But let us leave the cries of this unfortunate woman, and hasten into another district:—­And what do we first see here?  Who is he, that just now started across the narrow pathway, as if afraid of a human face?  What is that sudden rustling among the leaves?  Why are those persons flying from our approach, and hiding themselves in yon darkest thicket?  Behold, as we get into the plain, a deserted village!  The rice-field has been just trodden down around it.  An aged man, venerable by his silver beard, lies wounded and dying near the threshold of his hut.  War, suddenly instigated by avarice, has just visited the dwellings which we see.  The old have been butchered, because unfit for slavery, and the young have been carried off, except such as have fallen in the conflict, or have escaped among the woods behind us.

But let us hasten from this cruel scene, which gives rise to so many melancholy reflections.  Let us cross yon distant river, and enter into some new domain.  But are we relieved even here from afflicting spectacles?  Look at that immense crowd, which appears to be gathered in a ring.  See the accused innocent in the middle.  The ordeal of poisonous water has been administered to him, as a test of his innocence or his guilt.  He begins to be sick, and pale.  Alas! yon mournful shriek of his relatives confirms that the loss of his freedom is now sealed.

And whither shall we go now?  The night is approaching fast.  Let us find some friendly hut, where sleep may make us forget for a while the sorrows of the day.  Behold a hospitable native ready to receive us at his door!  Let us avail ourselves of his kindness.  And now let us give ourselves to repose.  But why, when our eyelids are but just closed, do we find ourselves thus suddenly awakened?  What is the meaning of the noise around us, of the trampling of people’s feet, of the rustling of the bow, the quiver, and the lance?  Let us rise up and inquire.  Behold! the inhabitants are all alarmed!  A wakeful woman has shown them yon distant column of smoke and blaze.  The neighbouring village is on fire.  The prince, unfaithful to the sacred duty of the protection of his subjects, has surrounded them.  He is now burning their habitations, and seizing, as saleable booty, the fugitives from the flames.

Such then are some of the scenes that have been passing in Africa in consequence of the existence of the Slave-trade; or such is the nature of the evil, as it has shown itself in the first of the cases we have noticed.  Let us now estimate it as it has been proved to exist in the second; or let us examine the state of the unhappy Africans, reduced to slavery in this manner, while on board the vessels, which are to convey them across the ocean to other lands.  And here I must observe at once, that, as far as this part of the evil is concerned, I am at a loss to describe it.  Where shall I find words to express properly their sorrow, as arising from the reflection of being parted