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 WESTERN COAST OF AFRICA, 
 
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 * 
 

TOPOGRAPHY AND DISEASES 
 
 OP 
 
 GUINEA, 
 
SKETCHES 
 
 MEDICAL TOPOGRAPHY 
 
 NATIVE DISEASES 
 
 GULF OF GUINEA 
 
 WESTERN AFRICA. 
 
 BY 
 
 WILLIAM F. DANIELL, M.D. 
 
 assistant Surgeon to tfje jForces, &c. 
 
 LONDON: 
 SAMUEL HIGHLEY, 32, FLEET STREET. 
 
 1849. 
 
WILLIAM HENRY COX, 
 5, GREAT QUEEN STREET, LINCOLN'S INN FIELDS. 
 
TABLE OF CONTENTS. 
 
 Page 
 
 INTRODUCTION 1 
 
 Part I. BIGHT OF BENIN 14 
 
 II. BIGHT OF BIAFRA 66 
 
 III. ISLAND OF FERNANDO Po . . . . 131 
 
 IV. ISLANDS OF PRINCES, ST. THOMAS, AND ANNO BONA 163 
 
 INDEX .... 187 
 
PREFACE. 
 
 A brief topographical description, with an out- 
 line of the diseases peculiar to the aboriginal 
 tribes of the Bights of Benin and Biafra, appeared 
 several years ago, in a series of detached papers 
 published in the Medical Gazette. These commu- 
 nications, now revised, constitute the basis of the 
 present work. 
 
 The Author, since their publication, having 
 enjoyed opportunities of acquiring additional in- 
 formation on various topics connected with the 
 subject, has been induced to avail himself of these 
 researches, by embodying them in the succeeding 
 pages, with the results of his previous experience. 
 
 The present volume is not intended to enter 
 into any details connected with the modes of life 
 or customs of the different native tribes of this 
 portion of Western Africa, further than is re- 
 quisite to dev elope those principles which tend 
 towards the elucidation of the origin, and native 
 system of treatment of those diseases to which 
 they are incident. In conformity, therefore, with 
 these objects, a great variety of crude materials 
 have been excluded, which, although of some 
 
Vlll PREFACE. 
 
 interest and importance in a philosophical point of 
 view, nevertheless could not be consistently incor- 
 porated with these introductory sketches, without 
 creating some confusion. 
 
 In conclusion, the Author will feel sufficiently 
 rewarded should this work be the means of elicit- 
 ing further enquiries into subjects which at present 
 are involved in much obscurity, or prove of utility 
 to those who are obliged to visit the Bights ; and 
 he sincerely trusts that they who may be influ- 
 enced by the laudable desire of investigation, will 
 escape the difficulties and perils which so fre- 
 quently obstruct the path of those who become 
 travellers in these unhealthy regions. 
 
 London, Sept., 1849. 
 
MEDICAL TOPOGRAPHY 
 
 AND 
 
 NATIVE DISEASES 
 
 OP THE 
 
 GULF OF GUINEA. 
 
 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 c)e BiffLV KCLI (pvcriv Ka<rru)v 
 
 'IIinOK. Trepl Aicurrje, . 
 
 WHEN we refer to the annals of history, we find 
 that the Portuguese and Spaniards were, from a 
 very early period, familiarly acquainted with the 
 greater portion of the western coast of Africa. 
 They appear to have been uniformly actuated by 
 the narrow-minded policy of the adventurers of 
 that age, and indeed of much later ages ; they 
 neglected no precaution whereby they might secure 
 to themselves the rich field of commerce, which 
 was there displayed to their admiring gaze, and 
 used every means to exclude other nations from 
 partaking in its varied resources. A few years, 
 however, must have demonstrated the fallacy of 
 these expectations, for we find in the year 1553, 
 records of an Englishman, of the name of Wynd- 
 ham, trading in the Rio Formosa for pepper, and 
 
2 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 other indigenous productions, in conjunction with 
 a vessel belonging to the Portuguese. From this 
 period, British influence may be said to have 
 gradually extended itself over the Babel of petty 
 kingdoms that stud the shores of Western Africa, 
 from the Gambia to the equator, and from thence 
 to the Cape of Good Hope ; the supremacy, trade, 
 and prospects of earlier discoverers, waning rapidly 
 under the influence of successful rivalry. 
 
 A glance at the mercantile relations of Great 
 Britain with this portion of Africa, will shew how 
 extensive and important the connexion has become, 
 especially since the commencement of the present 
 century. Were it not for the fatal insalubrity of 
 climate, so deleterious to the European constitu- 
 tion, where life is not forfeited at once, it is impos- 
 sible to say what extent our commercial inter- 
 course would have acquired with the inland regions 
 of the vast continent of Africa, which lie at this 
 moment unexplored and unknown. The rivers 
 which empty themselves in the Bights of Benin 
 and Biafra nevertheless receive from sixty to 
 seventy vessels of considerable burden annually, 
 which employ several hundred seamen, and, car- 
 rying out freights of the manufactures of this 
 country, return with cargoes of palm oil, ivory, 
 dye-woods, and other articles of price. 
 
 Although this portion of the coast of Africa is 
 so much frequented, and so large a quantity of 
 its produce is transmitted year after year to 
 English ports, it is surprising how little informa- 
 
INTRODUCTION. '> 
 
 tion we have relative to its topography, seasons, 
 capabilities, natural productions, inhabitants, &c. 
 This, however, may in some measure be owing to 
 the individuals who visit that country being rarely 
 possessed of the kind of education which he who 
 travels into new and little known regions ought to 
 have, and partly also because it is not always held 
 prudent among trading communities to promulgate 
 information which might possibly conjure up a 
 host of competitors. And then it is certain that 
 in many instances those who were most competent 
 to give information upon the countries of Central 
 Africa have been the victims of its unhealthy 
 climate. 
 
 It is much to be regretted that the causes of the 
 insalubrity of Western Africa, and the pathology 
 of its maladies, should be so imperfectly understood 
 at the present time, since the preservation of life 
 ought surely, above all other interests, to have 
 been made the subject of deep consideration. 
 
 During my residence in several of the rivers 
 which form what is termed the delta of the Niger, 
 and when anxiously engaged in my professional 
 duties, I have often painfully felt the necessity of 
 a work of reference which might throw some light 
 on the disorders that were endemical in those dis- 
 tricts, but I must confess that I have found nothing 
 to aid my investigations on this important subject. 
 This hiatus I have now essayed to fill up by the 
 few succeeding hasty and, I fear, imperfect sketches. 
 I am fully aware of the deficiencies that must 
 
 B2 
 
4 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 almost necessarily be apparent in them, but I trust 
 that the motives which have led me to come before 
 the profession will plead in some degree for all 
 imperfections of style that may appear, and that 
 the facts and observations I have to offer may con- 
 tribute to the benefit of those who are obliged to 
 visit the coast of Africa. I shall also enter at 
 some length into the host of pestilential diseases 
 which there prevail, and which prove at periods 
 far beyond the control and best efforts of human 
 skill. Had it not been for the confidence inspired 
 by a practice successful in the great majority of 
 cases, my inclinations would have prompted me to 
 let the subject fall into other hands more compe- 
 tent to discharge what I believe to be an imperative 
 duty. 
 
 In referring to the publications which have 
 appeared during my absence from England, I acci- 
 dentally met with a series of papers on the fevers 
 of the Gambia and Sierra Leone ; since my return 
 I have also perused the work of Mr. Boyle, which 
 I had not done previously. The papers on fever 
 by Dr. Burton, communicated in the Provincial 
 Medical Journal for 1842, certainly afford the most 
 correct and comprehensive delineation of the affec- 
 tions endemical to our African colonies ; and many 
 of his views are in perfect accordance with my 
 own, while others are greatly at variance. Of 
 course, considerable allowance must be made for 
 differences of situation, geological distinctions, and 
 the circumstances under which he has studied 
 
INTRODUCTION. 5 
 
 African fever. Circumstances always essentially 
 modify the characters of tropical diseases. It may 
 be also necessary to state, that although a remark- 
 able coincidence frequently occurs in the mode of 
 treatment between Dr. Burton and myself, yet I 
 was thoroughly convinced, from practical expe- 
 rience several years before the appearance of his 
 sentiments, that the means I had adopted were the 
 most efficacious that could be used. More recently, 
 and since the preceding passages were written, the 
 Medical Reports of the Niger Expedition, by Drs. 
 M'William and Pritchett, have been published. 
 
 Although the diseases which prevail on the west 
 coast of Africa may be considered as but few in 
 number when placed in contrast with the more 
 varied and comprehensive series of European mala- 
 dies, yet they are not the less entitled to our atten- 
 tive consideration: in point of interest there is, 
 perhaps, no class of morbid affections to which the 
 human frame is liable which demands greater 
 attention, or requires a more studious investigation, 
 than those of which I am about to treat. At 
 present, little progress has been made in the ample 
 field of pathological science presented by the Afri- 
 can continent; it is only recently that the few 
 works which profess to allude to the subject have 
 appeared, and they, like all rudimental treatises, 
 afford but very partial general summaries, the 
 principal object proposed being usually little more 
 than a meagre description of those diseases which 
 are prevalent in our colonial settlements in the 
 
6 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 higher latitudes of this continent; the lower, or 
 equatorial division of the coast, being left entirely 
 uninvestigated. 
 
 Experience has already demonstrated the fact, 
 that of all those tropical countries visited by Euro- 
 peans, Africa is that which is most deadly. The 
 humidity of its atmosphere, and the high range of 
 temperature, conjoined apparently with exhalations 
 due to the decomposition of vegetable matter, con- 
 spire to render it singularly inimical to European 
 constitutions, and to make it the theatre of a class 
 of diseases differing from any that have been ob- 
 served in other quarters of the globe. 
 
 Notwithstanding the vaunted assertion, that 
 man, especially the inhabitants of the northern and 
 temperate zones, possesses in a greater degree than 
 any other race a power of adapting his constitution 
 to the most various climatorial influences, the un- 
 precedented sacrifice of European life in several of 
 our African colonies would lead us to suspect that 
 this statement has been made on very fallacious 
 grounds. If we contemplate the present condition 
 of these settlements, we shall discover how slightly 
 the lapse of time and labour have diminished 
 the number of victims ; how little has been done to 
 abate the causes which create these deplorable 
 results : the ominous title of the " white man's 
 grave" has been but too correctly applied to the 
 countries situated within the tropics in Africa. 
 This apparent inability to resist the peculiarities of 
 the African clime can only be attributed to the 
 
INTRODUCTION. 7 
 
 operation of certain influences belonging to it, and 
 from the agency of which originate those inordinate 
 derangements of the system that are so familiarly 
 witnessed there. Peculiarity of organization alone 
 does not prevent the prejudicial action of these 
 influences; that there are other and equally effi- 
 cient, but inexplicable states of the constitution 
 that assist to establish this process, there can be 
 little doubt, since if such had not been the case, 
 the dark races would in general enjoy that im- 
 munity from febrile diseases which it is so desirable 
 an object to attain. The natives of the East, and 
 the negroes of the West Indies, with those of the 
 northern and southern States of America, are all 
 subject to the same causes which affect the white 
 individual; nay, even the native African, provided 
 he has resided for any length of time beyond their 
 influence, is not exempt upon his return from their 
 morbific effects. What the nature of the causes 
 or elements is which produce the various abnor- 
 mal states in the human frame, which we designate 
 under particular names, and what peculiarity of 
 constitution or temperament best fits a man to 
 withstand disease-exciting influences, are com- 
 paratively unknown to us. 
 
 That portion of the west coast of Africa in 
 which the British settlements are situated, forms 
 but a very insignificant district in the vast un- 
 known regions of a continent which possessed, from 
 the earliest records of antiquity, empires whose 
 fame and magnificence historical tradition has 
 
8 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 transmitted to us through an uninterrupted suc- 
 cession of ages. These colonial establishments are 
 of modern date, all being founded subsequently to 
 the fifteenth century, in those divisions of tropical 
 Africa comprehended under the appellations of the 
 Windward and Gold Coasts. The main feature in 
 the selection of the sites has been in all probability 
 their prospective commercial advantages; their 
 salubrity being estimated as only of secondary 
 importance. If such has been the case, and cir- 
 cumstances appear to support it, their rise, pro- 
 gress, and history, will furnish us with the most 
 instructive example as to the fallacy of all merce- 
 nary speculations, whose ground-work has been an 
 apathetic indifference to the waste of human life. 
 From the commencement, these possessions have 
 proved pestilentially destructive to their white 
 populations, and what from periodical epidemics, 
 and other local affections severely afflicting them, 
 heightened from the influence of fear, with exag- 
 gerated embellishments, they have acquired a 
 gloomy character, by no means commensurate to 
 the real state of affairs. By degrees an erroneous 
 supposition has led many into the absurd belief 
 that a residence in these countries is almost equi- 
 valent to a premature death, and has readily 
 induced the more timid to suspect that they were 
 merely the representations of so many charnel- 
 houses on a larger scale for all who might have 
 the temerity to reside in them. However merited 
 the application of such titles may be, I question 
 
INTRODUCTION. 9 
 
 whether there are not other localities equally 
 resorted to by European traders, but not included 
 among our colonial settlements, to which this 
 notoriety may be more reasonably ascribed: I 
 allude to the embouchures of the rivers in the 
 Bights of Benin and Biafra. 
 
 Sierra Leone, the principal seat of the British 
 government in Western Africa, is tolerably well 
 known to most individuals who have frequented 
 this portion of the globe. Although in point of 
 local eligibility and construction it is far superior 
 to most of the colonial establishments on the coast, 
 yet a protracted residence in it is always attended 
 by more or less ill health. To the careless and 
 superficial observer, this settlement in the distance 
 appears to be anything but prejudicial to human 
 life: the blue mountain summits, clothed by the 
 varied tints of an ever blooming verdure, and 
 diversified at intervals by groups of dusky villages 
 and native habitations, that heighten in effect the 
 manifold attractions of its luxuriant scenery, excite 
 the most pleasing emotions; distrust, apprehension, 
 with a mingled train of depressing thoughts, en- 
 gendered by its melancholy history, rapidly fade 
 and vanish before the increasing admiration pro- 
 duced by the contemplation of its charming coup 
 dceiL 
 
 The settlements of the Gambia are not so favor- 
 ably situated as the above, being deficient not only 
 in picturesque embellishments and local advan- 
 tages, but also in affording a less healthy climate. 
 
10 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 Vast alluvial and densely wooded mangrove 
 morasses extend on all sides, the heavy and 
 monotonous scenery of which reminds the voyager 
 of the more deadly swamps of equatorial Africa. 
 
 The Gold Coast, although in lower latitude, 
 presents a corresponding similarity to the regions 
 in the vicinity of Sierra Leone, with a series of 
 verdant uplands which render it equally alluring. 
 Picturesque views of a fertile country successively 
 gleam forth and afford to the European a gayer 
 transition from the dull and unvarying tameness of 
 the preceding Kroo-shores. Forts of different 
 nations, erected on the most commanding clear- 
 ances of the wooded acclivities, for the purposes of 
 protection and commercial intercourse, are scat- 
 tered here and there, with petty towns, villages, 
 and ruinous fortalices, that gratify the eye over 
 the hazy vista of ocean. 
 
 It would not come within the scope of the pre- 
 sent volume to enter into any further details of a 
 subject so comprehensive as the description of the 
 Windward and Gold Coasts: if such had been 
 necessary, it would have been merely to exhibit a 
 faint outline of their characteristic features, in order 
 to point out those geological formations so widely 
 at variance with that tract of coast which will 
 shortly claim our notice. It must be evident to 
 those who are in any degree conversant with the 
 nature, endemic influences, and other local pecu- 
 liarities, of the British colonies in tropical Africa, 
 that they enjoy many advantages which render 
 
INTRODUCTION. 11 
 
 them far more salubrious than the marshy man- 
 grove forests of the Delta. Land more or less 
 elevated above the level of the ocean, of a silicious 
 gravelly soil, calculated for the percolation of mois- 
 ture, and partially divested of its luxuriant vegeta- 
 tion, will be manifestly more congenial to unac- 
 climatized constitutions, than the alluvial swamps 
 of the Bights which are continually inundated by 
 the influx of the tides. From these extensive sur- 
 faces of mud and stagnant water, exposed to the 
 action of a torrid sun, are generated those mias- 
 matous exhalations which militate so much against 
 the preservation of health. 
 
