I cannot withhold the following notice of the worthy Major's death, extracted from a work lately published, entitled Travels, in Western Africa, in the years 1818, 1819, 1820 and 1821, by Major William Gray. Lond. 1825, 8vo.
"On that day (24th December) Major Peddie was attacked with a violent fever, from which he experienced little relief until the morning of the 1st of January 1817, when, thinking himself better, he left his bed, but was soon obliged to resume it, and in a few hours breathed his last.
"This was a sad commencement of the new year, and the melancholy event cast a heavy gloom on the minds of every individual connected with the expedition. It made so deep an impression on some, that it was with much difficulty they could be prevailed on not to abandon the enterprise. Never was a man more sincerely beloved, nor more truly regretted, by all who knew him. His remains were deposited, amidst the heartfelt regrets of his friends and companions, on the following day, in the court-yard of Mr Beatman, under the shade of two orange-trees; and an appropriate epitaph, written by Captain Campbell, and carved on a slab of native mahogany, was placed on his grave." pp. 67.
Note C, p. [108].
When we had reached the other side of the river, they drew the piroque on land. This is the only way that the people of the country have to secure their little boats, which the surge would instantly fill, when they cannot cast anchor at a sufficient distance from the shore.
This manœuvre did not occupy a long time, and I bent my steps to the village of Sor. I was kindly welcomed as usual; and I requested them to point out to me the best place for hunting; for I had that day left my interpreter, because I had gained a sufficient knowledge of the language of the country to understand all that the negroes said to me, and to make myself understood by them. They led me in a direction whence I had seen a troop of antelopes scamper off; but I thought no more of the chase after I had seen a tree, the enormous dimensions of which completely rivetted my attention. It was a calabash tree, otherwise called the monkey-bread tree, which the Woloffs call goui in their language. Its height was nothing extraordinary, being but about sixty feet; but its trunk was of prodigious dimensions. I spanned it thirteen times with my arms stretched out, but it was more; and, for greater exactness, I at last measured it with twine, and found its circumference to be sixty-five feet, its diameter consequently nearly twenty-two feet. I believe there has never been any thing seen equal to it in any country; and, I am persuaded that, had our ancient travellers known it, they would not have failed to have included it among the wonders of the world. It is also very astonishing that this tree has been totally neglected by those who have given us the history of Senegal, especially as there are but few common to the country.
The trunk of the one which I saw was twenty-two feet in diameter, about eight or twelve feet in height, with many branches, some of which stretched out horizontally, and touched the ground with their tops. These were very large, some being about forty-five or fifty-five feet in length. Each branch would have made one of the largest trees in Europe; and the tout ensemble of the monkey-bread tree looked less like a single tree than a forest. This was not all. The negro who conducted me took me to a second, which was sixty-three feet in circumference, that is twenty-one feet in diameter, and appeared to be about one hundred and ten feet in length, without counting the root which was concealed under the waters of a neighbouring river, the depth of which I had no means of ascertaining. The same negro told me of a third which was not far from the place where we were, and added that, without leaving the island, I would see a great many more which were not much inferior in size, pp. 54, 55.—Histoire Naturelle du Sénégal; avec le Relation abrégée d'un Voyage fait en ce Pays, pendant les années, 1749, 1750, 1751, 1752 and 1753. Par M. Adanson, Correspondant de l'Academie Royale des Sciences, Paris, 1757, 4to.
It was night before we reached Cogné. Our route was bordered with gum-trees, the yellow flowers of which, arranged in circular bunches, spread a delicious perfume. We also saw some rates. The bark of this tree yields a yellow dye; its leaf is without indentation, and of a beautiful green; it is not very high; the wood is white, and the bark is easily reduced to powder. This was the first time that I saw the baobab, that enormous tree which has been described by Adanson, and which bears his name. I measured one, and found it to be forty feet in circumference. Stripped at this time of its foliage, it resembled an immense wooden tower. This majestic mass is the only monument of antiquity to be met with in Africa. I am astonished that the negroes have not paid to this tree the same honours that the Druids did to the oak; for to them the baobab is perhaps the most valuable of vegetables. Its leaves are used for leaven, its bark furnishes indistructible cordage; and the bees form their hives in the cavities of its trunk. The negroes, too, often shelter themselves from storms in its time-worn caverns. The baobab is indisputably the monarch of African trees, p. 41.—Travels in the interior of Africa, to the sources of the Senegal and Gambia, by G. Mollien. Lond. 1820, 4to.
Mollien was one of the shipwrecked in the Medusa, and who got to the shores of the desert in the boats.—Trans.
Note D, p. [110].