4 TRAVELS IN AFRICA.

soldiers and civilians, amounting to 100 individuals, and a train of 200 animals. We called at Goree, where we remained until the 26th, when being joined by a vessel from the Cape de Verde Islands, having on board some horses and mules for our use, we proceeded and arrived, after a tedious passage of sixteen days, at Kakundy, a factory belonging to a Mr. Pearce, on the left bank of the Rio Nunez.

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.