 Such are the comparative topographical differ- 
 ences in the colonial and other regions of Western 
 Africa, and from a knowledge of which medical 
 authorities have decided that the Sierra Leone 
 and Gambia settlements rank as the most healthy, 
 the Windward and Gold Coasts next; and, lastly, 
 those mercantile stations in the Bights of Benin 
 and Biafra.* 
 
 From a careful investigation into the value of 
 this artificial arrangement, I am inclined to imagine 
 
 * According to the statement of Mr. Ferguson, the late Staff- 
 surgeon at Sierra Leone, the proportion of deaths to the cases of 
 bilious remittent fever among the troops quartered in the northern 
 African colonies, in the year 1825, were, in the 
 
 Gambia as 1 to 1-57 
 
 Sierra Leone ..... 2*73 
 
 Isles de Los 7'00 
 
 The Statistical Report also of Major Tulloch, in reference to the 
 mortality of 1825-6, perhaps more perspicuously indicates the relative 
 
12 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 its construction has been based on the two first 
 divisions, deriving their insalubrity more from 
 epidemic visitations, and not so much from other 
 sources as has been too commonly reported. This 
 will partly account for the fearful mortality which 
 has at some seasons nearly depopulated these 
 places of their white inhabitants, whilst at others 
 they have been remarkably healthy. The greatest 
 sacrifice of life which has hitherto prevailed in the 
 Gambia and Sierra Leone has unquestionably 
 emanated less from endemic causes than any other. 
 This may be easily proved, from the mortality 
 being notably trifling during the intervals of these 
 periodical epidemics, and by the predominant affec- 
 tions not being accompanied by that adynamic 
 
 loss of life in each of these colonial governments, and their subordinate 
 dependencies. Of the force employed in them, the deaths per thou- 
 sand amounted in the 
 
 Isles de Los 500 
 
 Sierra Leone 650 
 
 Gambia 1500 
 
 Moreover, in the same publication it is stated, that out of 1658 white 
 troops sent out to these possessions (including that of Cape Coast) 
 from 1822 to 1830, 1298 perished from climateric causes, while the 
 remainder, 387, were invalided, and otherwise accounted for. Now, 
 out of these 387 men, 17 died on their passage home, 157 were described 
 as incapable of further service, and 180 as qualified for garrison duty; 
 thus leaving 33 men only who were reported as fit for further service. 
 There are, however, sufficient grounds for belief, that at that period 
 the civilians suffered less from epidemics than the military garrisons, 
 owing to the adoption of customs more in unison with the nature of 
 the climate, or from other means fully as efficacious. During the 
 prevalence of the more recent epidemics the reverse has been the 
 case, owing to the withdrawal of the white troops which formerly 
 composed the garrison, and the substitution in their place of detach- 
 ments from the black West India regiments. 
 
INTRODUCTION. 1 3 
 
 type, as was the case when the bilious and yellow 
 remittent fevers occurred in the years 1823, 1829, 
 and 1837. 
 
 Could those causes of disease which have been 
 hitherto ascribed to climatorial alternations be more 
 thoroughly investigated, I apprehend we should 
 discover that no small number were founded on 
 very inconclusive data. It is a well-known fact 
 that the notorious insalubrity of Africa has fre- 
 quently served as the scape-goat on which the 
 blame of those evil consequences (resulting from 
 the reprehensible indulgence of dissipated courses) 
 might be unreservedly thrown, without the risk of 
 their being disputed or even questioned. When 
 we seriously reflect on the impaired constitutions 
 of two -thirds of the human beings who frequent 
 these colonies, recklessly indifferent as to the price 
 of life, we require no further argument for the 
 rational explanation of those abnormal states of the 
 system that so largely swell the amount of victims 
 in these occasional and almost inexplicable pesti- 
 lences. As this, however, is a topic of great 
 importance, it will be necessary to revert to it 
 more at length in a future series of communi- 
 cations. 
 
 I shall now commence the description of those 
 regions situated within that division of Western 
 Africa comprehended under the title of the Bight 
 of Benin ; regions by far the most deleterious to 
 the unseasoned European throughout the African 
 continent. 
 
PART I. 
 THE BIGHT OF BENIN. 
 
 CAPE ST. PAOLO, or St. Paul's, is the western 
 extremity of the Bight of Benin, and the com- 
 mencement of the Slave Coast.* It is situated in 
 5 45' N. Lat., and 1 52' 18" E. Long. With the 
 exception of some insignificant elevations in the 
 neighbourhood of Gugligou, Pulley, Whydah, 
 Porto Novo, and Badagry, the characteristic fea- 
 tures of the shores are their excessive lowness. 
 They preserve here the same dull and unvarying 
 outline of one vast alluvial and densely wooded 
 forest, extending over an area of at least one hun- 
 dred thousand square miles, partially irrigated by 
 the Atlantic tides, and intersected by numerous 
 rivers and creeks, whose muddy banks are unceas- 
 ingly overflowed. At the distance of several miles 
 from the coast, the peculiar odour arising from 
 swampy exhalations, and the decomposition of 
 vegetable matter, is very perceptible, and some- 
 
 * A couplet, from an old doggrel rhyme, supposed to date its origin 
 from the period when the English traders were zealously engaged in 
 the slave trade, thus ominously cautions the unseasoned stranger : 
 " Beware and take care of the Bight of Benin, 
 For if one comes out, twenty stay in." 
 
THE BIGHT OF BENIN. 15 
 
 times even offensive. The water also is frequently 
 of a dirty hue, with leaves, branches, and other 
 vegetable debris floating on the surface, brought 
 down from the interior by innumerable narrow 
 channels, that empty their turbid streams into the 
 open ocean. The beautiful and undulating scenery 
 of the Gold Coast may be said to terminate at the 
 Rio Volta, eighteen miles beyond Cape St. Paul's, 
 and is succeeded by the unattractive alteration just 
 noticed. In approaching the land from the west- 
 ward, the soundings throughout the Bight, which 
 are from four to six miles from the beach, gradually 
 shoal from ten to seven fathoms. In the eighteenth 
 century, the settlements on this coast were deemed 
 of the highest value, and were perhaps founded at 
 an earlier period than most others in West Africa, 
 on account of their eligible position and other con- 
 venient facilities for the procurement of slave 
 cargoes. This inhuman traffic still flourishes in 
 many of the ports, although of late it has been 
 much decreased, being partly suppressed by the 
 vigilance of our men-of-war. 
 
 The first commercial establishment in these 
 regions is the dilapidated fort of Quitta, formerly 
 belonging to the Danish government, but now 
 abandoned. It has a commanding appearance, 
 with an exterior of dazzling whiteness, as if 
 recently whitewashed, and is surrounded by a 
 quantity of low brushwood, partly cleared away in 
 front. This fortress is included within the limits 
 of the kingdom of Kerrapay, and lies about thirteen 
 
16 THE BIGHT OF BENIN. 
 
 miles to the eastward of St. Paul's, being erected 
 on a strip of ground between the sea and a salt 
 lake inland, which communicates with the Cradoo 
 Lake by means of a small river (West Lagos), 
 running parallel with the coast. It is now but 
 seldom frequented, other towns located to leeward 
 possessing superior claims to the attention of the 
 trader, with a more enlarged field for speculation. 
 Acquijah and Paurey are two villages distant nine 
 and sixteen miles to the north-east of this settle- 
 ment. This portion of the land was generally 
 termed the Goto Coast by the earlier voyagers. 
 Forty miles from Quitta is the town of Little 
 Popo, founded close to the water's edge, and 
 where the Dutch had originally a colony. The 
 landing is very difficult of attainment, especially in 
 the rainy season, owing to the tremendous surf. 
 From these untoward circumstances its position is 
 necessarily damp and unhealthy. 
 
 Although the slaves which were formerly col- 
 lected in such immense numbers for shipment at 
 these ports, usually passed under the denomina- 
 tion of Popoes, but few were procured from the 
 coastal districts in their immediate neighbourhood, 
 the greater portion being purchased either in the 
 kingdom or town of Jenne", or from another ex- 
 tensive country adjoining it, named Adj-jah, the 
 inhabitants of which are distinguished from the 
 surrounding people by two small incisions, resem- 
 bling a cross, over the malar bone of each cheek. 
 In corporeal mould, the Adj-jah population appear 
 
THE BIGHT OF BENIN. 17 
 
 well formed, the hue of their skin varying from 
 a moderate dark to a blackish brown; they are 
 endowed with a regular and somewhat intelligent 
 cast of features, which evince a certain amount 
 of intellectuality. Under these favourable aspects 
 they assume a more exalted position in the scale 
 of negro humanity, both as regards their moral 
 and physical characteristics, particularly when 
 placed in apposition with other tribes of Ebo origin 
 located in the regions more to the southward of 
 them. 
 
 The intervening shore between these places 
 is singularly tame and flat, and presents only a 
 few scattered villages that occasionally peep forth 
 from amid a profusion of sombre foliage. In 
 the vicinity of Gugligou, the last of them, four 
 slight elevations of the country adjoin the strand, 
 and are the only local attractions that enliven the 
 dreary waste of wood and water for a long succes- 
 sion of leagues. Twenty -four miles to the east- 
 ward of Little Popo is Great Popo, preceded by 
 a very low and marshy country, scarcely above 
 the level of the ocean. 
 
 This town a few years since was also a great 
 emporium for the sale of slaves, from which some 
 thousands were annually exported, chiefly obtained 
 from Dahomey and the adjacent kingdoms. It is 
 situated near the entrance of a small river, that 
 flows from the lake above mentioned, and is unna- 
 vigable by vessels of even a moderate tonnage, in 
 consequence of the accumulation of mud and sand 
 
 c 
 
18 THE BIGHT OF BENIN. 
 
 that forms an impassable bar. The Portuguese, 
 English, and Dutch, formerly possessed factories 
 here. The natives are a mild, industrious, and 
 quiet people, mostly engaged in trade and agricul- 
 ture. These towns are not unfrequently con- 
 founded one with the other, under the vague term 
 of Popo. Popo river was called Kio do Poupou, 
 or Tary, and the insular patch of ground on which 
 the town is founded, from its moist and alluvial 
 condition received the appellation of terra anegada. 
 A similar description will apply to the land from 
 this port to Griwhe, a space of sixteen miles, a 
 slight elevation a short distance from the latter 
 alone interrupting its regularity. 
 
 Griwhe, Whydah, or Ouidah, also known to the 
 French and Dutch traders under the name of 
 Juidah and Fida, is in 6 19' N. Lat., and 2 5' E. 
 Long., and is at present the principal sea-port town 
 of Dahomey to which European traders resort, 
 being the main outlet to the fertile and productive 
 district of the same name. The appearance of the 
 country in the vicinity of the town resembles the 
 American prairies or savannahs, and like them is 
 low, flat, with occasional knolly elevations. The 
 soil, dark and loamy, is clothed with lank grass 
 and wooded islets, which are well stocked with 
 deer and game. Its climate has been supposed to 
 be more congenial to the constitutions of inaccli- 
 mates than most of the localities in this Bight ; but 
 it is, in point of salubrity, incomparably inferior to 
 our possessions on the Gold Coast. Dr. Lind, 
 
THE BIGHT OF BENIN. 19 
 
 however, states that "the air in Whydah is bad;" 
 but he also remarks that to leeward it is " much 
 worse, nay, in a manner pestilential to Europeans 
 in the Gulph of Benin, even as far as Cape 
 Lopez."* Prior to 1727 it was an independent 
 state, in which year it was invaded and overcome 
 by the warlike sovereign of Dahomey, Guadja 
 Trudo. Since then it has, in conjunction with 
 Ardrah, become annexed to the extensive provinces 
 of that spacious empire. The succulent and sweet- 
 flavoured tropical fruits may be procured in all 
 these towns in greater or less abundance, but more 
 particularly in their surrounding territories. Pine- 
 apples, oranges, guavas, limes, melons, bananas, 
 &c., grow in wanton exuberance in the environs of 
 Whydah, and would tempt the palate of the most 
 fastidious by their exquisite fragrance. Among 
 the plants also indigenous to Whydah may be 
 mentioned the Saccharum Ojficinale? Guilandina 
 Bonduc? Capsicum fructescens*Parinarium excelsum? 
 Lycospersicum solanum? Panicum miliaceum? Nas- 
 turtium officinale, 1 Amomum Grana Paradisi? 
 Ocymum basilicum? with various other produc- 
 tions belonging to theSolaneoe, Cucurbit acece, Palmce, 
 &c. There are several species of the Indigoferoe, 
 
 * Essay on Diseases Incidental to Europeans in Hot Climates, p. 58. 
 
 1 Sugar cane. 2 Nicker tree. 3 Guinea pepper. 4 African plum. 
 5 Love apple. 6 Millet. 7 Water cress. 8 Mallagetta pepper, or 
 grains of Paradise. 9 Common basil, a plant almost naturalized in 
 every country of Western Africa. By the Arabs it is termed 
 (Ribari), and by the inhabitants of Egypt /^L^u^ (Ribhan.) 
 
 c 2 
 
20 THE BIGHT OF BENIN. 
 
 employed by the natives, not only for their medi- 
 cinal properties, but also for the purposes of 
 dyeing. Those commonly administered by the 
 native practitioners for the cure of diseases are the 
 Indigofera tinctoria, I. hirsute^ I. enneaphylla, &c. ; 
 but it is often difficult to determine the correct 
 species from the various mutilated specimens that 
 are submitted for examination. The Ebo term 
 used by some of the tribes to designate the 
 /. enneaphylla, or trailing indigo, plentifully found 
 in the interior is Ne, probably a corruption of the 
 Arabic term j^j (or *X/j): it is administered 
 in enteritic affections and as a vermifuge. Ac- 
 cording to Forskal, the /. tinctoria is much 
 resorted to in Northern Africa.* By some of the 
 natives of Yorruba it is named ellu or elloh, while 
 the Mandingoes term it ^li' Jcarro. By the latter 
 it is exclusively employed more on account of 
 the beautiful dye which it gives to their tobes, 
 than for any supposed remedial efficacy. 
 
 As in Popo and the other large towns in this 
 Bight, the market of Whydah is amply supplied 
 with game, poultry, and stock of various kinds. 
 Cattle, sheep, pigs, and goats also exist in tolerable 
 abundance, while fish of an excellent quality, with 
 which the lagoons teem, yields an easy means of 
 
 * In his Flora Egyptiaco Arabica, he states it to be the *J 
 (Nile) of the Arabs, and that it is exhibited " semina cum oleo sesami 
 et sale ammoniaco mixta mane assumta, Taeniam expellunt. Diseta 
 erit : aqua per triduum abstinere, alium cibum non edere, nisi panem 
 potus coffese permittetur." Page 138. 
 
THE BIGHT OF BENIN. 21 
 
 subsistence for the slave population. In this part 
 of Dahomey the snake is considered an object of 
 superstitious veneration, it is therefore fetished, 
 and permitted to wander about within the precincts 
 of the towns without molestation. Some writers 
 assert that anotto is prepared here chiefly from 
 the Bixa Orellana, its mode of manufacture, 
 however, has hitherto escaped my notice. The 
 soil of the interior is a rich argillaceous clay, of a 
 reddish tint, intermixed with siliceous particles. 
 The West African Company had latterly a fort at 
 this place, but it is now abandoned and in ruins. 
 
 Porto Novo, the sea-port of the kingdom of 
 Ardrah, is thirty miles from Whydah. The minor 
 towns Appee and Jackin, the former three or four 
 miles inland, and a solitary hill (Mt. Palaver), near 
 the latter, are the only objects worthy of note, the 
 intermediate coast still affording the same monoto- 
 nous aspect. The capital of this territory is also 
 termed Ardrah, and is built on the banks of a 
 small river, that unites with another running into 
 the Cradoo Lake. It enjoys a population of above 
 eight thousand, who are a well-formed, active, and 
 enterprising race. I may here remark, that the 
 nomenclature of several towns, not only on this, 
 but also on the Gold Coast, has been evidently 
 derived from an oriental source. Ardrah, with 
 one or two other towns, may be satisfactorily cited 
 as the most obvious examples. 
 
 Badagry is a moderate-sized town, with a popu- 
 lation of ten thousand. It is situate three miles 
 
22 THE BIGHT OF BENIN. 
 
 from the shore, on the western branch of the river 
 Lagos, twelve miles to the eastward of Porto Novo, 
 and is not much resorted to, unless by the Portu- 
 guese and French. A second hill (Mt. Badagry) 
 may be observed near it. A sandy strip of land, 
 covered with a thick sward of grass, intervenes 
 between it and the beach ; and the suburban build- 
 ings are partially concealed by young thickets of 
 evergreen shrubs. In the vicinity of the town the 
 stream expands into a somewhat shallow lagoon, 
 from half to three-quarters of a mile in width, its 
 banks at intervals being fringed with low brush- 
 wood, which serves as a secure retreat for the 
 voracious alligators which infest its course. A 
 Wesleyan missionary school has been recently 
 established here, for the education and conversion 
 of the natives, under the control of the Kev. T. 
 Freeman, the indefatigable superintendent of the 
 missions on the Gold Coast. When the slave 
 trade was at its zenith, the Portuguese erected 
 no less than five factories at this place, and the 
 sale of human beings was carried on to an almost 
 incredible amount. The upper layer of the soil in 
 the circumjacent country has been stated to con- 
 sist of sand, incorporated more or less with a 
 reddish marl, on which it is usually based. 
 
