les

says, "qu'elles sont plus inconstantes et plus opiniâtre que hommes." While the husband eats, the wives and children wait upon him. (Not all, we presume.) As soon as born the children are submitted to the priest, and nothing can exceed their slavish obedience to him in their future growth and progress.

At St. Paul, in Loanda, the Portuguese frequently possessed two or three hundred slaves in their service, and some even three thousand. There were many mulattoes who bore a mortal hatred to the negroes. The worst atmosphere of Africa is that of Benguila. It is dangerous to land on that coast, or to drink the water. The food itself seems imbued with disease. The whites there look like the dead risen from the tombs. The women often entice men into their arms in order to betray them, and that they may be apprehended by the husbands and sold as slaves. They are trained for the purpose. In Angola there are two kinds of slaves-one attached to the domain of the nobles, and the other ordinary slaves, acquired by war or purchase. The people of Angola amass no riches, but are content with a little millet, some beasts, and their palm oil and palm wine. No where are beasts of burthen known. Their great trade with Europeans consists in slaves, which were carried principally to the Spanish and Portuguese colonies. The Spaniards and Portuguese, at an early period, exported some fifteen thousand each annually; and their agents bought, in the interior, from one hundred and fifty to two hundred thousand. When they arrived at the coast they were meagre and feeble, from bad nourishment, and sleeping on the ground in the open air. They were, however, fattened up before transportation, and considerable care taken of their health. The sick were removed to separate lodgings by the Portuguese, and were supplied with a salutary regimen. Their sale to the Europeans necessarily wrought great and beneficial changes in their condition as a race. It helped the morals of the despots who sold, and the safety as well as morals of the victims. They were no longer slain because of scarcity of provisions, as is frequently done by native chiefs, or if they became unsaleable for any cause. In the

vessels of transport, mats were then furnished, and regularly changed at fixed periods :-" L'avarice même peut donc quelquefois ramener a l'humanité!" Avarice even teaching that humanity which modern philanthropy has denied them. The preventive measures now well known to the world, have contributed to, rather than have diminished the horrors of this wretched traffic. Forced upon the colonies against their will by Great Britain, that she might reap the full advantage of the Methuen Treaty, or Assiento Contract, she now, with all the affected prudery of a decayed strumpet, turns up eyes of holy horror to God, at the existence of slavery in America—the fruit of her own vices. She would add new-fold horrors to the wretched condition of these people, to prove the extent of her new-born virtue. And Wilberforce, with his grinning, satisfied air of self-importance, is BREVETTED a great man! The idea that self-interest might teach men humanity where nature did not prompt, seems to have escaped these people wholly, in their eagerness to prove their philanthropy and to effect our overthrow. If in time the trade had been recognized and directed, it might have saved many a poor creature from many of the worst horrors of the middle passage, and would not necessarily have increased the traffic, for new supplies would not then have been called for to supply vacancies occasioned by these very preventive or repressive measures. A lawful trade could have been regulated and restricted-that which became piratical, became, at the same time, solely under the controul of pirates. Mercy was thus denied by the folly of humanity. But meddling philosophy looks very far, says Mr. Dickens of Mrs. Jellaby; strange, that the same person cannot see how greatly he himself deserves the same cenThere have been, we fear, too many Mrs. Jellaby's for the good of mankind; Jellaby's in breeches as well as petticoats-fools and meddlers, of precious little good, either at home or to those of Borrioboola Gha, to the myriads who need the help of common sense and virtue, rather than that philanthropy which appears to possess so little of either.

sure.

The Jaggas are spread over the whole of Africa, from the confines of Abyssinia to the land of the Hottentots.

They are very black and ill-shaped. They trace lines upon their cheeks with a hot iron, and, showing only the whites of their eyes, are horrible to behold. They are entirely naked, and their whole manner indicates utter barbarism. They know no king, live in the forests, and, wandering like Arabs or jackals, they are led by their ferocity to ravage the country of their neighbours; and, during their attacks, utter frightful cries that inspire every one with terror. Their greatest opponents were a race of war-like women, whom Lopez describes as occupying Monopotapa, a people similar to the Amazons, now maintained by the King of Dahomey, and whose services it is said he has lately tendered to Louis Napoleon. If this is not upon the authority of Punch, it is very much like it. We have lost our reference. If in the sudden marches of these Jaggas, their wives give birth to children, they are immediately smothered. Such responsibilities are only so many impedimenta to such a life and people.

