hanging from the cartilage of the nose. [Illustration: A NATIVE’S HUT AT TALABUNCHIA.] [Illustration: W. Gray del. FAC SIMILE OF DRAWING ON THE WALLS OF THE HUT. _Published Feb. 1825. by John Murray, London._]