PIONEERING EXPEDITION TO SAN SALVADOR. 7I 
Consul, who singularly enough had brought back 
Lieutenant Grandy of the Livingstone Congo Expedi- 
tion when he returned from the coast, and from 
whose personal knowledge of the country very 
important information was gained. 
At Banana, Mr. Comber was greatly saddened by 
the terrible immoralities he witnessed. He thus 
refers to them in a letter he wrote to John 
Hartland : — “There are desperately shocking things 
occurring on the coast of Africa, of which none of 
you in England have any idea. Coomassie and 
Magdala on a small scale are not uncommon, neither 
are plunderings, murders, kidnapping, &c., and the 
state of morals among Portuguese and others is 
scarcely whisperable. Oh ! it is awful, the amount of 
corruption and filth introduced by Europeans. 
“ The principal part of the imports discharged from 
our ship consisted of rum, gin, and powder ; for one 
little place for instance 1200 cases of gin. Spirit is 
the curse of commerce out here.” 
The sentiments following this extract must be 
given, revealing as they do so much of Mr. Comber’s 
inner life : — 
“Well, I have been running on about West 
African society and manners, thinking it might 
interest you. I do not know what I can say about 
myself ; if I were to keep anything in the shape of 
a journal, I fancy never would such a strange history, 
with so many variations of feeling be found, and 
I fear you know very little about me from the 
occasional letters I send you. Sometimes I write 
under depression of spirits, sometimes when they are 
full of life and effervescence, sometimes feeling sick 
and ill, and at other times strong and healthy. The 
climate has a strange influence over me. However, 
there are certain feelings, which are most pertinacious 
in clinging to me — whatever the present may bring, 
I am always strangely hopeful about the future in all 
respects. I, indeed, even hear Hope singing, ‘It is 
