Savage Africa: being the narrative of a tour in equatorial, south-western, and north-western Africa; with notes on the habits of the gorilla; on the existence of unicorns and tailed men ... With illustrations and a map

Front matter

SAVAGE AFRICA. Frontispiece. Detained. SAVAGE AFRICA: BEING THE NARRATIVE OF A TOUR IN- EQUATORIAL, SOUTH-WESTERN, AND NORTH-WESTERN AFRICA WITH NOTES ON THE HABITS OF THE GORILLA ; ON THE EXISTENCE OF UNICORNS AND TAILED MEN ; ON THE SLAVE TRADE; ON THE ORIGIN, CHARACTER, AND CAPABILITIES OF THE NEGRO AND ON THE FUTURE CIVILIZATION OF WESTERN AFRICA. BT W. WINWOOD READE, FELLOW OF THE GEOGBAFHICAL AND ANTHROPOLOGICAL SOCIETIES OF LONDON, AND CORRESPONDING MEMBER OF THE GEOGRAPHICAL SOCIETr OF PARK. " Travel, in the younger sort, is a part of education.' — Bacon. WITH ILLUSTRATIONS AND A MAP. LONDON: SMITH, ELDER, AND CO., 65 CORNHILL. 1863. The right nf Translation is reserved. LONDON : PRINTED BV WILLIAM CLOWES AND SONS, STAMFORD STREET, AND CHA RING CROSS. HO DEDICATION. TO MESSES. WILLIAM WALKER, OF THE GABOON ; J. P. MACKEY, OP CORISCO ; THOMAS MILLER, OF ST. VINCENT'S ; AUGUSTE RAPET, OF THE CASEMANCHE ; CHARLES PRIMET, OF THE GAMBIA ; AND TO THE MEMORY OF THE LATE EDMUND GABRIEL, OF LOANDA ; FROM WHOM I RECEIVED MUCH GENEROUS ASSISTANCE AND SO MANY ACTS OF FRIENDSHIP, l<

Preface

. The narrative portions of tliis work have been com piled from letters written home to a friend at monthly intervals. This will account for the familiar and some times egotistical tone which I fear that I have not entirely subdued. Certain grave facts which I plucked in Africa I allowed to ripen in my brain, like fruit laid out in the sun. After mature study and reflection I have ventured to prepare them into theories, and to offer them to the scientific reader. I make, of course, no pretensions to the title of Explorer. If I have any merit, it is that of having been the first young man about town to make a bond fide tour in Western Africa ; to travel in that agreeable and salubrious country with no special object, and at his own expense ; to flaner in the virgin forest ; to flirt with pretty savages ; and to smoke his cigar among cannibals.

Conservative Club, November, 1863. CONTENTS. CHAPTEE I. A LOVELY CHARNEL-HOUSE. Discovery of Madeira, and legend of Machim — The duties of a tourist — Madeira — Portuguese — The convicts of disease Page 1 CHAPTEE II. A PERISHED PEOPLE. Peak of Teneriffe — On horseback to Laguna — The Silent City — Cigars and brunettes — Expired aborigines 7 CHAPTEE III. A LANDMARK OF HISTORY. Sea-torpor — First sight of Africa — The Infanta Henry — Cape Boiador — The rabbits of Porto Santo — Portuguese monopoly, and English smuggling u CHAPTEE IV. THE PARADISE OF THE BLACKS. Sierra Leone : Its description ; its douaniers — Black Christianity — Origin of thc white man — Nigger juries — Ethiopic character 17 CHAPTEE V. THE REPUBLIC OF COLOURED GENTLEMEN. Liberia : Its description ; its future and its resources 29

CHAPTER VI. THE TITANS OF THE COAST.

