were bottles and glasses, and men drank and
talked of the dead man, told of his adventures,
his gains and losses, his tricks in trade, and his
home life; and as the drink excited them, shouts
and laughter took the place of the steady
recital with which they had commenced, and
the voices of the women grew shriller and more
piercing. In the midst of all, often adjured
and appealed to, sat the ghastly and motionless
corpse. Afterwards, when it was consigned to
the tomb, there was with it a supply of food to
be renewed daily for twelve months.

This scene is typical of the superficial civilisation
which we have imposed upon a few of the
natives, leaving the heart of the people
untouched.

For three hundred years Africa has had the
curse of being a slave-producing country— this is
the corpse upon the table— and the coast tribes
have learnt to consider this curse a privilege.
The attitude of England, therefore, of late years,
with regard to the slave trade, has considerably
affected our intercourse with the natives.
Instead of encouraging, we stand between them
and what they consider legitimate traffic, and
our preventive squadron is looked upon by the
Africans with that respect without affection,
with which the policeman is contemplated by
the thief. We occupy the position of a foreign
coast-guard, enforcing protection on a country
of which the government and the inhabitants
desire free trade.

Long ago we crushed down the palmy days
of the slave trade, the days when De Suza at
Whydah could receive the Prince de Joinville
as his guest. No second Don Pedro Blanco
of Gallinas can amass treasures by this unholy
traffic, and return to Europe to obtain
celebrity under another name. But in the
place of the few well-known " barracoons" there
has been a gigantic company on the principle of
"Limited Liability." Every creek and bay of
every river on the coast has its depôt, and can
furnish slaves for any vessel which will attempt
to elude the vigilance of our squadron. The
slave trade has thus become a kind of gambling
speculation, and has put an effectual stop to any
legitimate trade or true civilisation. In affecting
the coast tribes it has affected the only
tribes coming under our influence, and it is on
this account that after two or three hundred
years of European colonisation we find ourselves
still in contact with savages.

The English settlements on the coast are
comparatively unimportant, and the number of
armed men occupying the military stations
would be ridiculously small were it not for the
formidable police of the sea which supports
them. Still the native tribes seldom openly
oppose the white man; but they trick, and
cheat, and cajole him. If a very favourable
opportunity occur, a treaty is violated, the traders
are robbed and threatened, and it is plainly seen
by those on the spot that there is a necessity for
action. But the governor of a station on the
coast does not punish offenders until compelled
to do so by very great provocation, and in
order to secure the actual safety of English
subjects or allies.

In England the war is unpopular; its cause
seems remote enough, but the result is absolutely
inappreciable. It brings neither honour nor
gain. Your opponents may be brave, but they
are savages, and don't know when they are
beaten. They will rise again in a month or a
year, or whenever a new king mounts the
"stool" of the country. They won't pay the
fine you impose, and they won't observe the
treaties they sign. And we send our best men
against them, to be shot at with a gun which
costs four dollars.

There is a king, say the King of Burrabaloo,
who is chief of a powerful tribe, say the Woolahs,
on the banks of a great river, say the
Great Gombaru. For several years this king
ignores treaties, plunders Europeans, declines
paying his debts, and ridicules the threat of a
fine. Then he goes a step further, and treats
with "personal disrespect" an officer of the
government of Gombaru sent to obtain redress
for the sufferers. Lastly, he utterly disregards
the blockade of his port. There is no help for
it, and we must submit. But at length the West
India reliefs arrive, increasing the land force,
and the naval force is augmented by the arrival
of a man-of-war in the River Gombaru. It is
resolved to bind the King of Burrabaloo and his
Marabouts to keep the peace for the future;
reparation for the past is not even spoken of.

At the mouth of the Gombaru River stands
Bofarra, and there, in the beginning of February,
any year in this century, we had eleven
companies of the 98th and 99th West India
Regiments, the Gombaru artillery, and one troop of
French artillery. For the governor of the
French station on the River Samahu, had also
many grievances against the King of Burrabaloo,
so he had offered to join us.

This modest force embarked in the Swan, a
vessel of two thousand tons, her Majesty's ships
Margate and Hastings, and five sailing transports.

The Gombaru, at its mouth, is from four to
five miles broad, deep and muddy, and abounding
in sharks and alligators. The banks are
densely wooded, but in this part the size of the
trees is inconsiderable, and one shore is covered
with bush or scrub.

We made our way slowly up the stream; the
heat was fearful, there was not a breath of air,
the dull muddy water flowed silently, without a
ripple, looking like oil in the fierce sunlight.
The only living thing we saw was now and again
a crane standing silent and solitary, or an
alligator slipping lazily from the bank into the river.

At length the night fell, and with it a thick
greasy fog which wetted everything. It is a
great mistake to send troops up these rivers in
sailing transports. The powers that be, though
of course the most sagacious of all possible
powers, do not sufficiently estimate the danger
likely to accrue from a protracted voyage; and
protracted it is sure to be when the utmost made
in a day by the sailing vessels, even with the