tell him what we were, nor would he even then consent to sleep on board.
I have little doubt, from the timidity he exhibited, that the
slave-vessels have occasionally enticed pilots and their people on
board, and carried them off for slaves.

Our breakfast this morning consisted of smoked and dried herrings,
corned mackerel, fresh prawns, beef steaks, cold roast beef, cold ham,
roast and boiled yams, eggs, and toast: a supply that will not be
thought despicable for the passengers of a merchant schooner, in the
Bight of Biafra, where the sun was so powerful, that our anchor was hot
enough to serve the purposes of a heated oven.

At four in the afternoon I accompanied Lieut. Badgeley, with six Kroomen
in a small boat, to visit the town of Bonny, and the English shipping in
the river. Soon after dark we went on board the Neptune, which was lying
off the town of Bonny, and was the same vessel we had boarded outside
the river. After refreshing ourselves with tea, we accompanied the
Surgeon on shore, to look for Captain Cudd, whom we found visiting one
of King Peppel's great men. We wished to call upon the King, but were
informed that we could not be allowed to do so, as his Majesty was too
drunk to receive company, and exceedingly dangerous in his cups; a state
of bliss to which he commonly arrived by that hour, every evening. We,
therefore, contented ourselves by passing the night at the house of the
prime minister, with the intention of waiting upon his Majesty the
following morning. I slept in the same apartment with the Doctor. Our
beds, by courtesy so called, were made on a mud floor; they consisted
merely of a mat spread for each, with a coya-cushion (the outside shell
of the cocoa nut) for a pillow; fortunately the climate is too hot to
require any covering; we therefore lay down without removing our nether
garments; sleep was, however, quite out of the question, for so soon as