thunder as no person can form a conception of but those who have heard
it.

The country itself being an immense level, and very generally covered
with woods, presents a tiresome, and gloomy uniformity to the eye; but
although nature has denied to the inhabitants the beauties of romantic
landscapes, she has bestowed on them, with a liberal hand, the more
important blessings of fertility and abundance. A little attention to
cultivation procures a sufficiency of corn; the fields afford a rich
pasturage for cattle; and the natives are plentifully supplied with
excellent fish, both from the Gambia river and the Walli creek.

The grains which are chiefly cultivated are Indian corn, (_zea mays;_)
two kinds of _holcus spicatus_, called by the natives _soono_ and
_sanio_; _holcus niger_, and _holcus bicolor_; the former of which they
have named _bassi woolima_, and the latter _bassiqui_. These, together
with rice, are raised in considerable quantities; besides which, the
inhabitants in the vicinity of the towns and villages have gardens which
produce onions, calavances, yams, cassavi, ground-nuts, pompions, gourds,
water melons, and some other esculent plants.

I observed, likewise, near the towns, small patches of cotton and indigo.
The former of these articles supplies them with clothing, and with the
latter, they dye their cloth of an excellent blue colour, in a manner
that will hereafter be described.

In preparing their corn for food, the natives use a large wooden mortar
called a _paloon_, in which they bruise the seed until it parts with the
outer covering, or husk, which is then separated from the clean corn, by
exposing it to the wind; nearly in the same manner as wheat is cleared