232 THROUGH GASA LAND. 



royal property. On the other hand, the journey to 

 Sofala was difficult and very unhealthy, while the 

 white men that lived there were not only dishonest 

 in their dealings but frequently seized their visitors 

 and sent them away across the salt water to distant 

 lands, there to be fattened and eaten. This last 

 belief, however absurd it may appear to us, is uni- 

 versally believed by all those races that, have been 

 subjected to the slaver's brutalities, and all tribes that 

 reside within a measurable distance of the Portu- 

 guese settlements on the south-east coast of Africa, 

 have suffered much from this inhuman and cursed 

 trade. In fact, it is well known that numbers of 

 American, French, and Spanish ships were long 

 engaged in this traffic, and that the efforts of our 

 cruizers here were almost ineffective, from the 

 numerous inlets and bayous that stud this coast, 

 affording secreting places for loading, almost im- 

 possible to discover, from the intricate growth of 

 the mangroves that hide their existence. As these 

 settlements of Portugal are only held on sufferance, 

 and all of them are in the most thorough state of 

 decay, it only is necessary to let those races who 

 reside in their vicinities know that there are other 

 white races in the world besides the Portuguese, and 

 that they will neither rob them of their hard-earned 

 produce, make slaves of their women, or bondsmen 

 of their children, and when such has been done these 

 degenerate descendants of a once respectable race 



