350 GENERAL OBSERVATIONS. 



he could collect, very likely : the character of the negro 

 having hitherto been every where stamped with mildness, 

 simplicity, and benignity of disposition. 



Face OF the Country — Soil, Climate, and Pro- 

 ductions. The country named Congo, of which we find 

 so much written in collections of Voyages and Travels, ap- 

 pears to be an undefined tract of territory, hemmed in be- 

 tween Loango on the north, and Angola on the south ; but 

 to what extent it stretches inland, it would be difficult to 

 determine ; and depends most probably on the state of war 

 or peace with the contiguous tribes. All that seems to be 

 known at present is, that the country is partitioned out into 

 a multitude of petty states or Chenooships, held as a kind 

 of fiefs under some real or imaginary personage living 

 in the interior, nobody knows exactly where. Captain 

 Tuckey could only learn that the paramount sovereign was 

 named Blindy N'Congo, and resided at a banza named 

 Congo, which was six days journey in the interior from the 

 Tall Trees, where, by the account of the negroes, the Por- 

 tuguese had an eslabhshment, and where there were soldiers 

 and white women. This place is no doubt the St. Salva- 

 dor of the Portuguese. These chiefs have improperly been 

 called kings : their territories, it would seem, are small in 

 extent, the present expedition having passed at least six of 

 them in the line of the river; the last is that of Inga, be- 

 yond which are what they call bush-men, or those dreadful 

 cannibals whom Andrew Battel, Lopez, Merolla, and 

 others, have denominated Jiigas, or Giagas, " who con- 

 sider human flesh as the most delicious food, and cob- 