 The unfortunate Capt. Clapperton with Eichard 
 Lander set out for Sackatoo from this town in 
 December, 1825, and the brothers Lander followed 
 this track in 1830, in their first expedition into 
 the interior. The sovereign of Badagray pro- 
 
THE BIGHT OF BENIN. 23 
 
 fesses allegiance to that of Eyeo or Katunga, a me- 
 tropolitan town lying some distance beyond the 
 eastern range of the Kong mountains. From 
 ninety to one hundred miles to the north-east of 
 Badagry is the town of Abukuta, which, according 
 to recent accounts, is not only a place of some 
 magnitude, but contains a large population. It 
 first excited attention from the visit of the Rev. 
 T. Freeman, in 1842, who found there a number of 
 liberated Akoo slaves who had emigrated from 
 Sierra Leone and located themselves in these 
 districts, preferring to remain under the protection 
 of its king rather than reside in the more danger- 
 ous and insecure inland towns of Yorruba. Since 
 its discovery, the significant title of Understone 
 has been bestowed upon it, from the circumstance 
 of its situation amid vast fragments of white 
 granite, which also lie scattered around its out- 
 skirts in isolated masses. After passing a low 
 thickly wooded shore to the extent of thirty-six 
 miles, studded by a continual succession of pictur- 
 esque villages, the river and port of Lagos succes- 
 sively engage our attention. The river Lagos, but 
 three-quarters of a mile in width, forms the estuary 
 of the Cradoo Lake, and from its shallowness is 
 perfectly inaccessible to craft of any burthen. It 
 is divided into two diverging streams, named East 
 and West Lagos the former running parallel with 
 the shore from three to four miles distant, flows 
 into the Rio Formosa ; the other merges in a large 
 expanse of water near Whydah. Adjoining its 
 
24 THE BIGHT OF BENIN. 
 
 embouchure, situated in 6 24' N. Lat. and 3 22' 
 E. Long, is a small island, on the northern ex- 
 tremity of which the town of Lagos is founded. 
 This place enjoys a lucrative commercial inter- 
 course with the circumjacent countries by various 
 creeks, whose tortuous branches meander in every 
 direction, particularly towards Dahomey and Benin, 
 which are from sixty to ninety miles to the east- 
 ward of it. 
 
 The diseases of the inhabitants of the Slave- 
 coast differ but little from those observed in the 
 numerous rivers of the Bights more to the south- 
 ward. In the praedial and elevated inland districts 
 they are less prevalent than in the maritime towns 
 and villages, and moreover are not characterized 
 by that asthenic type which accompanies those 
 morbid affections that occur in the latter localities. 
 Fetish and other superstitious ceremonies consti- 
 tute the remedial treatment employed by the native 
 doctors. In Yarruba, Benin, and a few of the 
 neighbouring kingdoms, circumcision is performed 
 on most of the males very early in infancy. Mr. 
 Dalzell states, that this operation " is universally 
 practised among the Dahomian subjects, but not 
 at such an early age as among the Jews ; the time 
 of submitting to the operation being left to the 
 boys themselves." A very curious custom, men- 
 tioned by this author, still exists among the younger 
 females: "Prolongatio videlicet artificialis labio- 
 rum pudendi, mammae papillis simillima.'"* 
 
 * History of Dahomey, 1793. Introduction, page xviii. 
 
THE BIGHT OF BENIN. 25 
 
 Cradoo Lake is about fifty miles in length, and 
 from four to seven in breadth. Several tributary 
 streams empty their waters into it, after wandering 
 through a series of fertile districts, and serve as 
 the most easy medium for the conveyance of the 
 native merchandize from one remote market to 
 another. Its banks are covered by numberless 
 flourishing villages, the inhabitants of which are 
 solely devoted to agricultural and mercantile pur- 
 suits. Cradoo, the capital of these populous re- 
 gions, lies in the Jaboo country, thirty-six miles from 
 the outlet of the lake. As at most of the trading 
 depots in this Bight, the human species still re- 
 mains one of the staple commodities of barter. 
 The soil of the interior is light and sandy, and when 
 denuded of its heavy timber and underwood, is 
 richly productive. 
 
 Thirty miles to the eastward of Lagos is the 
 petty village of Palma, and twenty one miles to 
 the eastward of it is the town of Oudy or Oddy, 
 beyond which detached clusters of mud habitations 
 are occasionally perceptible, located on the verge 
 of the sandy beach, and mostly concealed by the 
 foliage of the adjacent woods. The general aspect 
 of the coast from this portion to the Rio For- 
 mosa, a distance of thirty miles further to leeward, 
 resembles the regions previously described, and is 
 equally insalubrious. 
 
 In former times all the track of sea-coast between 
 Cape St. Paul's and this river was designated in 
 the nautical charts as the Slave-coast; modern 
 
26 THE BIGHT OF BENIN. 
 
 experience, however, has sufficiently shewn that 
 this title has a much more extensive significa- 
 tion. 
 
 It may, perhaps, be advisable in this place to 
 enter into a preliminary dissertation on some of 
 those curious rites to which the negro female is 
 liable in many parts of the African continent, in 
 order that the subject, when briefly adverted to in 
 succeeding pages, may be more fully understood. 
 
 Intelligent travellers have distinctly pointed out 
 among barbarous nations, in different portions of 
 the globe, faint traces of a descent from progenital 
 sources, the elevated moral and physical characters 
 of which are widely at variance with their modern 
 condition and prospects. This retrogression from 
 a superior intellectual and social position into the 
 depths of profound barbarism has been referred to 
 manifold causes. Apparently the most prominent 
 are > those gradual changes induced by the inter- 
 vention of time, the dispersion and extinction of 
 their primitive stock as a parent stem, and the 
 detachment and consequent isolation of the succes- 
 sive offshoots from it, owing to their nomadic ten- 
 dencies, and other circumstances, which contribute 
 to still further their separation. The customs and 
 modes of life also (from the diffusion and proba- 
 ble blending of these branches with other commu- 
 nities less civilized) have imperceptibly led to the 
 deviation from their original characteristics, for, in 
 proportion to the repeated migrations and fixed 
 settlements in countries widely apart, these altera- 
 
THE BIGHT OF BENIN. 27 
 
 tions have proceeded to such an extent, that at 
 length, with the exception of a few occasional 
 traces, a permanent obliteration of the whole has 
 been accomplished. 
 
 Historical fragments of past ages will furnish us 
 with instructive proofs of the rise and decadence 
 of numerous empires, whose intimacy with the arts 
 and sciences were such as denoted no limited pro- 
 ficiency in the cultivation of them, and from the 
 scattered remnants of which we may recognize how 
 far the tide of civilization had advanced. The 
 records of their existence will be found either in 
 the pages of some contemporary writer, or, as 
 above, in the peculiarities of those degenerate 
 tribes who have descended from them. The reten- 
 tion and warm attachment to such modified cus- 
 toms has been well exemplified in many of the 
 national traits that distinguish the natives of 
 Western Africa; their exploration, therefore, may 
 not unfrequently bring to light some of those 
 vestiges of science which, although partially con- 
 cealed under the garb of savage life, still afford 
 abundant indications of an origin from an intelligent 
 and more civilized race of people. 
 
 What is usually implied by the expression of 
 the term circumcision, in reference to women, is 
 merely the excision of the clitoris, and other 
 organic structures connected with it. The exci- 
 sive process is not restricted to one particular part, 
 but is more or less varied in conformity with the 
 usages of the different countries in which it is pro- 
 
28 THE BIGHT OF BENIN. 
 
 moted. Under these modifications, it may be 
 classed under four heads, viz. : 
 
 1. Simple excision of the clitoris. 
 
 2. Excision of the nymphae. 
 
 3. Excision of both nymphae and clitoris. 
 
 4. Excision of a portion of the labia pudendi, 
 with either or all of the preceding structures. 
 
 The circumcision of females is the ostensible 
 remnant of some of those mysterious orgies which 
 derive their origin from the remote periods of 
 antiquity. Its history, therefore, is necessarily 
 involved in deep obscurity, for as all the informa- 
 tion to be gleaned on the subject is from its bare 
 allusion in a few of the treatises of the early his- 
 torians, it is of course but scanty. That it was 
 secretly inculcated as one of those gloomy rites 
 which the female proselyte had to undergo, as a 
 preliminary measure, prior to her initiation into 
 those dread mythological creeds, which in Egypt 
 and the adjoining countries were swathed in the 
 folds of an allegorical and almost impenetrable 
 mysticism, is the most likely inference. Even- 
 tually the progressive decay of these religious 
 institutions gradually led to its promulgation and 
 practice among the masses of the people, for the 
 priests who, independent of their scientific attain- 
 ments, were also well versed in medicine, might 
 have advocated its use, both in a moral and hygienic 
 point of view, as conducive to the welfare of the 
 female population. Mention is made of this singu- 
 lar custom in the pages of Strabo, the father of 
 
THE BIGHT OF BENIN. 29 
 
 geography, and also by Pliny and others. The 
 former remarks, that it was generally performed 
 among the Egyptians, who were at that period a 
 far more enlightened people than the surrounding 
 hordes. He states : " Kal TOVTO & TWV 
 
 /uaAiffra Trap avroig (rote AtyvTrrtotc), TO iravra 
 TO. yevvw/LLtva Tratcta, /cat TO 7rpiT/ii>t> /cat ra SrjAfa /c- 
 /cat rote lovSatotc vofJu/uLov /cat oirrot $e 
 
 Now, in this passage, to prevent 
 any ambiguity that might arise in confounding 
 this with the ordinary rite of male circumcision, 
 he has discriminately applied the word tKTtpvtw 
 to excise, in order the more clearly to illus- 
 trate his meaning. These distinctions are fully 
 dwelt upon by Dr. Brown and Burkhardt, both 
 of whom had travelled extensively in Northern 
 Africa. 
 
 The first, and least objectionable, of these ope- 
 rations, is the one almost universally selected by 
 those nations where such curious customs are per- 
 mitted. It is fortunately not accompanied by any 
 dangerous symptoms, a moderate febrile irritation, 
 with painful tenderness and profuse suppuration, 
 being the common termination. Whenever a lack 
 of skill or manual dexterity prevails on the part of 
 the operator, it assumes a more serious aspect, 
 violent inflammation and sloughing of the circum- 
 jacent textures frequently supervening. This 
 process is mostly carried into effect before puberty, 
 but the age of the person is no obstacle to its com- 
 
 * Strabo, lib. 17, p. 284. 
 
30 THE BIGHT OF BENIN. 
 
 pletion should such be thought necessary. In 
 Ebo, Old Callebar, and other parts of Western 
 Africa, it occurs between the years of four and 
 nine, much, however, will depend in these cases 
 on the locality, and the purpose for which it is 
 intended. When in Callebar river, I had an op- 
 portunity of witnessing the mode of operation 
 undertaken there, as elsewhere, by aged females. 
 The girl having been placed on the knees of a 
 woman, with the legs apart, the clitoris was dili- 
 gently sought out (for in this, as in other subjects 
 of tender age, from imperfect development it was 
 sometimes difficult of detection), and upon discovery 
 was seized forceps-like by two pieces of bamboo, 
 or palm sticks, gently drawn forth, and severed by 
 means of a sharp razor. The haemorrhage was 
 rather copious, but it was suffered to exhaust 
 itself. Afterwards the parts were alternately 
 bathed with warm and cold water, and the girl 
 placed in the recumbent position. The surface of 
 the body was then dotted over by some fetish 
 preparation to avert the molestations of any malign 
 influence, and in two or three days the little invalid 
 was restored to her usual occupations. The clitoris 
 here is termed Yientra, and its continuance in 
 females approaching maturity is not unfrequently 
 deemed a cause of reproach. This pecular obser- 
 vance is popular in various parts of Arabia, Darfour, 
 Kordofan, and among the Galla tribes of Abyssinia ; 
 also in several of the kingdoms of Soudan, in the 
 Foulah and Mandingo countries, and in the Ebo's 
 
THE BIGHT OF BENIN. 31 
 
 of the Quorra, and the populations of those rivers 
 connected with them. 
 
 The second division, or removal of the nymphse 
 alone, is rarely attempted on the same grounds as 
 the previous operation : it is resorted to more as a 
 surgical measure in those morbid states where the 
 structure is the seat of hypertrophy or fungoid 
 enlargement, and to which negro females are liable, 
 either from excessive indulgence in venery, or from 
 constitutional predisposition. 
 
 The ancient Egyptians, it would seem, practised, 
 to a certain extent, this excisive process in cases 
 where the nymphse had become inordinately de- 
 veloped. Aetius, an early Greek writer, who flour- 
 ished near the termination of the fifth century, and 
 had studied in his early years at the medical school 
 of Alexandria, gives in his BiX/a 'larpiKa EKKUI^KU 
 an interesting account of the peculiar charms 
 and other superstitious observances then in vogue 
 among the Egyptian physicians, for the success- 
 ful treatment of disease, and particularly alludes 
 to this morbid condition of the female organs of 
 generation, with their removal, in the following 
 words : " Hsec in aliquid mulieribus ad tanta 
 magnitudine ut deformitate ac pudore inducat. 
 Quin et a vestimentorum contractu assiduo arrigi- 
 tur, et ad venerem ac coitium proritat. Qua 
 propter ^Egyptiis usum est ut antequam exuberet 
 amputetur, tune, precipue quam nubiles virgines 
 sunt elocandge."* &c. There is every reason to 
 
 * Tetrabib iv. Sermon iv, p. 922. 
 
32 THE BIGHT OF BENIN. 
 
 infer that this is the operation more exclusively 
 adopted by the Mandingo tribes, the females of 
 which are also frequently liable to similar diseased 
 formations. 
 
 The excision of these organs in conjunction with 
 the clitoris, though rather less common, is main- 
 tained in many of the countries where similar 
 ordinances are instituted and upheld. In general, 
 it is effected at the desire of the woman herself, 
 either in complaisance to the hereditary customs 
 of the family to which she belongs, or to the arbi- 
 trary caprices of her superiors, and as a means of 
 ingratiation into the favour of her liege master, 
 who may allude to its consummation as a proof of 
 her devotion to his wishes; not that this latter 
 event is dependent on her option, for in the African 
 code of domestic regulations, it is freely understood 
 that the hints of a husband are tantamount to law. 
 Social life, in most of the pagan towns of Western 
 Africa, is darkened by scenes of the grossest de- 
 moralization, and its annals teem with pictures of 
 such a licentious and depraved character, that a 
 narrative of them would scarcely command credi- 
 bility. An illicit and promiscuous sexual inter- 
 course is constantly carried on by nearly all classes 
 of slave subjects, who, not fettered by any moral 
 obligations, and solely intent on the gratification 
 of their passions, give them an unrestrained rein 
 long before the age of puberty. In the younger 
 branches of families more immediately under the 
 supervision of their chiefs, any dereliction from an 
 
THE BIGHT OF BENIN. 33 
 
 established probation of chastity in these respects 
 is punished with fearful severity, both in boys and 
 girls, especially if any of the latter is a favourite 
 domestic, or near relative, since the license is only 
 justifiably allowed in individuals who have attained 
 a proper maturity. The evil effects of this immo- 
 rality, however, are sensibly felt by those persons 
 who are accustomed to procure and retail them 
 (i. e. the female slaves,) in the light of a com- 
 modity for traffic. Slave merchants of the interior 
 when they therefore visit the marts for the selection 
 of young females, are amply aware of the laxity of 
 frame and physical deterioration that ensue from 
 the premature development of form in these cases ; 
 and by a careful series of manipulations over 
 various portions of the body, determine how far 
 they may venture on the price, should the vendor 
 not guarantee their virginity. In spite of the most 
 stringent precautions, a clandestine intercourse is 
 more or less prevalent among the sexes, from the 
 opportune temptations afforded them; therefore, 
 for the prevention of these delinquencies, the cruel 
 and painful process (the concluding division) is 
 had recourse to. 
 
 Dr. Brown, who resided some time in Darfour, 
 North Africa, has given the first account of this 
 operation. He remarks that the clitoris is cut off 
 at the age of eight or nine years, and the term em- 
 ployed for denoting the performance is ^i^i Chafadh, 
 while the appellation conferred on the person who 
 operates is that of 2uJL*. Chafadhah. The object 
 
 D 
 
34 THE BIGHT OF BENIN. 
 
 of the first excision is for the purpose of "pro- 
 ducing an artificial impediment in the vagina, to 
 prevent sexual intercourse, in order not to impair 
 the value of the slaves. This operation, like the 
 former, is performed at all ages, from eight to six- 
 teen, but commonly, from eleven to twelve. * * * 
 The operation was performed by a woman, and some 
 of them complained much at the pain both at and 
 after it : they were prevented from locomotion, but 
 permitted to eat meat. The parts were washed 
 every twelve hours with warm water, which profuse 
 perspiration rendered necessary. At the end of 
 eight days, the greater part (of those operated 
 upon) were in a condition to walk ; and, liberated 
 from their confinement, three or four of them re- 
 mained under restraint till the thirteenth day."* 
 Dr. Brown, however, does not appear to have 
 thoroughly understood the details of this operation, 
 inasmuch as they are two distinct operations, per- 
 formed in many countries at different intervals, 
 and the solitary excision of the clitoris is no 
 obstacle to copulation, unless some of the adjoining 
 textures have been removed with it. 
 
 Burckhardt, in allusion to this subject, observes, 
 " Among the slave-girls who arrive at Shendy 
 
 and Siout, there are several who are called tu^cuo 
 Mukhaeyt (consutae), from an operation which has 
 been described by Mr. Brown," and that many 
 females of Arab origin, inhabiting the " Western 
 bank of the Nile, from Thebes as high as the 
 
 * Brown's Travels in Africa, p. 397. 
 
