The western arm of the river is separated from the sea by a point called the Point of Barbary. It is inconceivable how this slip of land, which is not above 250 metres in its greatest breadth, and is formed only of sand, should be able to resist the efforts of the river, which always tends to destroy it; and those of the sea, which breaks upon it sometimes with such fury, that it covers it entirely, and even crossing the arm of the river, comes and breaks on the shore of the island of St. Louis. Almost opposite the château and on the Point of Barbary, is a little battery of six guns at the most, which is called the Fort of Guetander; it is on the summit of a hill of sand which has been formed by the wind, and increases daily; it is even already pretty high, and is surrounded by a great number of huts of the blacks, which form a pretty extensive village: these buts tend to hold the sand together, and to prevent its sinking. The inhabitants of this village are very superstitious, as the following anecdote will prove.
In the course of the month of September, Messrs. Kummer and Corréard crossed the arm of the river, to visit the coast of Barbary and the village of Guetander; when they landed on the point, they proceeded towards the north, and having gone three or four hundred paces along the shore, they found a turtle, the diameter of which was a metre at the least; it was turned upon its back and covered with a prodigious quantity of crabs, (toulouroux)[61] which are found along the sea-coast. Mr. Corréard stopped a moment, and remarked that, when he had wounded one of these animals with his cane, the others devoured it instantly. While he was looking at these crabs feeding on the turtle, Mr. Kummer went on towards the south, and visited the burying-places of the blacks. Mr. Corréard joined him, and they saw that the natives erect over the tombs of their fathers, their relations and friends, little sepulchres, some made of straw, some of slight pieces of wood, and even of bones. All these frail monuments are consecrated much more by gratitude than by vanity. The blacks prohibit all approach to them in the strictest manner. Mr. Kummer, whom his companion had left to return to the shore, was examining very tranquilly these rustic tombs, when suddenly one of the Africans armed with a sabre, advanced towards him, crouching and endeavouring to surprise him; Mr. Kummer had no doubt but this man had a design upon his life, and retired towards Mr. Corréard, whom he found again observing the crabs and the turtle. On relating to him what had just passed, as they were unarmed, they resolved immediately to pass the river, by throwing themselves into a boat; they had soon reason to congratulate themselves on having done so, for they perceived several men who had collected at the cries of the black, and, if they had not taken flight, it is probable that their innocent curiosity would have cost them their lives.
The left bank of the river, which is called Grande Terre, is covered with perpetual verdure, the soil is fertile, and wants only hands to cultivate it.
Opposite, and to the east of St. Louis, is the isle of Sor, which is four or five leagues in circumference; it is of a long and almost triangular form: there are two extensive plains in it, where habitations might be erected. They are covered with grass two metres in height, a certain proof of the advantages that might be derived from the cultivation of this island. Cotton and indigo grow there naturally, the ground is in some parts low and damp, which gives reason to suppose that the sugar-cane would succeed. It might be secured against the inundations which take place in the rainy season, by erecting little causeways a metre in height, at the most. There are in this island, principally on the east side, mangoes, palatuviers, a great quantity of gum trees, or mimosas, and magnificent Baobabs[62].
Let us stop for a moment before this colossus, which, by the enormous diameter to which it attains, has acquired the title of the Elephant of the vegetable kingdom. The Baobab often serves the negroes for a dwelling, the construction of which costs no further trouble than cutting an opening in the side to serve as a door, and taking out the very soft pith which fills the inside of the trunk. The tree, far from being injured by this operation, seems even to derive more vigour from the fire which is lighted in it for the purpose of drying the sap, by carbonising it. In this state it almost always happens, that the bark, instead of forming a ridge at the edge of the wound, as happens with some trees in Europe, continues to grow, and at length covers the whole inside of the tree, generally without any wrinkles, and thus presents the astonishing spectacle of an immense tree recompleated in its organisation, but having the form of an enormous hollow cylinder, or rather of a vast arborescent wall bent into a circular form, and having its sides sufficiently wide asunder to let you enter into the space which it encloses. If casting our eyes on the immense dome of verdure which forms the summit of this rural palace, we see a swarm of birds adorned with the richest colours, sporting in its foliage, such as rollers with a sky-blue plumage, senegallis, of a crimson colour, souï-mangas shining with gold and azure; if, advancing under the vault we find flowers of dazzling whiteness hanging on every side, and if, in the center of this retreat, an old man and his family, a young mother and her children meet the eye, what a crowd of delicious ideas is aroused in this moment? Who would not be astonished at the generous fore-sight of nature? and where is the man who would not be transported with indignation if, while he was contemplating this charming scene, he beheld a party of ferocious Moors violate this peaceful asylum, and carry off some of the members of a family, to deliver them up to slavery? It would require the pencil of the author of the Indian Cottage, to do justice to such a picture.
This is not the only service which the blacks, who inhabit Senegambia, derive from the Adansonia or Baobab. They convert its leaves, when dried, into a powder which they call Lalo, and use it as seasoning to almost all their food. They employ the roots as a purgative; they drink the warm infusion of its gummy bark, as a remedy for disorders in the breast; they lessen the inflamation of the cutaneous eruptions, to which they are subject by applying to the diseased parts cataplasms made of the parenchyma of the trunk: they make an astringent beverage of the pulp of its fruit; they regale themselves with its almonds, they smoke the calyx of its flowers instead of tobacco; and often by dividing into two parts the globulous capsules, and leaving the long woody stalk fixed to one of the halves, which become dry and hard, they make a large spoon or ladle.
It has been found that the substance, called very improperly, terra sigillata of lemnos, is nothing more than the powder made of the pulp of the fruit of the Baobab. The Mandingians and the Moors carry this fruit as an article of commerce into various parts of Africa, particularly Egypt; hence, it finds its way to the Levant. There it is that this pulp is reduced to powder, and reaches us by the way of trade. Its nature was long mistaken: Prosper Alpinus was the first who discovered that it was a vegetable substance.
After the Isle of Sor, towards the South is that of Babagué, separated from the former and that of Safal, by two small arms of the river; this island, in an agricultural point of view, already affords a happy result to the colonists, who have renounced the inhuman traffic in slaves, to become peaceable planters. Many have already made plantations of cotton, which they call lougans. Mr. Artique, a merchant, has hitherto been the most successful. His little plantation brought him in 2400 fr. in 1814, which has excited in many inhabitants of St. Louis a desire to cultivate pieces of land there. After his example, we now see every where beginnings of plantations, which already promise valuable crops to those who have undertaken the cultivation of these colonial productions. The soil of Babagué is more elevated than that of the surrounding islands. At its southern extremity, which is precisely opposite the new bar of the river, there is a very great number of huts of the blacks, a military post with an observatory, and two or three country houses.
The Isle of Safal, belonging to Mr. Picard, offers the same advantages. Its soil is fertile as that of the islands of which we have just spoken. No drinkable water is found in any of them; but it would be easy to procure excellent water by digging wells about two metres in depth.
Cotton and indigo grow every where spontaneously; what then is wanting, to these countries, to obtain in them what the other colonies produce? Nothing but some men, capable of directing the natives in their labours, and of procuring them the agricultural implements, and the plants of which they stand in need. When these men are found, we shall soon see numerous habitations arise on the banks of this river, which will rival those in the Antilles. The blacks love the French nation more than any other, and it would be easy to direct their minds to agriculture. A little adventure, which happened to Mr. Corréard, will shew to what a degree they love the French.