Cape Palmas — The Kru-man — Engage a crew — Book — Kru character CONTENTS. X CHAPTEE VII. THE CITY OF GOLD. The grave of L. E. L. — Her death — Her husband — Popular scandal — Eoute to Coomassi — Court reception — Ashanti empire : Its constitution — Decoy wives — Savage nuptials Page 38 o CHAPTEE VIII. LAND OF THE AMAZONS. Dahomey: Its revenues and laws — The Amazons — Human sacrifices 47 CHAPTEE IX. THE KING OF OILS. The mouths of the Niger — Discovered in the fifteenth century — Bonny river — Interview with Peppel — Fernando Po : Its inhabitants — A Gaboon legend 54 CHAPTEE X COAST SOCIETY. Unanimous inebriety — The Cognac disease — Sierra Leone scandal 64 CHAPTEE XI. THE TRIBE OF COMMERCIAL TRAVELLERS. I enter the Gaboon — Take a house — Tornada v. Fever — Baraka mission — My steward Mongilomba — Gaboon commerce — -The gorilla palaver — Tropical rain 68 CHAPTEE XII.

THE LAND OF HUNGER. Corisco — The Bapuku Bush — I. iver life — Net-hunting — Captain taken prisoner — The Muni country — Starvation, body and mind — Episode of civilization — Turtle-spearing by moonlight 85 CHAPTEE XIII. THE FALLS OF THE NCOMO. My steward Oshupu — Nengg-Nengg — Negro hospitality — Description of the Fans — Discover the Falls of the Ncomo CONTENTS. XI CHAPTEES XIV.— XV. THE PHILOSOPHY OF CANNIBALISM. Cannibalism — Its antiquity — Its nature in Africa — Evidence of a Fan — A Ghoul story Page 156 CHAPTEE XVI. DRUGGED ELEPHANTS. Visit an elephant nghal — Menagerie in the forest — Explanation of the mystery 163 CHAPTEE XVII. THE CAMMA COUNTRY. By sea and creek — The Fernand Vaz — The King of the Bembo — Arrival at Ngumbi — The Princess Ananga — The tobacco question — Relative happiness — The cannibal salute 170 CHAPTEE XVIII.

THE GORILLA HUNT. The gorilla dance — On the track — Disappointment 104 CHAPTEE XIX. THE GREAT APE OF EQUATORIAL AFRICA. Battell, Monboddo, Bowdich, Savage, Wilson, and Du Chaillu : Examination of their testimony — Description of the ape's habits 199 CHAPTEE XX. DETAINED. Leave Ngumbi — Am brought back — Imprisonment — The false Ananga Great palaver — Deputation of Bakeles — Set at liberty — Dangerous bar 222 CHAPTEE XXI. THE EQUATORIAL SAVAGE. His education — Religion — Witchcraft — Government — Code moral . . CONTENTS. XII CHAPTEE XXII. VOLCANIC FLOWER-GARDENS. Princess Island — African champagne — Mulatto politeness — St. Thomas — The Dutchman's churchyard — Senhor Pereira — I become a spy . . 264 CHAPTEE XXIII. AT SEA. Animal vegetation — Short commons — Boarded by a cruiser . . . . 279 CHAPTEE XXIV.

BLACK IVORY. The Slave Trade — Its results — Its present state — Its future suppression 289 CHAPTEE XXV. THE METROPOLIS OF AFRICA. San Paola de Loanda : Its description — Pecuniary embarrassment — Eide in a palanquin — Welcomed by Mr. Gabriel — Portuguese society — A reminiscence 300 CHAPTEE XXVI. BY OX AND HAMMOCK. Joachim the Swiss — His best friend — En route for Ambaka — Bloodthirsty musquitos — The Senhor Mendez — Routine of journey — Mountains a la Suisse — Arrival at Ambaka — The war with Cassange — Governmental plunder — The fashion of secret poisoning — The bceuf-cheval — The door-keeper of Matiamvo — Joachim s drunk — Is impertinent — Loses two front teeth — Post-haste — The story of Franz 310 CHAPTEE XXVII. FEVER AND FLIGHT. Three dreams — Fever — Mr. Gabriel's sickness — His death — S. S. Don Pedro — The White Lady — The language of cigars CONTENTS.

