The anchor was let go, and the great ship swung round with her head to the wind, which blew from the westward, and with her carved and painted stern to the green and wooded isle of Warrang, which is the most northerly of those that compose the archipelago of the Bissagos, a group of twenty little isles, lying near the mouth of the Rio Grande, in West Africa.
Banks of mud and sand render all these isles dangerous on the seaward. With the exception of Warrang, they are all inhabited by a wild and robust race of savages called the Bijaguas, who are of great stature, and are warlike and intrepid.
Though thirty miles in length, Warrang, with all its fertility, is destitute of inhabitants, being totally without springs or water.
While at anchor, we saw a dark savage, in a canoe, floundering about in the apple-green shoal water that lay between us and the land. Without fear he paddled close to the ship, and on signs being made that he might come on board, he moored his canoe under the mizzen chains, and sprang up the side with ease and confidence.
He was a tall and powerfully made man, with features of the lowest African type, and close curly wool on his head, but without a vestige of clothing, unless a string of beads were to be considered as such, and a little paint like ochre in color.
He pointed to the sea and then to his parched mouth, implying that he had been fishing, and was thirsty.
Some water was brought from the scuttle-butt; he drank of it greedily, and then patted his breast in token of gratitude.
The tattooing on Lambourne's face particularly attracted his attention, and seemed to excite his admiration; but poor Tom, with whom this unwished for decoration was a tender point, had no desire to fraternize with our sable visitor, and walking forward he leant against one of the windlass bitts and smoked his pipe sulkily.
The Bijagua now offered us his fish, which were strung upon a green withe, and Estremera presented him in return a gaudy old muleteer's jacket, which, being covered with brass buttons and red braid, would thus, he conceived, please the eye of a savage.
The Bijagua turned it round and viewed it in various ways, as if it puzzled him, upon which Hislop showed him how to put it on, and then attempted to persuade him to run his arms through the sleeves.