THE BIGHT OF BENIN. 35 
 
 Cataracts, and generally those of all the people to 
 the south of Senne and Esne, as far as Sennaar, 
 undergo circumcision, or rather excision, at the 
 age of from three to six years. Girls thus treated 
 are also called Mukhaeyt, but their state is quite 
 different from that of the slave girls just men- 
 tioned."* 
 
 In some of the countries of Western Africa, 
 another and more inhuman barbarity is perpetrated 
 on girls of high birth, who have been guilty of 
 prostitution, and is often succeeded either by a 
 partial agglutination of the vaginal membranes, or 
 a permanent obliteration of the canal. It consists 
 in the introduction into the vagina of the unripe 
 pods of the capsicum fructescens, or bird pepper, 
 beaten into a soft mass, so that, from its acrid 
 principle, a greater amount of suffering may be 
 inflicted, in order to deter the fair debauchee from 
 
 * He remarks that the results of the former operation are as follows : 
 Cicatrix post excisionem clitoridis parietes ipsos vaginae, foramine parvo 
 relicto, inter se glutinat. Cum tempus ad nuptiarum adveniat mem- 
 branem a qua vaginse clauditur, coram pluribus pronubis inciditur 
 sponso ipso adjuvante. Interdum evenit ut operationem em" cere, 
 nequeant sine ope mulieris aliquae expertae quse scalpello, partes in 
 vagina profundius rescindit. Maritus crastina die cum uxore ple- 
 numque habitat, unde ilia Araborum sententiae _ y&JJ XJUJ A*** 
 ^X^iXj} XX/J Leilat-ed-dohhle messel leilat elfatouh, i.e. post die aper- 
 turae, dies initus. Ex hoc consuetudine fit ut sponsus nunquam 
 decipitatur ex hoc fit ut in Egypto superiori innuptse repulsare 
 lascivias hominem parum student dicentes. ^s\J $* ^ ^ j* 
 
 Tdbousny wala takergany, sed quantum eis sit unita haec continentia 
 post matrimonium demonstrant libidine quam maxime indulgentes." 
 Travels in Nubia, p. 331-2. 
 
 D 2 
 
36 THE BIGHT OF BENIN. 
 
 committing any further excesses. The pain from 
 the active inflammation thus induced is of the 
 most severe character. I was informed by one of 
 the principal inhabitants of the comparatively 
 civilized town of Clarence, Fernando Po, that this 
 course of punishment is now and then had recourse 
 to, to check any similar irregularities on the part 
 of the female. 
 
 During my stay in those pagan towns where 
 female circumcision is supported, I have frequently 
 attempted to procure information of its early 
 origin, but without success ; the invariable answer 
 to my queries was, that it had been transmitted to 
 them from their forefathers, and further than this 
 they knew not. Some chiefs, indeed, have told me 
 that it was intended to do away with those criminal 
 liaisons which are apt to occur where a number of 
 females are congregated under the roof of one 
 man. I am, however, very sceptical as to the 
 truth of this explanation, although it may be 
 admitted as one of the causes of its present 
 toleration. 
 
 There are, I think, sufficient grounds for the 
 assumption of the belief, that in past ages, among 
 more civilised communities, it constituted no un- 
 important branch of medical hygieine, and that 
 probably, at some future period, fragmentary data 
 may more explicitly unfold the use and purport of 
 this singular custom, one among the many that 
 has been faithfully preserved by the African races 
 through the lapse of centuries, from a source so 
 
THE BIGHT OF BENIN. 37 
 
 distant and mysterious, as almost to set at defiance 
 the researches of the most profound inquirer. 
 
 In most of these countries, live stock, game, &c., 
 may be purchased at comparatively trifling prices, 
 while the greater number of the edible fruits and 
 vegetables that abound in the West Indies and 
 tropical America can be procured without the 
 slightest difficulty. To enumerate the whole 
 would occupy too much space ; a reference, there- 
 fore, to the most conspicuous productions of one 
 place will serve as a guide for others, since the 
 majority are more or less distributed throughout 
 the other regions of central Africa. With the 
 plants common to the Slave Coast may be in- 
 cluded the Zingiber officinale, 1 Holcus Spicata, 2 
 Chrysophyllum Cainito* Tamarindus Indica* Sar- 
 cocephalus esculentm* Jatropha Janipha? Anacar- 
 dium Occidentals? Cucurbita melopepo, 8 Annona Mu- 
 ricata, 9 Gossipium Herbaceum Ricinus Africanus, 11 
 &c. The Cucurbita Citrullus, which profusely 
 flourishes in most of the countries of Western 
 Africa, is highly esteemed by the natives for its 
 antiseptic, refrigerant, and antifebrile effects. It 
 may be found in nearly all the cultivated inland 
 districts on this and the Gold Coast. By the 
 Arabs it is named Vj ^^ Bateekh ziche, and 
 
 by the Egyptian Arabs ^kJ Barteech. Accor- 
 ding to Forskal, it is also known under the names 
 
 1 Common ginger. 2 Kous-kous plant. 3 Star apple. 4 Tama- 
 rind tree. 5 African peach. 6 Sweet Cassada. 7 Cashew nut. 
 8 Squash. 9 Soursop tree. 10 Cotton plant. " African castor oil 
 shrub. 
 
38 THE BIGHT OF BENIN. 
 
 . 
 
 Jsojwfc Sehurredj and ^U Kash. It is frequently 
 alluded to in conjunction with other plants in- 
 cluded in the Cucurbitacece in the writings of the 
 Arabian physicians. Rhazes, in a work entitled 
 Kitabfil judrie wul husbah, fyc., x>oaii ^ <fj*^ &* 
 ^JjS says that " Aqua etiam cucurbitse et aqua 
 peponis Indi, et aqua cucumeris anguini et 
 mucilago seminum psyllii et his similia, &c.," 
 were remedies advantageously administered in the 
 different stages of small pox and measles. Avi- 
 cenna, in his well known Canons of Medicine, <^x&\ 
 <5* &^* mentions several species of Cucurbita, 
 under the names of Batiech, Batheca, Charha, &c., 
 and recommends preparations of them in various 
 maladies. In Egypt and other parts of northern 
 Africa it is resorted to by the common people as a 
 medicine in ardent fevers.* The cotton shrub, 
 Gossipium arbor eum, furnishes the raw material 
 from which the celebrated Jaboo cloths are manu- 
 factured. These fabrics surpass the British cotton 
 goods in strength and firmness of texture, but are 
 inferior to them in fineness of execution. The 
 Zea Mays 1 is grown in immense quantities, and is 
 used not only as an article of food, but also of 
 commerce. The Allium Ascalonicum, Brassica 
 Qleracea, with a few other culinary vegetables, 
 were originally imported from the Cape de Verd 
 
 * "For this purpose they have a variety that is softer and more 
 juicy than the common sort ; when this is very ripe, or almost putrid, 
 they collect the juice, and mix with it rose-water and a little sugar." 
 Lond. Cyclop, of Plants, p. 809. l Maize. 
 
THE BIGHT OF BENIN. 39 
 
 Isles and Europe, and have now become naturali- 
 zed, and are largely cultivated in the gardens of the 
 natives. In the more inland provinces of Dahomey, 
 Malie" and Yarriba, the Bassia Parkia, or shea but- 
 ter tree, may be found in abundance, the fruit being 
 used by the natives for similar purposes as that 
 from the oil-palm tree. 
 
 The Kio Formosa is better known under its com- 
 mon appellation of Benin River. It commences 
 the series of navigable streams more intimately 
 connected with the Niger, and was, during the last 
 two centuries, a famous mart for the purchase and 
 exportation of slaves. It is now but rarely fre- 
 quented for such purposes, a more legitimate trade, 
 which had been irregularly carried on shortly after 
 its first discovery, having superseded this traffic in 
 the human species. If we can credit Di Barros, it 
 was either this or the Bonny River which was ex- 
 plored by Alfonso de Aveiro in 1486, in conse- 
 quence of the king of the country requesting to 
 be instructed in the Christian religion: he also 
 states that an embassy was sent many leagues into 
 the interior to a monarch of the name of Ogane, 
 to whom the kingdom of Benin was at that period 
 tributary. In Hackluyt's Collection of Voyages 
 there is a very quaint and curious description of 
 Benin River, from which we may glean much 
 useful information. It appears that Capt. Wynd- 
 ham visited it so early as 1553, in company with a 
 Portuguese trader, named Antonio Anes Pinteado, 
 
40 THE BIGHT OF BENIN. 
 
 for Mallagetta pepper, and from this voyage may 
 therefore be dated the commencement of the Eng- 
 lish commerce. In 1588, a Capt. Walshe was 
 trading here, and again in 1590; in both these 
 voyages he lost the greater number of his men, 
 but fully freighted his ship with Jaboo cloths, oil, 
 pepper, and ivory. At present, very little trade is 
 carried on with the natives, three or four British 
 vessels alone monopolizing its exports, which con- 
 sist chiefly of palm oil and ivory. 
 
 The term Rio Formosa is of Portuguese origin, 
 and signifies in that language, a beautiful river. 
 It has, however, been employed more to charac- 
 terise the bold and open expanse of water, than 
 any picturesque scenery, unless the wild and deso- 
 late forests that fringe its banks be dignified by its 
 assumption. At its junction with the ocean, this 
 river is one mile and three quarters in breadth, 
 but as it recedes towards the interior, proportion- 
 ably diminishes in size, and at Youngtown, a 
 village distant from fifteen to twenty miles from 
 its mouth, divides into three terminal branches, 
 the first leading to Gatto, a small trading port in 
 the kingdom of Benin, the second, a continuation 
 of the main trunk penetrating beyond the Subo 
 country, and taking its source in the mountainous 
 districts north-west of the Quorra, and the third, 
 or last, termed the Warre*e or Youngtown creek, 
 that joins the Quorra, a few miles below the town 
 of Ebo. 
 
THE BIGHT OF BENIN. 41 
 
 North- west head, an extreme projection of the 
 land at the entrance of the river, is situated in 
 5 46' N. Lat. and 5 4' E. Long. Like Cape St. 
 Mary in the Gambia, it may be stated to be the 
 most healthy spot in the river, being fully exposed 
 to the daily sea breeze, and less affected by those 
 pestiferous south-east winds, so detrimental to all 
 Europeans who visit here. From this point, a bar 
 of heavy mud and sand extends to Salt-town, on 
 the opposite side, partially obstructing its entrance, 
 and on which, in the rainy season, a tremendous 
 sea breaks with a resonance distinctly audible for 
 several miles inland. A small village named 
 Georgetown is located on this promontory, in 
 close proximity to which may be distinguished 
 many graceful trees, intermingled with the sombre 
 foliage of the mangrove bushes ; the most promi- 
 nent are the Elais Guineensis? Cocos nucifera? 
 Musa sapientum? Sagus vinifera* Psidium pyrife- 
 rum? &c. Palm oil is universally employed by all 
 the negroes in these and other maritime countries 
 of equatorial Africa, not only for culinary prepa- 
 rations, but also for certain medicinal powers. 
 When procured with these objects, it differs con- 
 siderably from the article of commerce, being of 
 superior quality, owing doubtless to a more care- 
 ful manufacture from the nut. The distinction 
 consists in its exemption from the ordinary adulte- 
 rations met with in the latter, while it possesses a 
 
 1 Palm oil tree. 2 Cocoa-nut tree. 3 Plaintain, 4 Wine palm 
 tree. 5 Guava. 
 
42 THE BIGHT OF BENIN. 
 
 greater degree of fluidity, conjoined with a bright 
 and clearer colour, without any of that rancid or 
 nauseating odour so peculiar to the other. When 
 blended with mucilaginous esculents, it constitutes 
 a very palatable soup, and is as conducive to the 
 health of the native African as the other oleaginous 
 products of the south of Europe are to its white 
 inhabitants. 
 
 A narrow sandy beach, with a substratum of 
 hard black clay, stretches from this place to Fish- 
 town, about a mile up the river. Previous to the 
 year 1818, a village similarly designated existed 
 on the site of the present one, which was burnt 
 and destroyed with appropriate ceremonies by a 
 solemn conclave of fetish men and chiefs, in order 
 to appease the Mallaku or evil spirit, who was 
 supposed to have prevented the white traders from 
 entering the river. This malefic deity seems how- 
 ever to have been actuated more by the superstitious 
 fears and caprices of his worldly representatives 
 when he demanded, as a propitiatory offering, the 
 destruction of this miserable settlement. Judging 
 from the number of women and children I observed 
 about the place in 1839, there was every reason to 
 believe that it had already far exceeded its pre- 
 decessor, not only in size, but also in population. 
 
 The shore from this place to Jacqua creek is 
 composed principally of alluvial deposits, covered 
 by dwarf mangroves, that project so far into the 
 stream as to conceal its banks; and this is the 
 common appearance throughout the river, except 
 
THE BIGHT OF BENIN. 43 
 
 in those localities inhabited by the natives. At 
 the aperture of the above creek two English facto- 
 ries are erected, in each of which a few white 
 artificers and Kroomen reside, under the superin- 
 tendence of a head factor. These edifices are 
 commodiously built of wood, somewhat after the 
 Spanish style, and contain a number of apartments 
 on a middle story, elevated above the adjoining 
 swamps. They are five miles distant from the 
 bar. 
 
 Jacqua, or Waccos, is the largest town in the 
 kingdom of Warre'e. It is erected on the right 
 bank of a narrow tortuous stream, in a low and 
 impenetrable morass, two miles from the river. 
 The population amounts to near two thousand. 
 The diseases to which the inhabitants of this part 
 of the river are subject, originate more from the 
 humid and confined atmosphere of the locality in 
 which they live, than from any other cause : their 
 type is usually asthenic, but it is greatly modified 
 by change of seasons, and the prevalence of rains. 
 Syphilis is perhaps the most frequent and fatal of 
 those maladies to which the male inhabitants are 
 liable, and predominates more among them than 
 among the females. Many are cut off very early 
 in life from want of the necessary remedial appli- 
 cations, and it is not uncommon to meet with cases 
 which have continued during nearly two-thirds of 
 the patient's existence. The worst forms of syphi- 
 litic disease which have come under my notice, 
 have been the foul and malignant phagedenic 
 
44 THE BIGHT OF BENIN. 
 
 ulcers that indiscriminately attack both sexes. 
 Gonorrhoea virulenta, nodes, cutaneous eruptions, 
 and, indeed, all the sequelae of syphilis in multiform 
 varieties, are extremely prevalent, and not unfre- 
 quently resist the most energetic and judicious 
 treatment of the European surgeon. In the native 
 cure of such affections, superstition exercises her 
 delusive sway; charms, amulets, with other fetish 
 remedies, are employed ad libitum by designing 
 priests, whose useless mummeries are calculated to 
 afford but a transitory hope of any other than a 
 fatal termination. The dracunculus, or Guinea 
 worm, is but rarely seen in this part of Africa, 
 being restricted more to the natives of the interior, 
 and the Gold and Windward coasts. Two cases 
 only came under my care in Jacqua-town, in one 
 of which I had an opportunity of witnessing a 
 country operation for the extirpation of these 
 vermicular parasites. A small semilunar incision 
 was first made in the skin of the forearm, to 
 expose the extremity of the worm, and moderate 
 pressure used to facilitate its protmsion; it was 
 then seized, and cautiously drawn forth to the 
 extent of one or two inches. Two ligatures, con- 
 structed from the exsiccated fibres of some grami- 
 neous plant, were next applied to that portion of 
 the worm nearest the orifice in the skin, the other 
 part being nipped off; the extremities of both of 
 these ligatures were of sufficient length to encircle 
 the limb, round which they were fastened. A 
 young plaintain leaf, smeared over with palm oil, 
 
THE BIGHT OF BENIN. 45 
 
 was then placed over the wound, and friction care- 
 fully employed with the same oleaginous fluid on 
 the skua, along the course of the worm. This 
 process was daily performed, and a small portion 
 of the worm regularly exposed, until the whole 
 was gradually withdrawn; a perfect cure being the 
 result. 
 
 On the environs of Jacqua are several enclosures 
 for the cultivation of the Dioscorea bulbifera, 1 Musa 
 paradisiacal Capsicum annuum? Hibiscus esculen- 
 tus* fyc. The Citrus limetta? Jatropha janipha? 
 with several huge trees belonging to the Malvacece 
 occasionally intersprinkled with the chandelier 
 tree, Pandanus candelabrum, may be observed 
 amid the mass of human habitations that line 
 both sides of one long avenue or street, which hi 
 the rainy season is partly inundated with water. 
 From the Jatropha manihot, or another poisonous 
 species of Cassada, is prepared manioc or man- 
 dioca, an article of food constantly used on board 
 the merchant vessels for the feeding of live stock. 
 The natives designate this preparation by the word 
 Farina, originally introduced by the early Portu- 
 guese traders, and derived from the Brazilian term 
 Farinha de pao, or meal of wood. In Benin and 
 Warr6e, when any great dearth of vegetable food 
 prevailed, it was given to the slaves, and is now 
 occasionally consumed by them. Europeans ought 
 to avoid partaking of it in any form, since it is apt 
 
 1 Yam. 2 Banana tree. 3 Bird pepper. 4 Ochro. 5 Lime tree. 
 6 Sweet cassada. 
 
46 THE BIGHT OF BENIN. 
 
 to create, even when taken in small quantities, 
 colic, diarrhoea, and other distressing symptoms, 
 and finally brings on dysentery. Formerly, when 
 any difficulty existed in obtaining provisions for 
 the slave ships, farina, from its abundance, was 
 employed as a substitute for the support of their 
 human cargoes. From its being very hastily and 
 imperfectly made, the consequence was, that, be- 
 fore two-thirds of the voyage had been completed, 
 nearly one-half of the wretched beings confined in 
 these floating prisons perished from dysentery, 
 and other enteritic affections. Throughout these 
 swampy regions an apparently ceaseless growth 
 of the Rhizophera mangle (common mangrove), 
 effectually conceals most objects that exist in their 
 immediate vicinity. They constitute two-thirds of 
 the vast forests that clothe the maritime lowlands 
 of equatorial Africa. 
 
