SOUTHERN AFRICA. 207 



but such is the pestilential character of the climate, that 

 this bloody charm brings now comparatively few slave-mer- 

 chants to Benin. 



Captain Adams ascended also to Waree, an insular terri- 

 tory, enclosed by two branches of another stream flowing 

 through this alluvial district. It is beautiful as well as fer- 

 tile, is about five miles in circuit, and appears as if it had 

 dropped down from the clouds ; for all the surrounding 

 shores consist of an unpenetrable forest, rising out of a 

 swamp. Even in the dry season the water stands on the 

 ground a foot in depth, producing exhalations which prove 

 excessively destructive to the European constitution, as well 

 as to all the more delicate plants and animals that happen 

 to be removed from the drier soils of the interior. In other 

 respects, this intelligent navigator did not make any mate- 

 rial addition to the knowledge of Western Africa previously 

 derived from other sources. 



CHAPTER XV. 



Southern and Eastern Africa. 



The southern extremity of Africa has long attracted the 

 particular attention of modem navigators. To pass this 

 mighty cape formed the main object of ambition with the 

 Portuguese in their celebrated voyages of discovery along 

 the African coast. After almost a century had been spent 

 in successive endeavours to accomplish that undertaking, 

 Diaz obtained a view of this great promontory ; but the 

 stormy sky in which it was enveloped, and the fearful swell 

 produced by the conflict of the contending oceans, appalled 

 even that stout navigator. He named it the Cape of Tem- 

 pests, and immediately returned with his shattered barks to 

 Portugal. The king, with a bolder spirit, substituted forth- 

 with the name of Cape of Good Hope, which it has ever 

 (since retained ; yet some years elapsed before the daring 

 »ails of Gama rounded this formidable barrier, and bora 

 ♦cross the ocean to the golden shores of India. 



The Portuguese, engrossed by the discovery and conquest 



