Niger

ance, and extent, Mungo made researches into the
origin of the beeswax. So doing, he discovered two
nations in occupation of the territory around Vin-
tain, and, indeed, much beyond Vintain. Of these,
the collectors of beeswax were the Feloops, c a wild
and unsociable race \ They were, indeed, the
hinterlands negroes, still largely untouched by Arab
culture or civilisation. They lived in villages re¬
mote in the forest, collecting beeswax, growing
cotton, and carrying on the ancient life of the
archaic civilisation, diversified in its solemnities by
copious draughts of mead. Mungo records that
they collected honey and made mead 4 much as in
Great Britain ’. Immersed in these pursuits and
refreshments, the Feloops generally employed mem¬
bers of the second nation in the district to act as
traders. These were the Mandingoes, concerning
whom we shall again meet Mungo discoursing.
Three days’ residence in Vintain completed
Captain Wyatt’s business, and the Endeavour was
sailed or warped down the hot creek into the brown
flow of the Gambia. Then they held up the river,
flowing deep and muddy, with the slime and shine
of the mangroves on the distant banks, and much
toil and exertion in these windless reaches. Beyond
the jungle bush showed up great stretches of
malarial swamp. Mungo inspected the Gambia
fish, and found no species at all known to Europe.
He records that sharks were very plentiful at the
mouth of the river. Upstream, amid the mangrove
reaches, showed the saw-like toothed jaws of croco-
40