This brings us to the Hottentots, a word synonymous with every thing that is rude, ignorant, filthy, ugly, debased, savage and disgusting; and yet we believe the Hottentots are better than many, and quite as good as any of the African negro races. Their favourite vice, like others, is laziness. It prevails not only over their bodies but their minds. To reason is to labour, and labour of any kind is to them the greatest of evils. Constraint inspires them with horror; but, forced to work, they are docile, submissive and faithful. To begin to civilize the African, it seems absolutely necessary first to subdue him to the bit of bondage to a civilized race. Otherwise, he is as untameable as the Wild Zebra of his plains. Satisfy the present necessities of the Hottentots, and no prayers or considerations can force them from their natural indolence. Drunkenness is another of their vices, in which respect they differ from no Africans ever heard of. Give them brandy and tobacco, and they will drink, smoke and yell, until they lose their voices. They commit, it is said, most unnatural offences.-(Abrégé des Voyages, tom. 3, p. 422.) If you attempt to convince their old people of the odiousness of these practices, they say

"These are the usages of the Hottentots." That solves all difficulties and silences all reproach. Like the other nations of Africa, they immolate their children and old people. Their language is hard and inarticulate, and sounds like so much stuttering or grunting to the ears of the stranger. Dressed in sheep-skins, their naked heads are smeared and plaistered with fat and grease, to such a degree as to form a sort of bonnet of black mortar. They find it "very refreshing." Their legs are naked and their breasts open; they expose their bellies to the middle. Only their narrow kuthness prevents the utter exposure of both sexes. Nothing is more captivating to them than an old brass button, or piece of broken mirror. They will give all their animals for such bagatelles. All classes take delight in greasing their bodies from head to foot with butter, or the suet of sheep, mixed with the soot from their pots. They renew this as often as it is dried by the sun. Like the skunk, they may be nosed at a great distance. "They smell loud," as the Dutchmen or Boors would say. If the rich indulge themselves with the use of rancid butter, the poor besmear themselves with the fat from the bowels of slaughtered animals. Their whole body is invested with a thick coat of ointment, of some sort or other. Tufts of hard, coarse hair or wool and prominences of fat, jut out in various parts of the body and complete their deformity. Gluttonous and filthy beyond measure, they seize upon and tear out, like beasts of prey, the entrails from the belly of the animal only yet half dead, and devour them when but half roasted. Their villages are composed of hovels formed of twigs and clay, and are too low to stand in upright. And yet their stupid aspect has been said by writers, scarcely less stupid, to be owing not to their national character, prevalent over all Africa, but to the state of bondage they are held in by the Boors or Dutch settlers! Were they any better before the whites settled there? But the Bosjosmans, of the same race?—They have never been conquered or enslaved. They have preserved their independence and their primitive habits; and what is their condition? "Of all human beings, their condition is, perhaps, the most forlorn." Alas! poor creatures, as our

slave negroes often say of the free negroes-"they have got no masters."

The best race in all Africa is the Caffre, and these the English are now endeavouring to destroy-all for the good of humanity that sort, at least, which may be called British humanity. To teach them to use opium, perhaps?

But, to return to the Hottentots. Kolben thinks their habits, so disgusting to us, are the very best for them. Quien sabe? Chacun a son gout. Their filth subjects them to all sorts of vermin, and to a particularly filthy kind, not to be mentioned to polite ears, of an extraordinary size. But they have their revenge; for the troublesome beast is, in its turn, eaten by him it troubles. Surprised with a heap of these animals, they attribute their treatment of them to a principle of retaliation. The worn-out shoes of Europeans, made of raw-hide, are steeped for awhile in water, then roasted and eaten. They would rather lose a tooth than a small piece of tobacco. Their hovels resemble ovens. Those who have killed a lion, tiger, leopard, elephant or rhinoceros, are knighted with great ceremony. The whole kraal assembled, forms circles round him in a squatting position like his own, as our sand-hill people do when they romance together. The deputies of Elders (earls) or chiefs approach, and but for a full description of this quaint ceremony, the curious reader must consult the original.

Thus have we given a rapid sketch of such parts of Africa as have furnished slaves to the European Colonies. We have run over the accounts of a series of travellers since the earliest settlements of the Portuguese in 1484. We will now take up Mr. Beecham, of the London Wesleyan Mission, our latest authority.

In Central and Western Africa, the few, says our author, are despots and the great mass slaves. In the Mahomedan states, running across the centre of Africa, the number of pagan negroes held in slavery is far greater than that of the free population. This is the best part of negro Africa; more enlightened than other parts, and containing many millions of inhabitants. The coast, including the interior for three. hundred miles, is supposed to have thirty millions; and