English party in a wretched, unbridled libertinism, offers of which they promptly availed themselves. Displeased as grave and moral readers will be at the gay tone in which he reports the profligacy of his companions, they will be gratified that he could with truth except himself, an exception the truth of which is corroborated by his mentioning their conduct, here and elsewhere, in such light terms as seem to imply no blame.

A sitting secretly held, during the whole of the following night, of the black and grave Divan, resulted in no harm, his Majesty and the court-party overruling a hostile effort of the trading interest against the Expedition. The king even told the Captain, that if his object was to make a settlement in the! country, he would grant him as much land as he required. The terror excited, on a subsequent occasion of ceremony, in all that might be supposed the haughtiest and the bravest in the country, by the discharge of a few swivels as a salute, assured the English that nothing was to be feared on the score of martia!

prowess

The description of a burying and the funeral howl, resembling the Irish, is followed by a most curious account of the protracted and costly preparation for interment, in the case of those who can afford it.

Simmons requested a piece of cloth to envelope his aunt, who had been dead seven years, and was to be buried in two months, being now arrived at a size to make a genteel funeral. The manner of preserving corpses, for so long a time, is by enveloping them in cloth money of the country, or in European cottons, the smell of putrefaction being only kept in by the quantity of wrappers, which are successively multiplied as they can be procured by the relations of the deceased, or according to the rank of the person; in the case of a rich and very great man, the bulk acquired being only limited by the power of conveyance to the grave; so that the first hut in which the body is deposited becoming too small, a second, a third, even to a sixth, increasing in dimensions, is placed over it.'

Among many particulars of miscellaneous information respectng the people about this place, it is stated that

The two prominent features, in their moral character and social state, seem to be the indolence of the men, and the degradation of the women; the latter being considered as perfect slaves, whose bodies are at the entire disposal of their fathers and husbands, and may be transferred by either of them how and when they may please.'

The cultivation of the ground is entirely the business of slaves and women, the King's daughters and princes' wives being constantly thus employed, or in collecting the fallen branches of trees for fuel. The only preparation the ground undergoes is burning the grass, raking the soil into little ridges with a hoe, and dropping the Indian corn grains into holes.”

A little above Eubomma it was decided to leave the Congo sloop, and prosecute the enterprise in the large boats. A laborious passage, incommoded by partial rapids in the river, the banks presenting only a long succession of very barren stony hills, brought them up to the point where the boats also were to become useless. Their slow progress was uncheered by any supplies or information to be obtained from the poverty, exorbitance, and ignorance of the people of the few hamlets (or banzas) that were passed. In this part of the voyage, an act of humanity was done in the purchase, (partly from compassion, and partly in the hope of deriving some aid from his presumed knowledge of the country, in returning toward the place whence he had been brought,) of a Mandingo slave, bound neck and 'heels,' but who was instantly restored to liberty in the full sense, and taken in capacity as a servant, by the Captain, in order to prevent any misapprehension among the people as to the nature of this purchase. It was a bad bargain, however, for he proved an utterly worthless fellow.

They were now approaching to the cataract of Yellala, deemed by the natives the residence of an evil spirit, so that whoever saw it once would never see it again. Already the river was become contracted and violent, with stupendous overhanging 'rocks' on each side. In viewing from an eminence the mass of hills through which the course of the river is cut, for the length of a number of leagues, the Captain was instantly convinced of the impossibility of conveying the boats by land, to resume with them the navigation above the cataract. This cataract itself, which had been represented by the natives as most tremendous, was now an object of ardent curiosity. The Captain and four others made their way to it by a long fatiguing walk, and were extremely surprised and disappointed at finding, instead of a 'second Niagara, which the description of the natives, and their 'horror of it, had given reason to expect, a comparative brook 'bubbling over its stony bed.'

The south side of the river is here a vast hill of bare rock (sienite), and the north a lower but more precipitous hill of the same substance, between which two the river has forced its course; but in the middle an island of slate still defies its power, and breaks the current into two narrow channels; that near the south side gives vent to the great mass of the river, but is obstructed by rocks above and under water, over which the torrent rushes with great fury and noise, as may easily be conceived. The channel on the north side is now nearly dry, and is composed of great masses of slate, with perpendidular fissures. The highest part of the island is 15 feet above the present level; but from the marks on it, the water in the rainy season must rise 12 feet, consequently covers the whole of the breadth of the channel, with the exception of the summit of the Vol. X. N. S. 2 U

island; and with the encreased velocity, must then produce a fall somewhat more consonant to the description of the natives.

The principal idea that the fall creates, is that the quantity of water which flows over it, is by no means equal to the volume of the river below it and yet, as we know that there is not at this season a single tributary stream sufficient to turn a mill, below the fall, we can hardly account for this volume, unless we suppose, as Dr. Smith suggests, the existence of subterraneous communications, or caverns filled with water.'

After making a forced march upward for several days, as near as bills and precipices would permit to the river, which was found through many leagues confined in a narrow channel, and often foaming over rocks, he returned to the boats, to make preparations for the formidable journey through the mountainous tract, in search of a more pacific part of the river, which should permit a new embarkation. From the natives he could obtain no information of the smallest value.

The impossibility of procuring information to be at all depended on from the natives, respecting the course of the river or the nature of the country, proceeds equally from their want of curiosity, extreme indolence, and constant state of war with each other. Hence I have never been able to procure a guide farther than from banza to banza, or at the utmost a day's journey; for at every banza we were assured that, after passing the next, we should get into the Bushmen's country, where they would be in danger of being shot or kidnapped. All my endeavours to find a slave-trader who knew something of the river have been fruitless. It appears that the people of Congo never go themselves for slaves, but that they are always brought to them by those they call Bushmen.'

one.