XIII CHAPTEE XXVIII. THE CONGO EMPIRE. African revolutions — King of Congo — Benediction of the people — The bedtax — The royal harem — The pontiff and priests of Congo — Religious and civil institutions — An African Napoleon — - The queen of the Jagas — Her valour and cruelty — Her bloodthirsty laws — Her canibal amours — Her violent death _ Page 357 CHAPTEE XXIX. THE ISLANDS OF THE GREEN CAPE. Santiago — Trip into the interior — A rough lodging — Negro modesty — San Vincenti — Character of our consul — San Nicholao — The Town of the Wild Stream — Quail-shooting — Boa- Vista — Sal — Salt pits — The charms of solitude 370 CHAPTEE XXX. UP THE CASEMANCHE. Return to the continent — To the Casemanche in a French schooner — Fort Caraban — The Jolas — Rice and palm-wine — A shift for a divorce — A scene from the desert — A shot at antelopes — Sedhu — The travelling marabouts — The tree Self-Fire — The Djikijunka — Journey in search of it — Senegambia scenery —Mandingo village — Native courtesy — Edible earth — The trumpet-bird — Missora — Description of Djikijunka — The feast of lanterns — A Christmas breakfast — An evening on the water 386 CHAPTEE XXXI.

UP THE GAMBIA. Colonial life — On board the ' Dover ' — Ground-nut diplomacy — Massacre Christianity — A day's shooting — The nondescript animal — African palavers — Mr. Rooke the apostle -r- Missionary labours — The dog-faced baboons — Strange story of Sergeant Boivin — The Falls of Barraconda — An angry hippopotamus •.. .. < 404 CHAPTEE XXXII. THE THREE DOCTORS OF MACARTHY'S ISLAND. Description of thc island — The Harmattan — The rainy season — Deaths of Staff Assistant-Surgeons Beale and Trestrail — Appearance of Beale to Campbell — Death of Campbell — The sentry and the apparition — The haunted house — The sounds in the piazza and the centre-room — The man in white — The footsteps on the floor — The science of the spirit-world and its study 425 C CONTENTS. CHAPTEE XXXIIT. UP THE SENEGAL.

Calomel and jaundice — The Senegal — Oumar the Pilgrim — The Moors of the Desert — Up to Podor — Mohammedan negro — Return from the campaign— On the Bar— Farewell Page 431 CHAPTEE XXXIV. MONSTERS AND FABULOUS ANIMALS. Origin of fables — The sloth in Africa — The roc — The unicorn — Described by the ancients — - Account of Barthema — Accoimt of Tellez — Tailed men of the Eastern Archipelago — Tailed men of Africa — Tailed men of Kent 467 CHAPTEE XXXV. FEATURES OF AFRICA. The mother and ber children — Central plateau after Buffon, Lace'pede, and Ritter — Description of the western wall — The lowlands of Western Africa 487 CHAPTEE XXXVI. MALARIA. Eains, dew, and winds malarious — Human infection — Nature of malaria — Natural history of fever — Siestas and stimulants 494 CHAPTEE XXXVII. THE NEGRO.

The true Negro — African types — Degeneration of animals in Africa — Aborigines of Africa — African languages — Eeligion, manners, and customs — The Negress — African character .. 506 CHAPTEE XXXVIII. THE REDEMPTION OF AFRICA. Exploration — Commerce — Military protection — Christian missions — Mohammedan civilization — Future of Africa LIST OF ILLUSTEATIONS. Detained TofaceTitle. An African Tornado „ page 101 The Gorilla Dance „ 195 The Gorilla „ „ 220 By Ox and Hammock „ „ 334 Queen of the Cannibals , „ 366 The Djikijunka , „ 397 Christmas Eve at the Casemanche „ „ 399 A Senegal Inundation .. .. „ „ 463 Map At the end. SAVAGE AFRICA.