 The same low and unhealthy tract of country, 
 with two or three intersecting creeks, extends for 
 some distance beyond Reggio, an insignificant 
 village attached to the kingdom of Benin. It is 
 situated on a central point of land at the con- 
 fluence of the Gatto Creek with the river. The 
 intrepid traveller, Belzoni, to whom we are so 
 much indebted for the interesting researches into 
 the antiquities of Egypt and northern Africa, 
 expired at Agatto from an attack of dysentery, 
 after an abortive attempt to penetrate into the 
 Haussa country. His solitary grave on the out- 
 skirts of the town may still be seen ; an elevated 
 
THE BIGHT OF BENIN. 47 
 
 mound of earth, overrun with weeds, with the 
 fragment of a decayed wooden cross, are the only 
 traces that now indicate the spot. Above Reggio 
 the continuation of Benin river bends east-north- 
 east, and about forty miles from the sea bifurcates 
 into two branches, both of which were first 
 explored by the enterprising Mr. Becroft in 1840, 
 who has satisfactorily proved that they had no 
 communication with the river Quorra, as had been 
 previously supposed. 
 
 The Subo country consists of an extensive series 
 of fertile plains, thirty miles above Reggio, beauti- 
 fully ornamented with park-like clumps of trees, 
 and verdure of the freshest tint. The plantations 
 of the natives for the production of yams, plain- 
 tains, cassava, &c., occupy the inferior districts, 
 and enjoy a high reputation for salubrity, inasmuch 
 as most invalids resort there in all protracted cases 
 of sickness, and generally with most favourable 
 results. From the purity of the water of the river 
 as it flows through these regions, it has been 
 selected to provide for the wants of the homeward- 
 bound vessels, which are often in the greatest 
 difficulties from a deficiency in this necessary 
 article. 
 
 Youngtown, or Newtown, is another native 
 village built on the verge of a swamp, at the 
 entrance of the creek leading to Warre'e, and 
 directly opposite the town of Reggio. Towards 
 the close of the last century it was the usual 
 custom for slavers and trading vessels to anchor 
 
48 THE BIGHT OF BENIN. 
 
 abreast of this village, and the traffic which 
 originated from these sources tended to elevate 
 it into a place of some repute; accordingly, we 
 find, in several old works, minute directions given 
 for the attainment of its anchorage. In propor- 
 tion, however, as the slave trade declined, this part 
 of the river became less and less frequented, and 
 was finally deserted on account of its insalubrity, 
 the palm oil vessels preferring to remain near the 
 mouth of the river, where the danger from noxious 
 exhalations and other morbific influences was con- 
 siderably diminished by the cool and invigorating 
 sea breezes, and the more open expanse of the 
 stream. The population of Youngtown varies 
 from six hundred to one thousand, and, from the 
 unhealthy situation, is exposed to much sickness. 
 Lepra, psoriasis, scabies, frambaesia, and other 
 morbid affections of the skin, are common not only 
 in these but in the other districts of the Delta of 
 the Quorra. With the exception of syphilitic 
 diseases, these may in general be estimated as the 
 most numerous. Variola occasionally occurs after 
 long periods, when it assumes an epidemic cha- 
 racter, invariably sweeping off two-thirds of the 
 inhabitants of those villages exposed to its pesti- 
 lential visitations. Several years since variola of 
 a peculiar malignant type broke out in Soudan, 
 and passed from thence into the neighbouring king- 
 doms of Haussa and Benin, and so fearful were 
 the ravages committed in its progress, that the 
 majority of the Warre'e towns narrowly escaped 
 
THE BIGHT OF BENIN. 49 
 
 depopulation. Among the native tribes that in- 
 habit the maritime regions of equinoctial Africa, 
 there is, perhaps, no class of diseases that creates 
 more terror or dread than the prevalence of these 
 variolous epidemics. As but comparatively few 
 negroes escape with life, when once attacked by 
 epidemic small-pox, this circumstance may satis- 
 factorily explain why so few are pitted with its 
 characteristic marks, and also account for the cus- 
 tom that prevails, in some countries, of swearing 
 by this malady; an oath which, from its dire im- 
 port, is held inviolate. The other Exanthemata but 
 rarely if ever appear. 
 
 Warre*e, Owarree, or Jackre"e, is the metropolitan 
 town of this river, and the seat of government. 
 It stands on the northern side of the island of 
 Warre'e, an elevated tract of land separated from 
 the circumjacent marshes by a bifurcation of the 
 creek eighty or ninety miles to the eastward of 
 Youngtown; both branches again uniting into one 
 stream, that enters the Quorra a short distance 
 below Ebo, as above mentioned. This isle, from 
 four to five miles in length, furnishes many beauti- 
 ful and picturesque specimens of African scenery, 
 and is richly endowed with all the wild exuberance 
 of tropical vegetation. Its soil is a rich argilla- 
 ceous loam with a substratum of red clay, of a 
 moderate altitude above the surrounding mangrove 
 forests, and alternately embellished by native farms 
 and broken woodlands, that remind the stranger of 
 a more northern country. The site of the town is 
 
 E 
 
50 THE BIGHT OF BENIN. 
 
 one of the most eligible that could have been 
 selected, being judiciously located on a gentle slope 
 that commands both ingress and egress to each of 
 the two streams. The number of its inhabitants 
 amounts to six thousand. 
 
 Among the variety of plants and trees indi- 
 genous to Warre*e may be enumerated the Justicia 
 elegans, 1 Gomphia gldberrima? Inga biglobosa, Ro- 
 binia violacea, Clerodendron volubile, Eugenia Owa- 
 riensis, Puella elongata, with numerous species of 
 Lor ant he, Hibiscus, Jpomea, fyc. The legume of the 
 Spathodea campanulata is used as one of the chief 
 adjuncts in the noisy portion of the fetish rites, the 
 priests constantly shaking the dry seeds within 
 their cells. The well known Adansonia digit ata, or 
 baobab, a magnificent tree which grows to a colos- 
 sal magnitude in Bornou, Congo, Bambarra, and 
 most of the elevated sandstone regions nearer the 
 coast, is also found here. Several portions of it are 
 medicinally employed by the negroes in various 
 maladies. In Soudan it is recognised under the 
 title of kouka or kuka, and according to Clapper- 
 ton, both the leaves and fruit " are, to a certain 
 extent, considered as medicinal. The leaves mixed 
 with trona and gussub are given to horses and 
 camels, both for the purpose of fattening these 
 animals, and as a cooling aperient. They are ad- 
 ministered to the former in balls, and to the latter 
 
 1 Button flower. 2 Locust tree, now named Parkia Africana, in 
 honour of the lamented traveller, Mungo Park. It is the Doura of 
 Soudan. 
 
THE BIGHT OF BENIN. 51 
 
 as a drench. The white mealy part of the fruit is 
 very pleasant to the taste, and forms with water an 
 agreeable acidulous beverage, which the natives, 
 whose libidinous propensities incline them to such 
 remarks, allege to possess the virtue of relieving 
 impotency."* By the Mandingo and Wolof tribes in 
 northern Africa it is highly appreciated, not only 
 for the valuable remedial powers which they assert 
 it enjoys, but also on account of the remarkable 
 variety of useful purposes to which it has been 
 applied. The Joloffs in the Gambia term it Lalla, 
 and invariably procure the leaves to make fomen- 
 tations and poultices, from which they derive con- 
 siderable benefit in rheumatic and other painful 
 affections of the limbs, and likewise in those foul 
 and irritable ulcers to which they are occasionally 
 liable. In the early stages of variola, in order to 
 promote the rapid maturation of the vesicles, the 
 internal pulpy portion of the ripe fruit is dissolved 
 in water until it has acquired the consistency of 
 syrup ; it is then repeatedly smeared over various 
 portions of the body, particularly the face, so that 
 the greater part of the tegumentary tissues become 
 concealed under this exsiccated crust, which re- 
 mains to that period when the eruption has nearly 
 disappeared. The fresh leaves are also used to 
 flavour various soups and other culinary prepara- 
 tions, and they frequently constitute one of the 
 ingredients which compose those prophylactic me- 
 dicines ordinarily in use amongst the natives. The 
 
 * Journey from Kouka to Murmur-, p. 11. 
 E2 
 
52 THE BIGHT OF BENIN. 
 
 Bombax ceiba, 1 Napoleana imperialis, Indigofera 
 endecaphylla, Omphalocarpum procerum? Nymphea 
 Lotus? flourish more or less in the cultivated dis- 
 tricts of the island, with the ordinary accompani- 
 ment of cocoa-nut, banana and plaintain groves, a 
 class of trees which on the coast of Western Africa 
 usually indicate the propinquity of native villages 
 and plantations. 
 
 In Benin and Warre*e circumcision is performed 
 on all the males at a very early age, and the surface 
 of the body, shortly after the operation, anointed by 
 a white carbonaceous substance mixed with palm 
 oil, which, from its reputed prophylactic virtues, 
 has been thought to obviate any injurious conse- 
 quences that might otherwise ensue. 
 
 Excision of the clitoris, a rite universally prac- 
 tised by the females of other nations more to the 
 southward, does not appear to be implicitly fol- 
 lowed by the women in this river, unless it is by 
 those who have been formerly resident in some of 
 the Ebo towns on the Quorra. A process, how- 
 ever, of quite a dissimilar character, is adopted by 
 many females of the Jaboo country, and the result 
 is, I believe, considered by them as ornamental; 
 the clitoris is artificially elongated by means of 
 
 1 Silk cotton tree. 2 Gourd tree. 3 Egyptian lotus. This plant 
 named^Jy Naufar, by the Arabs, was held in great veneration and 
 esteem by the ancient Egyptians, who placed its flowers in vases that 
 occupied the most prominent positions in their fetes, during the con- 
 tinuance of which, it was occasionally presented by the slaves of the 
 owner of the mansion to his guests, and also to their master, as a 
 token of hospitality or respect. 
 
THE BIGHT OF BENIN. 53 
 
 small weights appended to it, and gradually in- 
 creased in size until it has been lengthened several 
 inches. Instances have come under my notice in 
 which ulceration had gone on to such an extent, as 
 to require its immediate removal. In girls, the 
 catamenia generally appear about the eleventh or 
 twelfth year, but their commencement and subse- 
 quent continuance often depend on the mode of 
 life, habits, and constitutional peculiarities of the 
 different grades of females, and likewise on those 
 climateric agencies which so materially modify this 
 uterine secretion. Pleuritis, pneumonia, phthisis 
 pulmonalis, with other morbid conditions of the 
 parenchyma of the lungs, are of greater frequency 
 during the cold rainy months, and are accompanied 
 by more vascular excitement than in the similar 
 affections that occur in dry. Dysentery, diarrhoea, 
 colic, and numerous disorders of the chylopoetic 
 viscera, may be also more prominently noticed in ^ 
 the rainy months. Phthisis and dysentery are the 
 most fatal complaints in low marshy localities, and / 
 carry off numbers of the aged and debilitated 
 slaves. Of the species of intestinal worms, teniaB 
 and ascarides are the most common, particularly the 
 former, and the populations of several inland coun- 
 tries not unfrequently suffer severely from their 
 continual existence. Women, and the inferior class 
 of slaves, who live exclusively on vegetable food 
 without condiments, are those chiefly affected. 
 More recently, the introduction and plentiful sup- 
 ply of European salt has somewhat diminished 
 
54 THE BIGHT OF BENIN. 
 
 their occurrence. Hepatitis, induration, and other 
 organic lesions of the liver, are rapidly increasing 
 among the male inhabitants, from their immoderate 
 use of ardent spirits of a very inferior quality, now 
 abundantly brought by European traders for bar- 
 ter. Dyspeptic, and a wide range of nervous dis- 
 orders, equally emanate from the same stimulant 
 causes. Cerebral diseases of a very serious nature 
 seldom come under observation; but cephalalgia 
 from febrile disturbance, constipation, and expo- 
 sure to the sun, is extremely prevalent in both 
 sexes, and at all ages. The custom of repeatedly 
 shaving the head of every infant for several months, 
 nay, even years, after birth, is one universally in 
 vogue throughout these countries of the Bights, 
 and is evidently regarded in the light of a prophy- 
 lactic measure of no mean value. I may here 
 observe, that most of the children of these mari- 
 time regions possess a weak and delicate frame, 
 and do not enjoy good health until they have 
 arrived at a mature age. Maniacal diseases are 
 uncommon, and a remarkable exemption takes 
 place from idiotcy in most of the populations of 
 the towns previously mentioned ; whether children 
 so affected are put to death, as some native doctors 
 have gravely asserted, appears to me very ques- 
 tionable, if applied to this river; probably such 
 may be the case in others. 
 
 One of those prominent traits which may be 
 considered almost national or hereditary among 
 the negro females of Warre*e, as elsewhere in 
 
THE BIGHT OF BENIN. 55 
 
 Western Africa, consists in the lengthened period 
 they are allowed to suckle their offspring, which, 
 in the populations of the Delta, are often pro- 
 tracted until they have attained the age of two or 
 more years. The reasons they adduce in explana- 
 tion of their adherence to this custom are, that the 
 infant, under this simple yet invigorating regimen, 
 is less subject to disease, and as it gradually 
 acquires vigour and tonicity of frame, is better 
 enabled to withstand those miasmal and other 
 noxious exhalations that emanate from the swampy 
 localities which they inhabit. Moreover, they re- 
 mark, that should the ordinary food of adults be 
 administered at a too tender age, and the stomach 
 thereby overloaded with heavy ingesta, the oppo- 
 site result would occur, and the mortality, great as 
 it now is, would be increased threefold. By the 
 Mahometan nations in northern and central Africa 
 a similar custom is implicitly adopted; perhaps, 
 more in conformity with the precepts of the Alkoran, 
 which ordains that mothers shall suckle their chil- 
 dren to that age of maturity which may be deemed 
 requisite. From the period when the pregnancy 
 of the female becomes apparent, she is restricted 
 from any future cohabitation with her husband, 
 which law is continued in force until she has finally 
 weaned the child. This observance in some coun- 
 tries is more rigidly enforced in consequence of the 
 prevalent impression, that should any intercourse 
 take place between the parties, it would either 
 tend to the immediate destruction of the infant or 
 
56 THE BIGHT OF BENIN. 
 
 seriously affect its future existence. It is probable, 
 that under tbese views, polygamy, which so exten- 
 sively prevails in equatorial Africa, becomes to a 
 certain extent necessary. 
 
 Chronic ulcers, especially on the lower extremi- 
 ties, are frequent, and well-marked cases of ele- 
 phantiasis may sometimes be seen in the slaves 
 newly imported from Soudan. These comprehend 
 the outline of the principal maladies that exist in 
 the Eio Formosa and slave coast, but there are 
 others, also endemical to them, to which I shall 
 advert on a future occasion. 
 
 From Youngtown seaward, the right, or, as it is 
 denominated, the Boobee side of the river, presents 
 precisely a similar aspect to the one lately de- 
 scribed. Shallow indentations and occasional pro- 
 jections of the banks, clothed by young mangrove 
 bushes, with a solitary creek here and there, are 
 the only objects that meet the gaze from the above 
 town to CaUebar Creek, a distance of ten or twelve 
 miles. This creek nearly faces the one leading to 
 Jacqua, and is of greater magnitude than the 
 others in this part of the stream. It has been 
 supposed to communicate with the Rio Esclavos, 
 as canoes from that river frequently visit the 
 factories by this route. An inconsiderable village, 
 named Battarra, is situated on the left bank, near 
 the entrance, and a remarkable promontory, termed 
 Jo Point, may be observed at its confluence with 
 the river : in the vicinage of the latter is the town 
 of Boobee. Bubie, or Boobee, is now the principal 
 
THE BIGHT OF BENIN. 57 
 
 seaport of the kingdom of Warree : it is erected 
 on the margin of the mangrove swamps, with a 
 fine sandy beach in front, which also continues 
 down the river to south-east point. It contains a 
 population of seven hundred, who are an indolent 
 and evil-disposed people. A small rivulet separates 
 it from Ullaby, a miserable village, near which are 
 the ruins of an old English factory. Salt-town 
 lies a mile and a half distant, at the mouth of the 
 river opposite north-west point. No mercantile 
 establishment existed in this river before 1786, 
 when the French erected a fort, adjoining one of 
 the villages near its embouchure, which was de- 
 stroyed by the British cruisers in 1793. It may 
 be necessary to state that the most healthy anchor- 
 age for vessels visiting this stream is between the 
 towns of Boobee and Salt-town. 
 
