I left Freetown, about five in the afternoon, with Mr. McCormack to visit his timber establishment at the island of Tombo, a distance of twenty miles up the river, which we made, with a slight breeze, in about three hours.  We passed two similar establishments, the one on Tasso, and the other on Bance Island, of the former of which Messrs. Babington and Macauley are the proprietors, the latter belonging to Mr. Williams.  The account I received of Mr. McCormack’s enterprise was full of interest.

When that gentleman first visited Tombo, he found the interior covered with a dense jungle, and the shores choked up with mangroves.  There was only one solitary hut on the island near the beach, which was used as a resting place for boats trading up the river.  At that time there was a slave factory in full occupation at Bance Island.  It would be very difficult to compute the expense, and almost impossible for persons who are not practically acquainted with African mangroves and jungle, to estimate the exertion and perseverance which must have been necessary to bring this place to its present state of improvement.  The wildness of the surface has given way before the hand of industry, and that which was some years before a wilderness of underwood, now presents an aspect of cultivation.  The whole of this point is as clear as the streets of Freetown; and on a fine open situation, where the breeze plays from almost every point of the compass, an excellent stone house, with out-offices, has been erected.  The site is well chosen and the building is scarcely inferior to the best houses in Freetown.  The upper part is used as a private dwelling, and the lower part is appropriated to storage.  A good boat-house, a saw-pit, upwards of twenty plastered huts, for the mechanics and labourers employed on the spot, and a well cut through the solid rock, from whence excellent water is obtained, complete the conveniences of the establishment.

Mr. McCormack does not fell any timber in the island; he merely uses his location here as a depot for the wood which is brought down the rivers Rokelle and Porto Logo from the upper countries.  For this trade he contracts with the natives inhabiting the lands lying near the shores of the rivers, and the wood is floated down on rafts to Tombo, where ships come to take in their cargoes.  The African oak is so heavy that the natives are obliged to raft it on wood of a much lighter specific gravity.  This trade is of considerable benefit both to our colonists and the native tribes.  It not only promotes a friendly intercourse between them, but affords constant employment to great numbers of the latter, by which they are enabled to secure many of the comforts of civilized life, of which they must otherwise have been destitute.  It has also had the happy effect of releasing them from vassalage, which formerly prevailed universally, and which was in some degree necessary as a protection against the arbitrary power of the different chiefs during the existence of the slave trade.