Chapter I

A LOVELY CHARNEL-HOUSE. Discovery of Madeira and Legend of Machim — The duties of a Tourist — Madeira — Portuguese — The convicts of disease. Two gentlemen of the court of Lisbon, sailing in the Sea of Darkness, saw a black cloud. In spite of the prayers and curses of the common seamen, they reso lutely steered towards it. It was not a demon, as they had supposed, but the loom of an island completely covered with trees. When they went ashore they found that they were not its discoverers. They saw a large cedar cross, and near it a grave-stone, on which were engraved the names of Robert and Anna, and the following romantic and highly moral history : — Robert a Machim (this was in the fourteenth century) fell in love with Anna d'Arfet, a young lady of good family. Her father sent him to prison, and married his daughter to a peer.

He took her to his castle, near Bristol, which he was suddenly obliged to leave in order to join the king's army. Machim, who had been released, persuaded Anna to elope with him to France. On their voyage a storm drove them out to sea ; and finally they found an anchorage off Madeira. Anna, i: Chap. I. 2 SAVAGE AFRICA. who, like Don Juan, had been torn by the alternate throes of love and sea-sickness, wished to go ashore. The gale returned ; the ship broke from her moorings ; and, with a few companions, they were left upon the island. Anna died " of thought," Machim of despair. The sailors prepared the cross, the grave-stone, and the inscription, which Machim had written before his death, and to which he added the request that those who first came to their grave would raise a chapel above their remains.

This was done. The chapel was dedicated to Jesus ; its choir paved with the bones of the unfortunate lovers. And to this day they will show you a piece of the original cedar cross in the Chapel of Machico or Machim ; to this day in Madeira mothers seat their children on their knees and tell them of the English lady who came there across the seas. This story has been told often enough, and, indeed, Madeira has been scribbled threadbare : reams of rap tures have been written on its scenery, volumes on its very atmosphere. And yet printed words had not prepared me for the delicious sight which greeted me that morning. Giddy from a week's sickness and con finement in a berth, I almost believed that I was looking at a picture. Madeira has all the appearance of a work of art. It is a landscape which has sym metry, but no grandeur ; which is beautiful, but which is not sublime.

As we see it from the harbour, it is a mountain. Its brow is ridged in fantastic forms, and is tinted by the rays of the rising sun. Its green bosom is relieved by white houses, by rosy gardens, and by dark ravines ; Chap. I. A LOVELY CHARNEL-HOUSE. 3 below lies Funchal, bathing its feet in the waters, and reflecting towards us the first smiles of morning. Yes, it is a pretty picture ; and its colours are so fresh and vivid that it seems as if it had just been placed in its dark-blue frame of sea and sky. A boat shot forth from the beach, the Portuguese flag waving in her stern. She came alongside ; a bundle of blue papers were handed down and examined ; and she left us with her flag still unfurled, a signal that we had obtained our pratique. Some gaudily-painted boats, which had been hovering at a little distance, now swooped down on us like birds of prey ; some had cushioned seats for passengers, others were laden with fruit, flowers, and ingenious baskets.

I went ashore, hired a grey nag, and rode up the pebbled mountain-road, a ragged guide hanging to my horse's tail with one hand and lashing the flies off him with the other. I stopped at a cabaret half-way up, and drank a tumbler of villainous negrinho. Then I visited the Mount Church, the English cemetery, and the nunnery. At the first I bought a picture of the Virgin, at the second an embroidered collar, at the third some artificial flowers made of feathers — an art imported from the New World. Having discharged these solemn duties of the tourist, I played at billiards till the hour of vespers. The Portuguese gentlemen dress always in black, a fashion which one would think had been invented by the Inquisition. But the ladies wear those handsome black silks which suit all figures and complexions.

The peasant-women both in costume and appearance resemble our female gipsies, in whom, for my part, I could never see anything very prepossessing. But the b Chap. I. 4 SAVAGE AFRICA. men have one peculiarity in their dress. It is a cloth cap shaped like a small wine-funnel, and is perched on the top of their heads in a most extraordinary manner. As for the men themselves, they lead a life of sloth and starvation : some of them, basking like lizards on the steps of the Mount Church, whine to Mi-lor Inglese for alms, and swear at him roundly when refused. Others prowl about the markets, and pick up a fragmentary existence on fruit and fish. The inland population must be more industrious ; for there is considerable cidtivation on this little island. When first discovered it was one dense mass of trees, which the early settlers set on fire so completely that they themselves were nearly sacrificed with the vege tation.

