51 
on the Countries of' Congo and Loango. 
their weapons in the burdens of sand, and were, by this con- 
trivance, enabled to avenge themselves of the indignity put 
upon them, by plundering the city and killing many of the 
King’s people. 
Having thus shaken off the yoke, Sonia has since been go- 
verned by native Princes. 
However extravagant the idea of carrying burdens of sand 
such a distance may appear, yet the history of all barbarous 
and despotic nations, in some measure warrants the authenticity 
of the fact ; for there, we see slaves subjected to ignominious 
tasks disproportioned to their strength and means ; witness the 
Israelites, doomed by Pharoah to make bricks without the 
necessary materials. Unless founded on fact, it is hard to con- 
ceive how the story could have originated among a people who 
at present know not the luxury of artificial walks. 
It is worthy of remark, that the shoulder load is admirably 
calculated for the artifice of concealing arms, being nearly five 
feet long, and about eight inches square. It is formed by means 
of a bamboo or palm branch, which although very light and 
slender, is strong enough to support and keep the packages ex- 
tended, whilst they are firmly bound to it by a peculiar sort of 
long narrow leaves. In this manner, parcels of salt and other 
small articles, are always brought to the Embomma market. 
Many wonderful stories are related of the courage and fero- 
city of the Sonia men. When one of them is taken prisoner, 
which, it is admitted, very seldom happens, he endeavours to 
exasperate his perhaps already implacable enemy, by requesting 
that he may be dispatched with his own clean weapon, and not 
with the captor’s dirty one a plain insinuation that no quar- 
ter is given. 
This nation is certainly of very different habits ‘from any 
other upon the coast. It has had no intercourse with Euro- 
peans for these fifty years, when, in one night, the inhabitants 
massacred a colony of Portuguese, (probably their first esta- 
blishment in 1484,) who had, for a long period, been settled in 
very considerable numbers in Sonia. They had many churches 
and seminaries of learning, which have all been demolished, 
with the exception of one called Ganga Emkisse, preserved 
r> 2 
