Most of
them were idolaters, nearly all had implicit faith in charms, some
worshipped "Mahmoud most vile," and some were Nomades like the Gypsies
of Europe. For the most part the people of the Gambra lived like those
of the Senegal, dressing in cotton and using the same food, except that
they ate dog's flesh and were all tattooed, women as well as men.
We need not follow Cadamosto in his accounts of the great trees, the
wild elephants, great bats and "horse-fish" of the country. A chief
called Gnumi-Mansa, "King Gnumi," living near the mouth of the Gambra,
took him on an elephant-hunt, in which he got the trophies, foot, trunk,
and skin, that he took home and presented to Prince Henry.
On descending the Gambra, the caravel tried to coast along the
unexplored land, but was driven by a storm into the open sea. After
driving about some time and nearly running on a dangerous coast, they
came at last to the mouth of a great river which they called Rio Grande,
"for it seemed more like a gulf or arm of the sea than a river, and was
nearly twenty miles across, some twenty-five leagues beyond the Gambra."
Here they met natives in two canoes, who made signs of peace, but could
not understand the language of the interpreters.
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