The ashes with which the ground was clothed nurtured the sugar-cane which was planted in large quantities, and Madeira became as famous for its sugar as afterwards for its wine. But it happened that the sugar-canes were ravaged by a peculiar kind of worm ; their culture was abandoned, and John the Second introduced vines from Crete. That these pro duced one of the finest wines in the world everybody knows ; but some years ago they were killed by a disease, and, though experiments have been made with every kind of vine, none have flourished since ; and the sugar-cane has returned to the soil where once it was grown as a rare and almost unknown plant. This scourge of the vine resembles the potatoe disease in its character, giving the leaves a smoke-dried appear ance. It seems to have come from the East, and to be conquering turn by turn the vineyards of the West.

First it destroyed those of the Cape de Verde Islands, next the Canaries, and afterwards Madeira. The Chap. I. A LOVELY CHARNEL-HOUSE. 5 orchards of the Azores have suffered from its ravages, and we, a nation of port drinkers, know to our cost that it has touched Oporto. Its sure and gradual pro gress makes one fear that even port will become a tradi tionary wine, and, indeed, that some day we shall have no wine at all. The roads of Funchal and its environs are very neatly pebbled. This admits of the bullock-sledge, a carriage without wheels, in which the native aristocracy travel. This was my first day abroad, and I must give you a foreign scene. I am standing at the porch of an ancient church : the bell is tolling for vespers, and mingles with the song of the fruit-girls in the street. The organ begins to play.

I hear a strange rattling on the stones. Two bullocks, models of symmetry, with sleek fawn-coloured skins, gallop to my side. A little red curtain is drawn, and a graceful lady descends adjusting her mantilla. She gives me one flash of her black eyes, and a little smile, half meditative, half triumphant, in return to the homage which I am paying her with mine. I must own to you that it was this little incident alone which assured me that I was really out of England. Like Boulogne, Funchal has an Anglo stamp upon it : it is ethnologically mongrel — a stepping stone between home and abroad. This English aspect is owing to the presence of those poor convicts of disease whom the doctors transport here for death. You may see them there in the garb of health, with roses on their cheeks, and the appetites of healthy men.

But those roses are the rouge of disease ; that appetite is the gnawing of the canker-worm within. SAVAGE AFRICA. Chap. I. It is but a lovely charnel-house this island of Madeira. It is a boudoir, and it is a hospital : a paradise, and a tomb. Here comes Death, with mock laughter and in tinselled robes. A garland of roses hides the cypress on his brow. He leads his victim to the tomb to the music of the spheres; and then all changes suddenly, like a horrible dream ; and some weeping family, whose dear one is gone from them, fly from the scene of a bitter woe. For them Madeira is no longer beautiful ; for them the sun is darkness ; the flowers are ashes ; the warm, soft air is heavy with disease. Chap. II. A PERISHED PEOPLE. 7

Chapter II

A PERISHED PEOPLE. Peak of Teneriffe — On horseback to Laguna — The Silent City — Cigars and brunettes — Expired aborigines. The Peak of Teneriffe ! I had expected to see a mountain rising in majestic solitude from the sea. But I saw a high, square-built mass of hill, which jutted rather than tapered into an apex, and on which there was sufficient snow to suggest the sublime idea of a cotton night-cap. In Santa Cruz I found it more difficult to obtain a horse than in Funchal. At last I was conducted down a back-lane into a small and very dirty house. Four women were sewing in a parlour, and did not raise their heads when I went in. The walls were decorated with those old-fashioned coloured prints which you still find in cottages in the country ; deformed angels, bloated Cupids, and stalwart shepherdesses leading lambs, which look like lions.

