384 ADDITIONAL NOTICES. [June 27, 1859. 



long catalogue of various other native articles — instead of having them useless, 

 rotting, or hoarded up in the general receiving-house of their avaricious and 

 tyrannical sovereign. 



There is clay well suited for making bricks or tiles, and the gurglets for 

 water — rude, but porous — are better adapted to tropical countries than those 

 manufactured in England. Carving in bone and ivory, dressing leather, are 

 already practised by the " Orangoes." Palm-trees for oil and forests of 

 valuable tirajDer abound all over the island. The finest oxen are wild in innu- 

 merable herds, but, singular enough, horses and asses are not known to the 

 " Bissagoes." 



Eice could be purchased at about 3/. a ton (I mean in trade), which would 

 sell at Gambia or at Sierra Leone at from 16^. to 251. In fine, I have no doubt 

 but the following passage in the Travels of that extraordinary, enterprising, 

 and high-minded man Dr. Livingstone, related of the " Batuana "' on the Lake 

 Ngami, is equally applicable to the " Bijuga" islanders and many other tribes 

 of Western Africa : " A trader who accompanied us was then purchasing 

 ivory at the rate of ten good large tusks for a musk(3t worth thirteen shillings. 

 They were called ' bones,' and I myself saw eight instances in which the tusks 

 had been left to rot with the other bones where the elephant fell. The 

 Batuana never had a chance of a market before, hut in less than two years after 

 our discovery not a man of them could be found who was not keenly alive to the 

 great value of the article." 



The teeth of the elephant in South Africa are considerably larger than those 

 of Western Africa, and the ten teeth may be fairly averaged at 901bs. each, 

 or 900 dollars : equal to 187?. 10s. " for a musket worth 13s." Give the 

 " Bissagoes " and other tribes " the chance of a market, and they will soon be 

 found keenly alive to the great value of the article." 



In a despatch, reporting my geographical expedition down the coast in 1855, 

 I stated, " to ensure British power, to increase British commerce, to secure 

 British interests, to make some substantial advance in that so long desired but 

 still so unfulfilled object, the civilization of Western Africa, a chain of settle- 

 ments must be established along the coast." Subsequent expeditions and 

 increased experience have confirmed me in this opinion. 



Bulama, in n. lat. 11°, and w. long. 15°, is admirably situated to form a 

 settlement from its central position, proximity to the Gambia, Jeba, Rio Grande, 

 Nunez Rivers, Bijuga islands, and commanding the entrance to the Orange 

 and Jambeer channels. The island is about 18 miles in length and, in some 

 places, the same in breadth. The land, trending gradually from the shore 

 towards the centre of the island, rises to about 110 feet above the level of the 

 sea. The soil is rich, and capable of yielding every kind of tropical produc- 

 tion. Fine timber grows in forests ; but since 1792, when the unfortunate 

 but indefatigable Captain Beaver made his first and last attempt to establish a 

 colony on it, until he was forced to abandon the undertaking in 1793, Bulama 

 seems to have been almost forgotten or totally neglected by its lawful owners, 

 the British Government, to whom it was ceded "/or ever by the King of 

 Kanabac, the 29th of June, 1792 ; the island of Areas and the land on the 

 adjacent continent being obtained from the Kings of Shinla the 3rd of August, 

 1792." 



Abandoned by the British, the Portuguese availed themselves of the oppor- 

 tunity to convert Bulama into a depot for slaves ; and even after the abolition 

 of that infamous and unholy traffic, the few desperate adventurers who still 

 perseveringly continued surreptitiously, or with the secret connivance of their 

 Government, to carry on the slave-trade, used Bulama to facilitate their pur- 

 pose. The residence and barracoons of the last of this band, Kittan, still 

 remain, and when I visited Bulama in 1855 a Portuguese Jew resided there 

 as agent for Kittan's widow, trading in rice and ground-nuts. From time to 