 The natives of the Bio Formosa are of Ebo 
 descent, and partake of the same moral and phy- 
 sical traits that distinguish the people of that 
 country. In place of the short muscular figure, 
 thick lips, and flat expanded nose, of the Krooman, 
 they are tall, slim, and more symmetrically moulded, 
 with a skin varying from a light yellow to a dark 
 brown, and a countenance the melancholic expres- 
 sion of which is rather prepossessing than other- 
 wise. Yams, plaintains, maize, cassava, various 
 kinds of fruits, fish, fowls, monkeys, goats, &c., pre- 
 pared with palm oil, and highly seasoned by pepper, 
 comprise the diet on which they uniformly subsist. 
 The beverage in general use is the exuded sap of 
 
58 THE BIGHT OF BENIN. 
 
 several palm trees : the Sag us vinifera and Elais 
 guineensis are those from which it is usually drawn. 
 The liquor thus obtained is allowed to ferment, and 
 hence it possesses those intoxicating powers which 
 render it the favourite drink of all the inhabitants 
 of the Western coast of Africa. It is also much 
 valued for its diuretic properties, and is adminis- 
 tered in different modes with other native medi- 
 cines. The Cyprcea moneta, or East India cowrie, 
 constitutes the currency of the country. 
 
 Notwithstanding the conflicting statements that 
 have been promulgated from tune to time respect- 
 ing the salubrity of several rivers and other places 
 frequented by the white traders in this portion of 
 Western Africa, the Rio Formosa will be found, 
 upon dispassionate inquiry, to be the most un- 
 healthy. The only streams in the Bights which 
 resemble it in point of insalubrity are the Rio Nun 
 and New Callabar; but the sacrifice of European 
 life in them, although considerable, falls short of 
 that observed in the Benin river. The constant 
 prevalence of a class of insidious febrile diseases 
 (particularly remittent fevers), whose adynamic 
 type, rapid career, and other pathological features 
 differing so greatly from those of other tropical 
 climes, sufficiently stamp it with that odious cele- 
 brity now widely diffused and too justly merited. 
 Our colonial settlements in the Gambia and Sierra 
 Leone, from the severe ravages of occasional epi- 
 demics, have also been invested with a certain 
 degree of ill fame; but they, if placed in com- 
 
THE BIGHT OF BENIN. 59 
 
 parison with the river I have been lately describ- 
 ing, would be deemed far more salubrious. It 
 must, however, be borne in mind, that while these 
 maritime districts are thus abundantly fraught 
 with those influences which give rise to this unfa- 
 vourable condition, their deleterious effects have 
 been much augmented by a series of petty and 
 vexatious annoyances to which all Europeans are 
 subject who come within their sphere. The slimy 
 mudbanks and alluvial swamps, it is well known, 
 generate myriads of musquitoes and sandflies, and 
 these insects so vigorously attack all who reside 
 where they abound, as to prove exceedingly trou- 
 blesome. In vain the wearied seaman seeks for 
 repose ; his winged tormentors multiply as the 
 night advances, and, ever on the alert, incessantly 
 hover around him, until he is at length forced to 
 succumb to their harassing inflictions, and unwil- 
 lingly hastens upon deck, there to await, in no 
 happy mood, the break of morn. Heavy toil by 
 day, with broken and unrefreshing slumbers, will 
 soon undermine the strength of the most hardy; 
 and hence it is that these, in conjunction with 
 other apparently trivial causes, amply predispose 
 the unseasoned stranger to the attacks of endemic 
 typhoid affections, from which so few have as yet 
 recovered. Barbot, in allusion to this subject, truly 
 remarks, " that the lands on each side of the river 
 are very woody, which breeds those tormenting 
 vermin in such immense numbers, that they attack 
 our sailors at night on all sides, and so pester them, 
 
60 THE BIGHT OF BENIN. 
 
 that many the next morning are not to be known 
 by their features, depriving them at the same time 
 of their natural rest, which, together with the un- 
 wholesome air, occasions a great mortality among 
 our Europeans, some sloops or ships in one voyage 
 often losing one-half of their crews, and others 
 more, and the survivors remaining very weak and 
 sickly, which strikes such a terror into sailors, that 
 few are willing to serve in such voyages, and the 
 boldest always afraid of then* lives."* 
 
 When I visited this river in 1839, I found two 
 vessels moored a short distance from its mouth, one 
 of which, within the space of five months, had 
 buried two entire crews, a solitary person alone 
 surviving; the other, which had entered at a much 
 later period, had been similarly deprived of one- 
 half of its men, and the remainder were in such a 
 debilitated condition, as to be incapable of under- 
 taking any active or laborious duty. Another ves- 
 sel sailed from this port, previously to my arrival, 
 in such a deplorable state, as to be solely dependent 
 on the aid of Kroomen to perform the voyage 
 homewards. After a stay of several weeks at the 
 anchorage opposite Jacqua creek, the ship to which 
 I was attached became so unhealthy, that we were 
 under the necessity of recrossing the bar into a 
 purer atmosphere, having lost one-third out of a 
 complement of eighteen men. And yet, amid these 
 regions so rife with disease and death, I have known 
 
 * Description of the Coasts of North and South Guinea, book iv. 
 p. 319. 
 
THE BIGHT OF BENIN. 61 
 
 Europeans reside for a number of years in the en- 
 joyment of good health, from the simple secret of 
 moderately conforming to the habits of the natives 
 as regards the diet, exercise, and attention to the 
 due performance of the cutaneous functions. The 
 plan of treatment I then pursued in the cases of 
 fever which came under my care, was local and 
 general blood-letting, saline purgatives, calomel in 
 large doses, &c. ; in fact, that treatment sanctioned 
 by the most experienced writers on tropical diseases 
 of a similar nature. I regret to state that in these, 
 as in numerous other instances, this system of treat- 
 ment was evidently one which possessed no power 
 of controlling the progress of the remittent fevers 
 of inter-tropical Africa. 
 
 Perhaps in no part of the African continent is 
 the medical profession held in higher estimation 
 than by the negro tribes of the kingdoms near the 
 sea-coast. In most of the rivers of the Bights the 
 medical officer, if he were so inclined, could easily 
 convert his ship into a lazarette, from the influx of 
 patients that would voluntarily place themselves 
 under his sanatory regulations. Natives of every 
 rank express the greatest confidence in his skill, 
 and the efficacy of those remedial measures exhi- 
 bited for their benefit; and should such unfortu- 
 nately fail of affording the desired relief, the case 
 is considered by them as hopeless. Whenever, 
 therefore, the surgeon of any vessel is known to be 
 somewhat liberal in the distribution of his medi- 
 cines, innumerable invalids flock on board, and, 
 
62 THE BIGHT OF BENIN. 
 
 without hesitation, supplicate his attention to their 
 real or imaginary complaints ; and many urge their 
 claims so cogently, that it requires no small amount 
 of patience and firmness to withstand their importu- 
 nity. Medical science in Soudan, and other inland 
 countries, is also fully viewed in the same favourable 
 light; and the white practitioner, if the assertions 
 of travellers are to be credited, is considerately 
 treated with kindness and hospitality. Clapperton 
 pays an honourable tribute to its utility and value 
 when he states, in the following passage, " that the 
 news of our arrival spread before us, and at the dif- 
 ferent towns and villages through which we passed 
 they brought us all the sick to be cured. Nor was 
 it the sick alone who sought advice, but men and 
 women of all descriptions ; the former for some 
 remedy against impotency, the latter to remove 
 sterility. Many came for preventives against ap- 
 prehended or barely possible calamities ; and, in 
 anticipation of all the imaginary ills of life, re- 
 sorted to us in full confidence of our being able 
 to ward them off."* By the population of some 
 countries, the sources of disease are attributed to 
 supernatural agency. In Warre'e, an evil principle, 
 designated by the term Mallaku, is supposed to 
 live in the waters of the river, and to afflict all who 
 have not paid a proper deference to his power by 
 appropriate propitiations. Fowls, sheep, &c., and 
 sometimes human beings, are immolated for this 
 purpose. 
 
 * Journey from Kouka to Murmur, p. 23. 
 
THE BIGHT OF BENIN. G3 
 
 Fourteen miles S.E. by S. from Benin river, is 
 the Rio Esclavos, or Slaves' river, known also in 
 native parlance by the name of El Broder, or Bro- 
 dero. It is considerably inferior to the Formosa in 
 magnitude, but like it is obstructed by a bank of 
 sand that debars access to any but vessels of light 
 tonnage. Adjoining its entrance is a small town, 
 erected on the margin of a sandy beach, and which 
 is encompassed and partially hid from view by a 
 profusion of palm and cocoa-nut trees. The Rio 
 dos Forcados, or Galley Slaves' river, usually 
 termed the river Owerree, or Warre, is fifteen 
 miles further to the southward. Both this and the 
 Esclavos, from their shallow estuaries, are seldom 
 or never frequented, unless it be by slave-ships, 
 although in the seventeenth and eighteenth centu- 
 ries the Portuguese and Dutch carried on a lucra- 
 tive commerce with them, especially the latter. 
 At the distance of three miles from the entrance is 
 the island and town of Paloma, the latter consisting 
 of from twenty to thirty dilapidated houses, situated 
 on the left bank of the stream. The inhabitants 
 transmit what little palm oil they produce to Jack- 
 ree; the majority of them are now fishermen, and 
 chiefly occupied in the curing of fish. Formerly 
 the Portuguese had a fort, chapel, and three or four 
 factories, in this town; but they were soon aban- 
 doned on account of the extreme insalubrity of 
 the climate. Jerome Merolla da Sorrento, in his 
 Voyage to the Congo, informs us that two Capuchin 
 missionaries, named B. di Firenza and A. Aiaccio, 
 
64 THE BIGHT OF BENIN. 
 
 sailed from the Island of St. Thomas, in 1683, to 
 visit the metropolitan town of Warre*e, which by 
 this route is about sixteen miles to the north-east 
 of Paloma. They were the first persons that at- 
 tempted to introduce Christianity into equatorial 
 Africa, and, it has been stated, converted many of 
 the natives to its doctrines. Captain Adams states 
 that when he visited the town of Warree he ob- 
 served the several emblems of the Catholic religion, 
 with the edifice in which these missionaries were 
 wont to perform their religious ceremonies still 
 existed, and that " a large wooden cross, which had 
 withstood the tooth of time, was remaining in a 
 very perfect state in one of the angles formed by 
 two roads intersecting each other."* Vestiges of 
 the building and ancient reliques may still be seen ; 
 but the cross, when I visited the spot, had wholly 
 disappeared. The people of this and the circumja- 
 cent countries were called by the ancients Derbici 
 ^Ethiopes. 
 
 The Rio Ramos, or Bough river, is seventeen 
 miles to the northward of that of Warre'e, and the 
 river Dodo twenty miles E. by S. from the R. 
 Ramos. Neither of these streams are visited, ex- 
 cept by contraband schooners for human cargoes, 
 and to elude the vigilance of the men-of-war 
 cruising without. Thirty miles south-east from 
 the Dodo is the river Sengana, or Segma, at the 
 aperture of which may be distinguished several 
 
 * Remarks on the country extending from Cape Palmas to the 
 River Congo, &c. 
 
THE BIGHT OF BENIN. 65 
 
 isolated groups of mud habitations. The land 
 here is very low and marshy, and the inhabitants 
 are such a degenerate race, that they appear in 
 physical conformation to be but a few degrees 
 removed from the higher animals of the Simiae 
 family. None of these rivers offer any induce- 
 ment for the white trader to enter them, and are 
 alike inimical to his health and safety. An insig- 
 nificant point may be noticed a few miles to the 
 northward of the Sengana, which has been com- 
 monly, but erroneously, named Cape Formosa. It 
 is in 4 31' N. Lat., and 5 41' E. Long. The 
 river Sengana is the southern extremity of the 
 Bight of Benin, and the obvious projection of the 
 land in its vicinity may therefore be termed, with 
 more propriety, the Cape. This Bight comprises a 
 tract of coast of nearly three hundred and sixty 
 miles in extent, and, excluding some parts of the 
 Slave coast, may be merely considered as one vast 
 and almost interminable forest swamp, whose con- 
 tinuity is broken by the petty rivers and creeks 
 that meander in all directions through it. It is, 
 without exception, the most deadly portion of the 
 West coast of Africa. 
 
PART II. 
 
 THE BIGHT OF BIAFRA, 
 
 THE Bight of Biafra, known by the early English 
 writers on Africa as the Ethiopic Gulf, commences 
 at Cape Formosa, and embraces the whole of the 
 coast between it and Cape Lopez, situated in Lat. 
 36' 10" S. and 8 40' E. Long. In physical ap- 
 pearance it varies but little from the usual cheer- 
 less prospect of the alluvial lowlands which here, 
 as in other regions, are densely covered by imper- 
 vious mangrove forests. A limited tract of land 
 near the equator is, however, of a more elevated 
 character, and includes the mountainous districts 
 of Qua, Rumby, and Camaroons, which, with the 
 adjacent islands of Fernando Po, Princes, and St. 
 Thomas, are of volcanic formation. The rivers in 
 this are more numerous and of greater size than in 
 the preceding Bight; they generally derive their 
 origin from the upper belt of table lands of the 
 interior. The largest of them are much resorted 
 to by European vessels of considerable tonnage, 
 which export from the more fertile and cultivated 
 inland countries immense quantities of palm oil, 
 with ivory, and other mercantile productions. The 
 legitimate commerce that has recently sprung up 
 
THE BIGHT OF BIAFRA. 67 
 
 since the suppression of the slave trade is one now 
 annually increasing in importance, and will even- 
 tually become extremely lucrative and valuable to 
 the commercial interests of Great Britain. 
 
 The ardent love of adventure which stimulated 
 the Portuguese to send forth those enterprising 
 expeditions for the discovery of unknown empires 
 in all quarters of the globe, seems to have been 
 conspicuously directed, towards the middle and 
 close of the 15th century, to the east and west 
 coasts of Africa. A reference to the history of 
 those periods will furnish us with the records of 
 several expeditions exclusively undertaken with 
 the view of exploring this and the other divisions 
 of Western Africa, then described as North and 
 South Guinea. Even at such an early date as 
 1459, a very curious map, constructed by a Vene- 
 tian named Fra Mauro Camaldolese, professes not 
 only to delineate the shores of these Bights, but 
 also the probable southern termination of the 
 African continent, although the Cape of Good 
 Hope was not discovered by Bartolomew Diaz till 
 1486, who then termed it "Cabo de todas los 
 tormentos."* Time since then has proved very 
 unpropitious to the supremacy of the first dis- 
 coverers of these countries, since only two of their 
 original colonial possessions in the Bight of Biafra, 
 the islands of Princes and St. Thomas, now remain 
 attached to the crown of Portugal. 
 
 The different tribes of people inhabiting that 
 
 * Cape of all torments. 
 F 9, 
 
68 THE BIGHT OF BIAFRA. 
 
 maritime expanse of country, comprehended be- 
 tween the Rio Formosa, in the Bight of Benin, and 
 the old Callebar river, have unquestionably de- 
 rived their origin from one common stock. A 
 slight and cursory investigation into their physical 
 character, language, customs, mode of life, and 
 other national peculiarities, would readily point 
 out many remarkable analogies that prevail be- 
 tween them and their primitive progenitors, and at 
 the same time could not fail to throw some light 
 on the characteristics of those petty nations that 
 populate the shores of this part of Western Africa. 
 The great parental source from which most of 
 them have emanated are the Ebo's of the Quorra, 
 which, for the sake of perspicuity, it will be neces- 
 sary to separate into three distinct classes. 
 
 1st. The Ebo's proper, which include the natives 
 of the Rio Formosa, Warree Island, Rio Escravos, 
 Brass Town, and the Quorra generally. 
 
 2nd. The Ebo's of the table land between the 
 Quorra and Cross river, comprising the natives of 
 New Callebar, the Bonny, and a portion of the 
 inhabitants of the river Andony. 
 
 3rd. The Ebo's of the country between the An- 
 dony and Old Callebar rivers, which embrace the 
 habitans near the coast, the natives of the several 
 towns of Old Callebar, and of the entrance of Cross 
 river. 
 
 This arrangement, although somewhat deficient 
 in numerical outline of the various tribes, will, never- 
 theless, be sufficiently comprehensive to answer our 
 
THE BIGHT OF BIAFRA. 69 
 
 views at present, taking into due consideration the 
 great paucity of information that exists respecting 
 them and their locale. 
 