I was taken thence through the chamber (almost filled with a four-poster, which might have rivalled the great bed of Ware) into a stable-yard. I was offered my choice of two very rough ponies, and the object of my preference, having been accoutred with a rusty bit, a bridle patched up with string, and a ragged one-stirrupped saddle, was led with a loud clattering through the bedroom into the Chap. II. 8 SAVAGE AFRICA. parlour, and from the parlour into the street. I was presented with a guide who did not understand a. word of English, and we started on the road to St. Christoval de la Laguna. The scenery was wild and barren. The road, which bears the marks of an ancient pavement, was bordered with cactus-fields. It was the cochineal harvest, and women were at work collecting the insect in small pots, with an instrument like a putty-knife.

The cochineal was first imported from Mexico by an enterprising man. The educated people looked upon him as a fool, and laughed at him ; the uneducated, as something worse, and burned his cacti. But as soon as the pest fell upon the vines* there was a cochineal furore, which is yielding to tobacco since the discovery of dianthine. So now, instead of devouring this disease born insect in our strawberry ices, we take them coloured .with an agreeable extract from coal-tar. A ride of five miles brought me to Laguna, which deserves to be called the Silent City. " Then houses were like tombs, and you might write their epitaphs above their doors." There were no pretty girls in the balconies, no tinkling of guitars from within ; the houses were moss-covered, the streets grass-grown ; animal life rare, saving mildew, which was excessive.

I went to an inn, as desolate as a mausoleum, and ate voraciously, feeling like a ghoul. The intense stillness alarmed me ; I rushed to the kitchen. There, at all events, I hoped to find something natural and human. * The vines were imported into these islands from the Rhine, as well as from Crete. " This island produces three sorts of excellent wines," writes Nichols in his description. " Canary, Malmsey (or rather Malvasia), and Ver dona, which may all go under the denomination of Sack." But now there arc, I believe, neither Canary wine nor Canary birds in the Canaries. Chap. II. A PERISHED PEOPLE. 9 But no, it was empty ; the fire which had been lighted for my omelette was almost out, and the cinders were dropping with a dismal sound into the grate below. Laguna is the residence of many political exiles, who feel no desire to see the inhabitants of a world which is for ever closed against them.

I will not take upon me to assert that fleas fatten on persons of a melancholy temperament ; but it is certain that the fleas of Laguna stand unrivalled in size and activity. They are the heroes of many songs of the peasantry, and Peter Pindar, who once dwelt in this cheerful neighbourhood, wrote verses in their honour. I returned to Santa Cruz, which presents a much gayer appearance. La Plaza de la Constitution is the fashionable evening promenade. I sat at the door of the French cafe, smoking the long, flat cigar of Tene riffe, and stared at brunettes to my heart's content. Then I examined the monument of the four Guanche kings which sit sculptured in the market-place, each holding his thigh-bone in his hand. These Guanches were the aborigines of the island. Large numbers perished from the arms of the Spaniards and by a famine (the familiar of war) which afterwards came upon the island.

The rest gradually perished away, under that mysterious agency which the mere presence of white men appears to employ against a weaker race. Some ethnologists have supposed that these Guanches were a detached race of people, unlike any now existing on the earth. We have, however, ample evidence, from the writings of the Spanish historians and the English merchant-adventurers of the day, to show that the Guanches were of Libyan origin, though it is not possible to identify them with any particular tribe. Chap. II. 10 SAVAGE AFRICA. The Guanches were a tawny-skinned, black-eyed, flat nosed people, speaking a dialect analogous with that of the Berbers, and dwelling in caves. They believed in a Supreme Being, an Evil Genius, and a future state ; they also worshipped two tutelar deities, one of whom protected men, the other women.

