Then Prince's River would become an excellent highway.
An hour and a half's slow paddling placed us at the landing-place of Bekai
(a village in general), the usual hole in the bush. Here navigation ends
in the dry season. We walked to and through the mean little settlement,
and established ourselves at Anima-kru, [Footnote: The English 'croom' is
a corruption of _kru-mu_ or _krum_, 'in the village.' Properly speaking
'kru' and 'man' are the town, or common centre of many _akura_
(plantation-hamlets), in which the owners keep their families and
_familiae_.] a mile from the landing-place on the Yenna, or Prince's
River. It faces a splendidly wooded mound upon the right or opposite bank.
Mra Kwami, the headman, received us hospitably, cleared a house, and
offered us the usual palm-wine and snuff: the powder, composed of tobacco,
ginger, and cloves, is boxed in a round wild fruit.
The village contained only two men; the rest were drinking, at Prince's
town, the proceeds of a puncheon of palm-oil. The plantations still showed
fruits and flowers probably left by the Portuguese--wild oranges, mangoes,
limes, pine-apples, and the 'four o'clock,' a kind of 'marvel of Peru,'
supposed to open at that hour.
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