On our way to the past...

Bob bobby bobobob bob and Bob again… ‘What is two Bob ok it’s enough I couldn’t find the answer but anyway’ I said to my wife who never understand why I was so insisted on. ‘I gave it up’. She didn’t bother much though…

We were actually in a very nice hotel in the Gambia but our room had some technical problems like floating all over the floor! Yet we were happy. We went outside the hotel to take a taxi to one of the historical monuments ‘Albreda’ which was a French exclave in The Gambia on the north bank of the Gambia River, variously described as a 'trading post' or a 'slave fort'. It was first established by the French in 1681, though it was previously settled by an indigenous population. The land was given to the French by the local ruler, Niumi Mansa, because his people were reliant on trade with Europeans. The French settlement was never very large (never more than one factory) but was inconvenient for the British, who otherwise had a monopoly on trade on the Gambia River, including possessing James Island, fulfilling a similar function less than two miles away on the opposite bank. There was constant tension and occasional skirmishes between the two powers. It was transferred from the French colonial empire to the British empire in 1857. Nowadays it contains a slave museum.