They had an order of white-robed priests and priestesses, who preserved their purity by intermarriage, and the art of embalm ing ; which last, when they became extinct, died with them. They had lords or chieftains, under whose com mand they fought with wooden javelins hardened in the fire. They tilled the ground with bullock's horns, and lived on a food called gosio, which resembles the cous-cous of 'the Senegambia. They fattened their girls for marriage, believing that fat women were the most fruitful, and on them their lords exercised the droit-de cuisse. Finally, when they died the priests dried them in the sun, embalmed them, and buried them in caves, sacred to the art of sepulture. Chap. III. A LANDMARK OF HISTORY. 11

Chapter III

A LANDMARK OF HISTORY. Sea-torpor— First sight of Africa — The Infanta Henry — Cape Boiador — The rabbits of Porto Santo — Portuguese monopoly, and English smuggling- We continued our voyage with a fair wind, and a warm sea. Sometimes we received visits from flying fish, which fell upon the deck, and even upon the awning above. This little creature skims along the surface of the water, with gauzy wings of the same material as those of the dragon-fly, so like a bird, that one might have very good sport taking them on the wing, with dust shot. These petty incidents are angel visits at sea, that monotonous and over-rated element. Viewed from the shore as it comes dashing upon the black rocks, shivers into a thousand foaming fragments, and runs hissing towards one along the sand, it is certainly a grand sight.

But " blue water " itself is, in repose, a flat-faced simpleton without beauty or expres sion, except that which it borrows from the sky above it ; and, in commotion, a spoilt child whose ships are toys, and who sometimes breaks them open to see what they are made of. One has so much leisure at sea, that one can seldom do any work. The most intellectual travellers must con fess that dinner is the great event of the nautical day. SAVAGE AFRICA. Chap. III. On board ship one lives only when eating or drinking : at other periods one exists. At half-past eight we used to sit down to a breakfast of edible cinders. Our cook was a confirmed culprit, who over-did every thing, and who was daily wished back with him from whom cooks are proverbially supposed to come. We had tea and coffee ; but as the tea was usually made in yesterday's coffee-boiler, and vice versa, choice became a mere matter of form.

Our cinders were handed us on plates which represented an angel receiving fruits from a negress, with the motto underneath, Spero meliora. The angel representing the West African Company, the motto, a humane wish for higher profits. At twelve we spoilt our dinners with cheese and biscuits, and at four o'clock the cook spoilt it again. At ten all the lights were put out, and each man retired to his oven. This was the life of a tortoise in the sand, or of a bear in a hollow tree ; and I was glad enough when I heard the cry of **** Land, 0 ! " from the mast-head. In a short time I was looking at the continent of Africa. There was not much to see, it was true. A white surf on a barren shore. A cluster of trees. Two round hills, the Paps of the Cape de Verde ; and as suggestive of a feminine bust, as the Cape itself of a verdant promontory.

But it was Africa, that land of adventure and romance ; and I stood there for two hours, unable to draw my eyes away. That miserable group of trees is a grand landmark in the history of navigation. In days when Western Africa was believed to be one great desert of sand, it gave promise of a rich and fruitful continent, and of the still wealthier India beyond. Chap. III. A LANDMARK OF HISTORY. In the fifteenth century, when the Crescent began to grow dim in the West, and Fez and Bagdad no longer remained the capitals of the world, the Portuguese under Alfonso I. drove the Moors from Portugal, pursued them into their own country, and, assisted by a band of merchant-adventurers from England, took the town of Ceuta by storm. During this engagement, Henry, the third son of the king, then a youth, displayed remarkable valour and address.

When the war was over, he determined not to rest till he had solved that grand problem of the ancients — the circumnavi gation of Africa. Having had long conversations with the Moors who had been taken captive, he took up his residence at the Cape de Sagres, in the southernmost province of Portugal. There the sight of the sea constantly sustained his passion, and he could easily communicate with the travelled Moors, who went trading to the borders of negro-land. He also examined all sailors who came from distant seas, and having sent for Jacques from the island of Majorca (a man celebrated for his knowledge of navigation, and his skill in the making of charts and instruments), he placed him at the head of an Academy, which he founded for the study of these sciences. One morning, after he had passed the night in study and reflection, he suddenly ordered two vessels to sail for the Libyan coast, and these were followed by others which happened to be ready for sea.