 The Rio Nun, familiarly termed Brass River by 
 the Europeans in the Bights, is also recognised by 
 its native appellation of Quorra, or Kowara. It is 
 situated eight miles from the Sengana, and is the 
 first stream that engages the attention of the 
 voyager. The entrance, near two-thirds of a mile 
 in breadth, can only be discerned at short distances 
 from seaward, in consequence of the flat and 
 marshy aspect of the land in its immediate vici- 
 nage. The western point of the shore, at its 
 junction with the ocean, has received the title of 
 Cape Nun ; and the other, or opposite one, that of 
 Cape Filana. This river resembles most of the 
 others in the Delta, in the dreary and monotonous 
 features of the landscape, which are those calcu- 
 lated to inspire anything but a favourable impres- 
 sion as to either its scenery or salubrity. On both 
 sides, for a brief space, a narrow beach of sand 
 skirts the forest jungle, and is superseded by accu- 
 mulating banks of vegetable and alluvial detritus, 
 enveloped by numberless mangrove bushes that 
 project to a greater or less extent beyond the 
 water's edge. A few miles from the bar on the left 
 shore, partially intermingled with cocoa-nut, palm, 
 and plaintain trees, is Pilot's Town, or Cassah; 
 while, deeper inland within the woods, is another 
 village containing about an equal number of mud- 
 huts of the most wretched construction. It can 
 
70 THE BIGHT OF BIAFRA. 
 
 only be approached by intricate by-paths, and is 
 also entitled Cassah, or Acassah. On the eastern 
 bank, nine or ten miles from Cape Filana, is a 
 creek which connects this river with the St. Bento, 
 and through which the slave-factors transmit their 
 prohibited cargoes when the river is blockaded by 
 any armed vessel. This creek likewise leads, by 
 means of divergent branches, to the town of Brass, 
 and is the ordinary route taken by the fishing 
 canoes when passing from one river to the other. 
 Ebo or Ebu, the long Ebo of the Bonnians, is 120 
 miles inland; and the confluence of the Tchadda 
 with this river, and the Felatah town of Kabbah, 
 are respectively 152 and 313 miles to the north- 
 ward of Ebo. The people of this part of the river, 
 owing, probably, to their intermixture with more 
 inland nations, are of a much darker colour than 
 those of Bonny, Qua, or Old Callebar, but in 
 other respects closely resemble them in those 
 national customs and other analogous peculiarities, 
 and also in possessing the distinctive Ebo mark 
 or totem, viz., three round black spots on each 
 temple. The inhabitants of the Brass towns, 
 similar to other people of Ebo derivation, are 
 addicted to those barbarous fetish rites and super- 
 stitious beliefs that characterise the nations of the 
 adjoining rivers in communication with them. 
 These ceremonies, through the ministry of their 
 Jujumen, or priests, they render subservient to the 
 treatment of the painful maladies to which they 
 are liable. The most prevalent are confined to 
 
THE BIGHT OF BIAFRA. 71 
 
 the cutaneous tissues, and these, with morbid 
 affections of the abdominal viscera, comprise the 
 greater proportion of the endemic diseases of these 
 habitable morasses. In the countries bordering 
 the superior course of this stream, Mr. Oldfield 
 remarks that the diseases which came under his 
 observation were "large ulcers from the bites of 
 musquitoes, diarrhoea, dysentery, variola, oph- 
 thalmia, and cataract; the further we advanced 
 into the interior, the more common we found cata- 
 ract; at Kabbah I saw several hundred cases of 
 double cataract ; most of the natives were willing 
 to undergo the operation ; as we were not making 
 a sufficient stay, it was not attempted. The 
 natives of Rabbah, and the neighbouring towns 
 and villages high up the river, more especially 
 where Mahomedanism prevails, are very cleanly in 
 their habits, performing their ablutions twice a 
 day : there were very few cases of cutaneous 
 diseases among them."* In those negro kingdoms 
 on the confines of Soudan where the doctrines of 
 Islam are inculcated, and to a certain extent have 
 become popular, the practice of medicine is chiefly 
 limited to the Mallams, or priests; who, like the 
 Marabouts of Northern Africa, perform most of 
 those surgical operations which are not of a serious 
 nature. The term Mo'ollam, or Mallam^ was, 
 perhaps, derived originally from the Arabic word 
 ^Lo, but, in the present instance, it is evidently a 
 corruption of ^J^c, mo'allim, signifying an in- 
 
 * London Medical and Surgical Journal, vol. viii. p. 406. 
 
72 THE BIGHT OF BIAFRA. 
 
 structor or teacher. Of the indigenous pro- 
 ducts exported from this river, palm oil is the one 
 alone estimated as worthy of the notice of the 
 white trader. Some ivory, pepper, and dyewoods, 
 may be occasionally obtained, but not in such 
 quantities as to bring a sufficient remuneration for 
 the outlay and trouble taken in procuring them. 
 The sand bar at the mouth of the river has only 
 two fathoms of water on it at full tides, and is 
 therefore an obstacle to any vessel above a certain 
 burthen. The oil carried away by the few which 
 now frequent it seldom amounts to more than six 
 or seven hundred tons during the year, inasmuch 
 as the Ebo traders manage to monopolize nearly 
 the whole produce of the inland districts to send to 
 the Callebar and Bonny markets. This stream, 
 though not so unhealthy as the Kio Formosa, is 
 nevertheless one eminently deleterious to the un- 
 acclimated European. The mortality among the 
 crews of the shipping averages at least from 
 twenty-five to fifty per cent. 
 
 It would not come within the object of these 
 papers to enter into any descriptive outline of the 
 topography and natives of the many inland king- 
 doms that are scattered upon the banks of this 
 river, but it may, perhaps, be requisite, in a medical 
 point of view, to cast a retrospective glance on those 
 naval expeditions that have been undertaken for 
 the development of their commercial capabilities 
 and resources. Centuries upon centuries have 
 elapsed since this river, known as the Niger of the 
 
THE BIGHT OF BIAFRA. 73 
 
 ancients, first became the subject of manifold inte- 
 resting and profound controversies. Herodotus, 
 Strabo, Ptolemy, Abulfeda, Edrisi, with Leo Afri- 
 canus, and a host of more modern writers, have 
 vainly essayed to dispel the mysterious gloom in 
 which its origin and termination were enshrouded. 
 The number of hypothetical treatises and disser- 
 tations, the memorials of successive ages, would 
 alone suffice to demonstrate that these points con- 
 stituted a geographical problem the most difficult 
 of solution. The exploratory researches, how- 
 ever, of Park, Clapperton, and the Landers, in 
 1831, have at length partly set at rest this famous 
 and long disputed question. 
 
 No sooner had the discovery of the Landers 
 been promulgated that the Rio Nun was the chief 
 outlet of this river, and its ascent was practicable 
 by vessels of moderate tonnage, than an expedition 
 was immediately fitted out at Liverpool with the 
 intention of testing how far the experiment might 
 succeed. It consisted of two steamers, the Quorra 
 and Alburkah, with the Columbine brig tender. 
 These vessels crossed the bar on the 19th of 
 October, 1832, and progressed some distance into 
 the interior before the endemic agencies manifested 
 their morbific effects, which commenced from the 
 twenty-third day after their ingress. Pursuing 
 their mercantile avocations with but indifferent 
 success at the various country markets throughout 
 the years 1833-34, and after penetrating as far as 
 Kabbah on the Quorra, and Fundah on the Tchadda, 
 
74 THE BIGHT OF BIAFRA. 
 
 it was finally abandoned, having proved a complete 
 failure. Out of forty-eight white persons com- 
 posing their complement of Europeans, only four 
 survived the pestilent sickness of the country; 
 among these were McGregor Laird, Esq., Captain 
 W. Allen, R.N., and Mr. Oldfield, one of the 
 medical officers; the other, Dr. Briggs, having 
 unhappily fallen a sacrifice to his arduous exer- 
 tions. To one of the talented projectors of this 
 enterprise, and Mr. Oldfield, we are indebted for 
 the history of the primary effort to establish a 
 commercial intercourse with central Africa by 
 means of the navigation of the Quorra. The pre- 
 dominant maladies which conspired to create the 
 great mortality on board were dysentery, and those 
 adynamic remittent fevers common to the other 
 rivers of Western Africa. The Quorra steamer 
 having been purchased by the West African Com- 
 pany, reascended this river in September, 1835, and 
 proceeded to the confluence of the Tchadda, under 
 the charge of Mr. Becroft. During a sojourn of 
 three months inland, two out of five men were 
 cut off by the insalubrity of the clime, one of 
 whom, a Creole of Antigua, had been long suf- 
 fering from organic disease of the lungs. In 
 1840, the Ethiope, a steam vessel expressly equip- 
 ped for the coast of Africa, by Mr. Jamieson of 
 Liverpool, and also under the command of Mr. 
 Becroft, after surveying the Rio Formosa and de- 
 termining its sources, entered the Quorra by the 
 anastomosing branch below Ebo, and explored the 
 
THE BIGHT OF BIAFRA. 75 
 
 river as far as Lever, the highest point hitherto 
 attained by any vessel. Out of twelve white indi- 
 viduals, the loss of life amounted to five, three men 
 and two boys, which, considering the lengthened 
 period of six months, may be deemed as compara- 
 tively moderate, if contrasted with the mortalities 
 of the other expeditions. The germs of the dis- 
 ease and their subsequent development, are solely 
 to be ascribed to their protracted exploration of the 
 humid regions of Benin. The last and most un- 
 fortunate expedition, the disastrous result of which 
 will remain fresh in the memory of most, was sent 
 forth under the auspices of the British Government 
 in 1841, on a scale of proportionate magnitude and 
 liberality, with the view of forming a series of 
 treaties with the native chiefs for the suppression 
 of slavery. Three steamers, the Albert, Soudan, 
 and Wilberforce, with the Amelia tender, com- 
 posing this armament, passed the bar on the 13th 
 and 15th of August, and after a very injudicious 
 delay of several days at its entrance, steamed up 
 the river. The remittent and other fevers of the 
 country began to display themselves from the 4th 
 of September, and continued from that date to 
 gradually affect the majority of their European 
 crews. These diseases still maintaining their alarm- 
 ing ravages, and even appearing rapidly to gain 
 ground, it was ultimately thought advisable to 
 transmit the Wilberforce and Soudan through the 
 Delta into the ocean with the sick, and the Albert, 
 shortly after reaching Egga, was compelled to fol- 
 
76 THE BIGHT OF BIAFRA. 
 
 low from the same pestilential causes. During the 
 trifling period of seven weeks, almost every white 
 person on board was prostrated by sickness. Out 
 of 145 Europeans, no less than 130 were attacked 
 by disease, and forty -three fell victims to fever, 
 exclusive of casualties. The Albert lost on the 
 whole twenty-six, the Soudan fourteen, and the 
 Wilberforce thirteen men ; total fifty -three. Now, 
 as this expedition was avowedly conducted upon 
 hygienic principles, it came, of course, under the criti- 
 cisms of those medical practitioners resident in Africa, 
 who, from their intimate knowledge of the climate 
 and diseases of these countries, might be deemed 
 fully authorised to express their opinions upon 
 these subjects. Accordingly, in the outset, the 
 selection of the most unhealthy season for the 
 commencement of their operations, with the ineffi- 
 ciency of the precautionary means adopted for the 
 preservation of the health of their crews, rendered 
 it an easy matter for them to predicate its unsuc- 
 cessful issue. It was afterwards pointed out, that 
 in various instances the medical arrangements 
 evidently betrayed but an imperfect acquaintance 
 with the nature and effects of those endemic in- 
 fluences so fatally exemplified in the consequent 
 sickness and mortality. The horror of malaria 
 was carried out to such an excess, as to keep in 
 full play Dr. Reid's " ventilating and medicating 
 apparatus," with which each vessel was supplied, 
 forgetting that when the men emerged from the 
 purified compartments below, they were exposed 
 
THE BIGHT OF BIAFRA. 77 
 
 upon deck to the moist and tainted atmosphere of 
 the swamps. In order to obviate this inconve- 
 nience, it was stated in the general orders, that 
 u those who were obliged to be on deck on duty 
 will be supplied when in unhealthy localities with 
 respirators, and a fire is then to be kept all night 
 in the cookhouse." Such prophylactic measures 
 are, however, of little or no utility in the rivers of 
 the Bights, and can only be placed on a par with 
 the somewhat sapient plan, recommended in a 
 work on the African colonies, of erecting a number 
 of limekilns on the verge of the Bullom swamps, 
 in order to decompose those miasmal vapours that 
 might emanate therefrom to the detriment of the 
 opposite town of Sierra Leone. 
 
 The Rio St. Bento, or St. John's river, eleven 
 miles to the eastward of the Nun, from its insigni- 
 ficance, is but rarely entered. By some it has 
 been stated to have a greater depth of water, and 
 to afford a more direct and easy route to the town 
 of Brass, than by the devious creeks of the former 
 river. Brass town, the seat of government of those 
 regions, is located upon a flat and denuded patch 
 of ground within the recesses of the forest swamps, 
 and barely elevated above the waters of the creek 
 that flow past it. To Europeans its locale is almost 
 unknown. It enjoys a population of three thou- 
 sand, who are mainly dependent on their Ebo 
 plantations for the means of subsistence. From 
 this stream to that of the New Callebar, a distance 
 of fifty miles, the land is merely a low and desolate 
 
78 THE BIGHT OF BIAFRA. 
 
 marshy jungle, heavily timbered with mangrove, 
 and bounded on the verge of the sea by a beach of 
 sand, the continuity of which is interrupted by the 
 apertures of four inferior rivers. They have been 
 denominated the Rio St. Nicholas, or Filana, R. 
 St. Barbara, or Sempta, R. Meas, or St. Bartholo- 
 mew, and the R. dos tres Irmaos, or Sombreiro. 
 As these titles are manifestly of Portuguese 
 nomenclature, it is probable that either Diego Cam, 
 in his voyage along the coast from D'Elmina to the 
 Congo, or Fernando del Po, in his expedition to 
 Benin, conferred such upon them. 
 
 Eight miles from the Sombreiro is Foko, or 
 Fouch6 point, forming the western boundary of the 
 Rio Real, or New Callebar river, and which has 
 been placed by hydrographical observations in 
 4 22' 40" N. Lat. and 7 0' E.Long. This stream 
 was designated by the Dutch traders as New 
 Calbary, and by the English as the Calbarine. In 
 the last century it was much frequented by small 
 sloops, or shallops, that extensively traded for 
 yams, manioc, and other farinaceous articles, then 
 imperatively required by the larger slave-ships of 
 Bonny and other rivers to leeward. Besides vege- 
 table and other exports, it yielded at periods no 
 inconsiderable number of slaves, brought from the 
 Hackbous or Ebo country. The attention of the 
 inhabitants is now directed to the culture of the 
 palm tree, and the vending of its produce, with 
 which they load annually several ships. 
 
 The village of Foko, or Fouch6, originally named 
 
THE BIGHT OF BIAFRA. 79 
 
 by the Hollanders Wyndorp (from the abundance 
 of palm wine, or Tumbo, procurable from its 
 natives), consists of a number of scattered houses, 
 indiscriminately erected around the point. It is 
 inhabited by the river pilots and their families, who 
 are mostly engaged in piscatory pursuits, in which 
 they are very expert. The aggregate amount of 
 people is above three hundred. A deep and con- 
 spicuous indentation of the coast, three miles to the 
 westward of this point, is termed Fouche Gap. A 
 few native huts may be observed amid the ever- 
 green brushwood that skirts its limits. Fouche 
 village and point are decidedly the most healthy 
 localities in New Callebar, from their favourable 
 exposure to the daily sea breezes, and exemption 
 from mudbanks, with their natural concomitants, 
 musquitoes and sandflies. The soil in the neigh- 
 bourhood of the houses is a thin layer of sand 
 upon a bed of alluvial deposits. The sandy shore 
 in front of these habitations may be said to con- 
 tinue to the mouth of a narrow creek that obliquely 
 winds behind the town towards the Gap, where it 
 has been supposed to join the ocean. 
 
 Six or seven miles beyond Fouche* point is 
 Youngtown, scarce worthy the name applied to it. 
 It possesses about eight hundred inhabitants, the 
 majority of whom are the slaves of a petty chief. 
 Some tall and graceful cocoa-nut trees, with an 
 occasional palm and benana, are the only objects 
 that serve to dissipate the pervading monotony of 
 mud and mangroves meeting the eye on all sides. 
 
80 THE BIGHT OF BIAFRA. 
 
 A short distance to the northward of this creek is 
 the entrance of another that leads to the Quorra, 
 and through which the Bonny canoes pass when 
 they attend the Ebo markets. The upper projec- 
 tion of the bank at its mouth is called Juju Point ; 
 abreast of it the merchant vessels commonly an- 
 chor. Following a circuitous course for some 
 miles to the northwest, it unites with the one 
 that passes by the chief town of New Callebar, 
 five miles more to the north. This latter creek, 
 after effecting a junction with that just mentioned, 
 conjointly with it tends towards the Brass country, 
 thus constituting an island, on the right bank of 
 which, in proximity to the river, the metropolis of 
 this kingdom is situated. The plan of the town, 
 its architectural construction, with the customs of 
 its inhabitants, are precisely the same as those of 
 Bonny, the description of which will in general 
 suffice for this and the other towns of Callebar. 
 The population approaches to near eight thousand, 
 who are descended from the great Ebo tribes of the 
 interior. Their diseases resemble those of the other 
 maritime districts of the Delta. In the centre of this 
 collection of native edifices, and facing the king's 
 residence, is a reservoir, or pond of fresh water, in 
 the rainy months plentifully supplied with a fluid 
 of a tolerable quality. In the dry season, from the 
 demands of the populace, and the incessant evapo- 
 ration from its surface, it becomes encrusted with a 
 scum of animal and vegetable exuviae, which emits 
 a disagreeable nauseous odour. In this state it is 
 
THE BIGHT OF BIAFRA. 81 
 
 extremely unwholesome to Europeans, who are 
 very apt to drink it, in consequence of the scarcity 
 of pure water, % which can only be obtained for 
 the use of the shipping from the distant inland 
 creeks. 
 
