to my memory, when sighting the fair but desolate scenery south of Paraguayan Asuncion.  These downs appear to be a sea-coast raised by secular upheaval, and much older than the flat tracts which encroach upon the Atlantic.  We could now understand the position of the town which figures so largely in the squadron-annals of the equatorial shore; it was set upon a hillock, whence the eye could catch the approaching sail of the slaver, and where the flag could be raised conspicuously in token of no cruiser being near.

But the glory had departed from Sanga-Tanga (Peel-White?  Strip-White?); not a trace of the town remained, the barracoons had disappeared, and all was innocent as upon the day of its creation.  A deep silence reigned where the song of joy and the shrieks of torture had so often been answered by the voice of the forest, and Eternal Nature had ceased to be disturbed by the follies and crimes of man.

Sanga-Tanga was burned down, after the fashion of these people, when Mbango, whom Europeans called “Pass-all,” King of the Urungu, who extend up the right bank of the Ogobe, passed away from the sublunary world.  King Pass-all had completed his education in Portugal:  a negro never attains his highest potential point of villany without a tour through Europe; and thus he rose to be the greatest slave-dealer in this slave-dealing scrap of the coast.  In early life he protected the Spanish pirates who fled to Cape Lopez, after plundering the American brig “Mexico:”  they were at last forcibly captured by Captain (the late Admiral) Trotter, R.N.; passed over to the United States, and finally hanged at Boston, during the Presidency of General Jackson.  Towards the end of his life he became paralytic, like King Pepple of Bonny, and dangerous to the whites as well as to the blacks under his rule.  The people, however, still speak highly of him, generosity being a gift which everywhere covers a multitude of sins.  He was succeeded by one of his sons, who is favourably mentioned, but who soon followed him to the grave.  I saw another, a boy, apparently a slave to a Mpongwe on the coast, and the rest of the family is scattered far and wide.  Since Pass-all’s death the “peddlers in human flesh and blood” have gone farther south:  men spoke of a great depot at the Mpembe village on the banks of the Nazareth River, where a certain Ndabuliya is aided and abetted by two Utangani.  Now that “’long-sea” exportation has been completely suppressed, their only markets must be the two opposite islands.

South of Sanga-Tanga, lay a thin line of deeper blue, Fetish Point, the eastern projection of Cape Lopez Bay.  From Mbango’s Town it is easy to see the western headland, Cape Lopez, whose low outliers of sand and trees gain slowly but surely upon the waters of the Atlantic.  I deferred a visit until a more favourable time, and—­that time never came.

Cape Lopez is said to have considerable advantages for developing trade, but the climate appears adverse.  A large Catholic mission, described by Barbot, was established here by the Portuguese:  as in the Congo, nothing physical of it remains.  But Mr. Wilson is rather hard when he asserts that all traces have disappeared—­ they survive in superior ’cuteness of the native.