ARRIVAL AT WANDA. 11 



from the sailors made them say to me, " We see they are 

 your countrymen, for they have hearts like you." On 

 the journey, the men had always looked forward to reach- 

 ing the coast: they had seen Manchester prints and 

 other articles imported therefrom, and they could not 

 believe they were made by mortal hands. On reaching 

 the sea, they thought that they had come to the end of 

 the world. They said, " We marched along with our 

 father, thinking the world was a large plain without 

 limit; but all at once the land said 'I am finished, 

 there is no more of me ;' " and they called themselves 

 the true old men — the true ancients — having gone to 

 the end of the world. On reaching Loanda, they com- 

 menced trading in firewood, and also engaged them- 

 selves at sixpence a day in unloading coals, brought by a 

 steamer for the supply of the cruiser lying there to watch 

 the slave-vessels. On their return, they told their people 

 " we worked for a whole moon, carrying away the stones 

 that burn." By the time they were ready to go back to 

 their own country, each had secured a large bundle of 

 goods. On the way back, however, fever detained them, 

 and their goods were all gone, leaving them on their 

 return home, as poor as when they started 1 . 



1 These men behaved well to our traveller, and shewed much sim- 

 plicity and shrewdness both in their conduct and remarks. On one or 

 two trying occasions they behaved with real courage. They carried 

 home with them seeds, plants, pigeons, &c, not there to be found. We 

 cannot but be struck with the unity of the human race, as asserted in 

 Scripture, by seeing it from independent quarters in oneness of thought, 

 feeling, desire, and affection, all the world over, despite other differences. 