In the course of this laborious preliminary excursion up the river, Capt. T. found very strong indications of its having in some remote age run in a channel much higher than its present He reasonably infers that there was at that time a proportionally higher precipice at Yellala, so that the cataract had once a magnificence worthy of loftier epithets than any now applied to it in the exaggerations of the Congo people. He also met with ominous intimations, such as a violent fever which seized Mr. Tudor, the surgeon, a want of timber for the con struction of any kind of vessels for navigation, a scarcity of water in the places where the river could not be approached, and a destitution of provisions, of which he found there would be no possibility of obtaining a sufficient supply for the daily expenditure of twenty men. He learned that this penury of the country, and its burnt-up appearance, were partly the consequence of a deficiency of rain during the last two years. The natives expected the next rainy season to be proportionally violent. They say that every third or fourth year the river

rises considerably higher than in the intermediate ones; and. this accounts for the different elevation of the marks on the rocks.' The population was found extremely thin, and collected into little knots, in the nature of gentlemen's towns.' The people were almost naked, and but very slightly supplied with European, or indeed, any other articles.

The extent of fertile land is, however, capable, with very moderate industry, of supporting a great increase of population, not the hundredth part of what we have passed over being made any use of whatever. The plateaus appear to be well adapted for wheat, and certainly all the garden vegetables of Europe might be produced here in perfection, as well as potatoes.' The only trees that grow to a large size are the Adansonia and the Bombax, (or wild cotton,) and the wood of both is spongy and useless.'

The constitution of government in Congo, is a thing nearly as soon described as one of these trees, or one of the people's few habiliments or utensils. It consists of hereditary fiefs, or Chenooships, under a paramount sovereign named Lindy, or Blindy N'Congo.' The civil and domestic economy is also a matter of much simplicity. Slaves seem to form the sinews of the state.

Slavery is here of two kinds, which may be denominated household or domestic, and trading. When a young man is of age to begin the world, his father or guardian gives him the means of purchasing a number of slaves of each sex, in proportion to his quality, from whom he breeds his domestic slaves, and these (though it does not appear that he is bound by any particular law,) he never sells or transfers unless in cases of misbehaviour, when he holds a palaver, at which they are tried and sentenced. These domestic slaves are, however, sometimes pawned for debt, but are always redeemed as soon as possible.'

6

Of the slaves purchased of the itinerant black merchants, some are such as have been condemned for crimes, some taken in war, but by far the greatest number are bush-game, or persons kidnapped. Captain T. asserts that while the great men' of the country, as well as the merchants, are interested in the continuance of the slave trade, the people at large desire its extinction, as being the principal cause of their wars. He predicts, however, that the malignant effects of its prevalence for three centuries, will be very long in wearing away after the abolition -should that ever be really accomplished. He adds, In fact, if we mean to accelerate the progress of civilization, it can only be done by colonization, and certainly there could not be a 'better point to commence at than the banks of the Zaire.'

The crimes in such a state of society, cannot be of any great variety. The capital ones punished, in their highest degrees,

as we have seen, most barbarously, are 'adultery with the wives of the great men, and poisoning.'

The frequency of the crime of putting poison in victuals, has established the custom of the master invariably making the person who presents him with meat or drink, taste it first; and in offering either to a visitor, the host performs this ceremony first. This the natives who speak English, call "taking off the fetiche." If a man poisons an equal, he is simply decapitated; but if an inferior commits this crime, (the only kind of secret murder,) on a superior, the whole of his male relations are put to death, even to the infants at the breast.'

Another mode of punishment, however, is mentioned under the form of an ordeal, which is quite as reasonable a thing as the magical process by which the gangam kissey, a sort of conjuror-priest, fixes the accusation, from malice or at hazard. The person denounced is to chew a poisonous bark, which, if he is guilty, he will retain in his stomach and die; but if innocent, he will vomit up again immediately. This reverend director of justice has nothing to fear from revenge; it is believed that his sacred person cannot be hurt; but it is also believed that he cannot deserve it, for that, be his adjudgement ever so unjust, the blame attaches solely to the kissey, or god, in virtue of whose supposed communication of truth for the conviction of iniquity it is that the worthy gangam is held sacred and inviolable. Never was there a neater device of fraud in a circle, than this, nor a better exemplification, on the small scale, of that property of superstition, by which, beyond all other things, it has the power of destroying common sense; as if by a retributive law of the Governor of the world, the belief in a false religion should infuse a fatuity into the understanding in its exercise on the most ordinary matters. It is remarkable also, as an illustration of human nature, that the belief in a false religion has a greater power to make men be practically religious after their manner, than a belief in the true, excepting in those instances (a sad minority) of this latter description, in which a special Divine influence enforces that belief. This fact is exemplified in the Greek and Roman, in the Hindoo and other forms of paganism, and in the Mahomedan and Popish superstitions. This is partly owing, indeed, to the circumstance that superstitions generally have many symbols presented to the senses; but the grand cause is, that evil is more congenial to the human mind, and therefore takes stronger hold of it, than good. The paganism-the extremest dross of paganism as it is-of these Congo people, is an additional though superfluous exemplification of this powerful efficacy of false religion. The Fetiches, with their permissions or interdictions, their aids or frustrations, their protections or mischiefs, their favours or re