VISIT TO LOANDO. 
439 
mund Gabriel, Esq., Her Majesty's Commis- 
sioner for the suppression of the slave trade, 
most generously received me and my twenty- 
seven companions into his house. I shall never 
forget the delicious pleasure of lying down 
on his bed, after sleeping six months on the 
ground, nor the unwearied attention and kind- 
ness through a long sickness, which Mr. Gabriel 
invariably showed. May God reward him I 
My companions were struck with awe at the 
sight of a city, and more especially when taken 
on board Her Majesty's ships of war. The 
kindness of the officers of the cruisers removed 
the last vestige of fear from their minds, for, 
finding them to be all my countrymen, they 
saw the fallacy of the declarations made to them 
on the road. They were afterwards engaged 
in discharging coals from a ship for wages, and 
will marvel, to the end of their lives, at the 
prodigious quantity of u stones that burn," one 
ship could contain. They previously imagined 
their own little canoes, on the Zambesi, the 
best vessels, and themselves the most expert 
sailors in the world. 
" His Excellency, the Bishop of Angola, then 
the acting governor of the province, received my 
companions with great kindness, and assured 
them of his protection and friendship, as well 
as the desire to promote commercial intercourse 
