GENERAL OBSERVATIONS. 367 
consist of those who have no fixed property of their own, 
but act as the labourers and peasantry of the country, and 
are very much at the disposal of the Chenoo or chief, 
though not slaves. 
Domestic slaves do not appear to be numerous, and are 
not considered as common transferable property, and only 
sold for some great oflence, and by order of the council, 
when proved guilty. Saleable slaves are those unhappy 
victims who have been taken prisoners in war, or kidnap- 
ped in the interior by the slave catchers, for the sake of 
making a profit of them; or such as have had a sentence of 
death commuted into that of foreign slavery. 
Tue Stave Trave.—The banks of the Zaire are not 
the part of Africa where the slave trade, at present, is car- 
ried on with the greatest activity, though there were three 
Portuguese schooners and four pinaces at KEmbomma, on 
the arrival of the expedition. ‘The two great vents are the 
Gulf of Guinea to the northward, and Loango and Ben- 
guela to the southward of this river. The chiefs and their 
Mafooks were, however, all prepared to trade on the ap- 
pearance of the ships, and much disappointed on learning 
that the object of the expedition was of a very different 
nature. They had heard at Embomma, overland from the 
coast, some vague rumours concerning the nature of the 
expedition, which they did not well comprehend ; and when 
the Mafook of the Chenoo first came on board, he was 
very inquisitive to know, whether the ships came to make 
trade, or make war; and when he was distinctly told that 
