No sooner did we arrive in camp than a number of boys volunteered to
pluck the birds, which they did for the sake of the longest feathers,
with which they immediately decked their woolly heads. Crowds of boys
were to be seen with heads like cauliflowers, all dressed with the
feathers of cranes and wild ducks. It appears to be accepted, both by
the savage and civilized, that birds' feathers are specially intended
for ornamenting the human head.
It was fortunate that Nature had thus stocked Latooka with game. It was
impossible to procure any other meat; and not only were the ducks and
geese to us what the quails were to the Israelites in the desert, but
they enabled me to make presents to the natives that assured them of our
good will.
Although the Latookas were far better than other tribes that I had met,
they were sufficiently annoying; they gave me no credit for real good
will, but they attributed my forbearance to weakness. On one occasion
Adda, one of the chiefs, came to ask me to join him in attacking a
village to procure molotes (iron hoes); he said, "Come along with me,
bring your men and guns, and we will attack a village near here, and
take their molotes and cattle; you keep the cattle, and I will have the
molotes." I asked him whether the village was in an enemy's country.
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