 At Youngtown, the river is from two to three 
 miles in width, but opposite the Callebar creek 
 diminishes to less than two, and, in proportion as 
 it recedes from the sea, gradually contracts in size, 
 and finally terminates in a number of subsidiary 
 branches. The eastern bank of the stream is the 
 boundary of an uninhabited morass that descends 
 within three miles of Fouche, where it suddenly 
 turns to the eastward, forming the intervening 
 tract of land between it and the Bonny river. On 
 both sides of the stream the swamps are so low as 
 to permit a regular inundation of the tide, whose 
 ebb exposes to the action of a torrid sun extensive 
 shelves of alluvial and clayey mud that engen- 
 der myriads of winged pests so annoying to the 
 white residents at the anchorage. The voracious 
 ground-shark (Zygana vulgaris?) infests the lower 
 part of the river, and is held by the natives as 
 sacred. Its destruction, therefore, is punishable 
 with severe penalties. The insalubrity of these 
 localities is well known and appreciated in the 
 Bights, from the fearful sacrifice of human life that 
 has occurred in them. 
 
 The Bonny, or Bani, was one of the first rivers 
 which the Dutch, English, and Portuguese, were 
 acquainted with in this portion of Africa. From 
 
 G 
 
82 THE BIGHT OF BIAFRA. 
 
 the commencement of the sixteenth to the present 
 century, it was the favourite mart of the slave- 
 ships, when the exportation of human beings was 
 a legalized traffic, and the amount of slaves trans- 
 shipped seldom came to less than 16,000 per 
 annum. Since the extinction of this odious com- 
 merce, it ranks as the grand emporium of the palm 
 oil trade, exporting many thousand tons of this 
 lucrative commodity, and employing more vessels 
 than all the rivers of the Bights collectively. The 
 southern extremity of the shore, at its embouchure, 
 has received the title of Rough Corner, in the old 
 charts that of Bandy Point, and is eight miles to 
 the eastward of Fouch6 ; both this and the New 
 Callebar river having one common estuary. Be- 
 tween these two promontories is a small islet, 
 three-quarters of a mile from Rough Corner, called 
 Breaker Island, formed by the confluence of the 
 tides of both streams, and scantily clothed with 
 clusters of dwarf brushwood. The outer channel 
 leading to this isle is rather intricate, and the 
 navigation of it attended with numerous difficulties, 
 owing to the position of certain sandbanks, parti- 
 cularly the Baleur, Spit, -and Portuguese shoals, 
 on which in heavy weather the snowy crests of a 
 mountainous sea break with tremendous force 
 and turbulence. A mile from Rough Corner, on 
 the right bank of a petty rivulet, masked from 
 view by a compact array of young mangrove 
 shoots, is Jujutown, the abode of the pilot-fisher- 
 men, and the principal priests, or Jujumen. It 
 
THE BIGHT OF BIAFRA. 83 
 
 contains about four thousand inhabitants, who are 
 engaged in trading for palm oil and in fishing ; the 
 products of the latter occupation being invariably 
 dried, cured, and sent into the interior, where they 
 are much valued. The soil of this district is a 
 yellow siliceous glomerate, slightly elevated above 
 the river, and covered in different places by a rich 
 dark loam, on which the Graminece, Cyperacece, 
 Leguminosce, and Melastomaceae, riot in all the 
 gay luxuriance of a tropical verdure, overshaded 
 by the deeper-tinted foliage of several magnificent 
 trees. 
 
 The town in its structural outline bears a 
 close affinity to Bonny; with this distinction, how- 
 ever, that its site is a composition of mould, sand, 
 and shells, in place of accumulations of filth and 
 vegetable refuse. In the environs of Jujutown, 
 the prospect is also far more pleasing and diver- 
 sified. Fresh water of an inferior quality may be 
 procured from a small spring adjoining some native 
 edifices, termed the Barracoons, in prior years used 
 for the reception and accommodation of purchased 
 slaves. Like other negro tribes in Western Africa, 
 they have preserved some faint vestiges of a past 
 history, and refer with pride to an ancient tradition, 
 that the land on which their town was founded was 
 formerly a floating island, brought by the waves 
 from a distant continent to the spot where it is 
 now fixed. From a few aborigines which existed 
 thereon at the time of its separation, they deduce 
 their primary origin. No credence can, however, 
 
84 THE BIGHT OF BIAFRA. 
 
 be attached to such vague and legendary reports, 
 inasmuch as the physical conformation of the skin 
 and other peculiarities are plainly indicative of an 
 Ebo descent. 
 
 From Eough Corner, a firm sloping and sandy 
 shore, skirted by thickets of stunted underwood, is 
 prolonged three miles up the river to the outlet of 
 a creek communicating with the river Andony. 
 Half a mile to the southward of this creek is the 
 usual landing to Bonny, from which the path to 
 the town passes down the bed of a stream, dry at 
 low water, but over which Europeans have to be 
 carried, in consequence of its answering the pur- 
 poses of an ordinary sewer for the inhabitants. It 
 abruptly terminates in a cul de sac on the borders 
 of the suburban tenements, that are hid from the 
 shipping by mangrove and two or three gigantic 
 cotton trees, whose lofty and umbrageous foliage 
 may be considered as one of the most prominent 
 attractions throughout the tame and wearisome 
 scenery of the circumjacent swamps. From the 
 projecting limit of the beach at the Andony creek 
 to the landing place of the town, the respective 
 cask-houses of the trading vessels are strewed 
 along the margin of the strand. At the point just 
 alluded to, the criminals of the country are exe- 
 cuted, and their mutilated bodies thrown to the 
 ground-sharks, which swarm in multitudes around 
 the place. 
 
 Bonny, or Great Bandy town, as it was some- 
 times named, is built on the southern bank of the 
 
THE BIGHT OF BIAFRA. 85 
 
 Andony creek, on the verge of an extensive 
 morass. It occupies a large space of ground, from 
 the irregular erection of the houses, which evince 
 a barbarous and rude taste in their construction, 
 with a perfect indifference as to either cleanliness 
 or comfort. The framework is composed of man- 
 grove sticks, interlaced together by pliable withes, 
 and smeared over with a cement of clay and sand, 
 indurated in the sun, so as to be perfectly durable. 
 These huts are subdivided into four or more apart- 
 ments, according to the rank of their inhabitants, 
 and are destitute of any ornamental embellishment, 
 most of them being without windows for the 
 transmission of light or ventilation. They are, 
 doubtless, more for ostentation than use. The 
 roofs are composed of the branches and matted 
 leaves of one of the sago palms, but are so ineffi- 
 ciently united, as to furnish little or no protection 
 from the rains, and it is not an uncommon event to 
 see the whole fabric dismantled by the heavy puffs 
 of a tornado. The streets are the narrow and 
 confined footpaths between the houses, so intricate 
 and tortuous as to perplex all unacquainted with 
 their destination. During the periodical rains they 
 are nearly submerged, and almost impassable from 
 semi-liquid mud and pools of stagnant water. 
 
 As the fenny districts contiguous to Bonny are 
 unfit for cultivation, the inhabitants in general 
 purchase their food from the Ebo countries, or 
 produce it in moderate quantities upon their up- 
 land farms. It comprises yams, plaintains, sweet 
 
86 THE BIGHT OF BIAFRA. 
 
 potatoes, maize, bananas, with poultry, sheep, 
 bullocks, and dry and fresh fish, &c., their culinary 
 preparation of which is remarkably plain and 
 simple. Provisions are scarce, and, if required for 
 the shipping, can only be bought at an exorbitant 
 rate, and frequently their deficiency is so great, 
 that they cannot be obtained at any price. To 
 compensate for these drawbacks, the river is boun- 
 tifully supplied with several species of mullet and 
 other fish, while in the dry season turtle resort to 
 Breaker Isle, and the opposite shore, to deposit their 
 eggs, and can be readily captured. Water of a dirty 
 colour, and somewhat brackish, may be obtained 
 in the village of Little Bonny, but the inhabitants 
 seldom drink it, preferring the palm wine, or 
 Tumbo, for their daily beverage, although it is acid 
 and of an unpleasant flavour. The plants and 
 trees observed within the precincts of the town are 
 limited in variety, and comprehend many of those 
 previously mentioned. In addition to them may 
 be usually distinguished the Bombax pentandrum* 
 Cucurbita lagenaria? Capsicum fructescens* Carica 
 papaya,* Jatropha Curcasf Cucurbita pepof Wedelia 
 Africana, Cocos nucifera, &c., with other species be- 
 longing to the Solane<e, Cucurbitacece, and Composite. 
 The anomalous distribution of plants on this coast 
 
 1 Silk cotton tree. Probably this is the tree that Herodotus 
 alludes to when he says, " and there are also found those trees of the 
 forest which, instead of fruit, bear wool (cotton) superior both in 
 beauty and goodness to that of sheep. It is from these trees the 
 Indians obtain their clothing." Sect. vi. lib. 3. 2 Gourd plant. 3 Bird 
 pepper. 4 Papaw tree. 5 Physic-nut tree. 6 Pumpkin. 
 
THE BIGHT OF BIAFRA. 87 
 
 is a subject deserving of much consideration, since 
 many edible vegetables, abundant in one country, 
 are not to be found in others. The Qryza sativa 
 (common rice), may be adduced as an example in 
 illustration. This nutritious grain, indigenous to 
 the Gold and Windward coasts and most of the 
 kingdoms of central Africa, grows, in this and the 
 other streams of the Bight of Biafra, neither in a 
 cultivated nor wild state, and is only known to the 
 natives from its introduction and importation by 
 Europeans. 
 
 The Varanus Niloticm (commonly called African 
 Iguana) is regarded by the Bonnians with a supersti- 
 tious veneration, from the supposition that it is en- 
 dowed with medicinal and other mysterious powers ; 
 and, being under the sacred protection of the priests, 
 any wanton injury to it would be a sure prelude to 
 a rigorous punishment, if not death. The customs 
 of the people of Bonny and New Callebar in these 
 respects somewhat resemble those obsolete pagan 
 rites of animal worship practised by the ancient 
 Egyptians ; but their adoration of them as tutelary 
 deities, as has been asserted, is both erroneous and 
 absurd, their preservation being only tolerated 
 from an imaginary idea that they exert some 
 specific influence in the maintenance of the pros- 
 perity of their towns. 
 
 From the tardy and protracted mercantile inter- 
 course maintained with the neighbouring countries, 
 the number of the inhabitants of Bonny must 
 necessarily fluctuate ; they may, however, be stated 
 
88 THE BIGHT OF BIAFRA. 
 
 to average from 12,000 to 15,000, and derive their 
 origin from those Ebo's inhabiting a range of 
 table-lands, about forty miles up the Rio Andony. 
 It has been called short Ebo, in contradistinction 
 to that of the Quorra, which occupies from ten to 
 fourteen days' journey ere it is attained. The 
 Andony creek trends for twelve or fourteen miles 
 to the eastward, and, after intersecting a flat and 
 bushy-wooded country, unites with the river of the 
 same name. The tract of land on which Bonny is 
 built, thus isolated from the main, was in former 
 years termed Bandy Island. The village of Little 
 Bonny is a quarter of a mile from the eastern 
 suburbs, and appears to be an irregular prolonga- 
 tion of the larger town. Five miles up this creek 
 are the hamlets of Appellima and Minima, located 
 on two gentle slopes, and half enveloped in the 
 sombre foliage of the adjacent forest. They are 
 the country residences of the king and his chiefs^ 
 who resort to them more for the gratification of 
 their natural indolence, than a relaxation from any 
 laborious avocations. The houses are of much 
 neater construction in these places than in the 
 other towns of the river, their framework being 
 composed of European planking, with floors of the 
 same material. They also present a more deco- 
 rated and improved appearance within. 
 
 On the outskirts of Minima may be observed 
 one or two specimens of the Hybiscus Abelmoschus 
 ( musk-ochro ) . They are not indigenous to the place, 
 having been transplanted from the interior. Though 
 
THE BIGHT OF BIAFRA. 89 
 
 the Hybiscus tribe flourish in rich profusion in 
 nearly all the tropical regions of Western Africa, 
 the above species is the one least common and 
 least known. Of the plant, the seeds, from their 
 odoriferous musky fragrance, are the parts most 
 highly prized, and, when obtainable, usually selected 
 to form one of the ingredients that enter into the 
 composition of the Ebo amulets, or medicinal pro* 
 phylactics. By the natives of Soudan they are 
 also sometimes administered in dyspepsia and other 
 gastric derangements, as a carminative and sto- 
 machic. The Arabs, by whom it is named j-,^ \>i>\ 
 Ab-el-Mosch, and some of the pastoral hordes 
 of Northern Africa, bruise and mix the seeds with 
 their coffee, which thus becomes impregnated with 
 their aromatic virtues. 
 
 The Hybiscus esculentus, or West India ochro, 
 termed in Bornou, Meloheia, and in Darfour and 
 Arabia, a/wL Bamea is the species generally cul- 
 tivated for domestic purposes. It is one of the 
 most wholesome edibles used by the Africans, and 
 is a favourite constituent of their dishes, being 
 eaten in conjunction with palm oil, pepper, and 
 other vegetables. Its bland and mucilaginous pro- 
 perties strongly recommend it as an article of food 
 to those Europeans who intend to reside for any 
 length of time in these unhealthy localities. The 
 Hhenria plant Lawsonia inermis, familiarly known in 
 Soudan by the name of *jb or *jbj+j' Tamra-henne, 
 is occasionally brought from the markets of the 
 interior by the native traders for sale, and may be 
 
90 THE BIGHT OF BIAFRA. 
 
 met with at intervals in the harems of the chiefs. 
 The inland districts beyond these points are as yet 
 a terra incognita; the jealousy and illiberality of 
 the natives offering an effectual barrier to their 
 exploration. 
 
 The northern shore of Bonny river is chiefly 
 composed of tidal accumulations of sand, inter- 
 spersed with mud banks and channels. It is 
 termed Telafare, or Peter Fortis's land, and is the 
 reflected continuation of the eastern bank of the 
 New Callebar river. There are two or three small 
 towns erected on clearances adjoining the water's 
 edge, and entitled by similar appellations as the 
 districts in which they are situated. The stream 
 at this part is nearly two miles broad, but propor- 
 tionately contracts as it majestically sweeps to the 
 northward, both banks being fringed with gloomy 
 and impenetrable woods, with a few stray villages 
 and sinuous creeks to break its unvarying uni- 
 formity. The branch which passes from the Quorra 
 above Ebo, dry in the fine months, has been 
 stated to be its termination ; we have, however, 
 no authentic information to vouch for the correct- 
 ness of this report. 
 
 A comparison between the uncivilized and 
 savage tribes of Western Africa, and the Semitic 
 races, with their affiliated offshoots, cannot fail in 
 pointing out the prominent similarity that prevails 
 in the manners and customs of both. In none of 
 the negro nations are there traces of a participation 
 in the usages of an oriental source more obviously 
 
THE BIGHT OF BIAFRA. 91 
 
 marked than in the migratory tribes of the Joloffs 
 and Mandingoes, the predatory Fellatahs, and the 
 proedial Ebo's of the Delta. 
 
 A superficial acquaintance with their remote 
 and modern history will furnish us with rational 
 grounds for the assumption of this belief, that the 
 habits of the former races were superadditions pro- 
 gressively engrafted upon those of the latter, owing 
 to the promiscuous intercourse carried on with the 
 north-eastern Mahometan kingdoms, but previous 
 to their assimilation changed and vitiated by time 
 and distance. The populations of this and the 
 other rivers in the Bight seem to be partially 
 imbued with the doctrines of Zoroaster, in so far 
 as recognizing two distinct immortal principles 
 one good, and the other evil of the nature of 
 which, however, they have but an indefinite and 
 confused notion. The attributes of the first are 
 regarded as of an innocuous and beneficent im- 
 port; the second, denominated in many parts of 
 Africa as the " evil eye," is feared as a capricious 
 and malevolent spirit, invested with unbounded 
 power for the procreation and infliction of diseases, 
 and requiring to be pacified by continual oblations 
 in order to avert the morbific effects of his displea- 
 sure. By the Ebo's, especially, this principle is 
 greatly dreaded as the cause of all abscesses, 
 glandular enlargements, phagedenic ulcerations, 
 to which the females are so susceptible, and those 
 distempers that afflict them or their flocks. Nor 
 is this dread restricted to these regions alone ; for 
 
92 THE BIGHT OF BIAFRA. 
 
 this evil influence, under various modifications, is 
 acknowledged in almost every country in inter- 
 tropical Africa, and is universally considered in 
 the same unfavourable view. Mr. Bowditch, in 
 his interesting Mission to Ashantee, remarks, in 
 reference to this subject, that " the power of 
 fascination by the eyes is believed and dreaded in 
 those parts of Africa (interior) as mortal, whether 
 exercised by the fetishmen as priests, or the coo- 
 rumpun against animals, The idea prevailed in 
 Pliny's time, but it was ascribed to the voice. 
 "In libro quodam Plinii naturalis historic legi 
 esse quasdam in terra Africa familias hominum 
 voce atque lingua effascinantium. Qui si impen- 
 sius forte laudaverint pulchras arbores, segetes 
 Isetiores, infantes ameniores, egregios equos, pe- 
 cudes pastu atque cultu, optimas emoriantur repente 
 haec omnia."* 
 
 The diseases peculiar to the inhabitants of Bonny 
 and New Callebar are those that proceed from a 
 humid and paludal situation, and are represented 
 by a similar train of morbid phenomena that cha- 
 racterise those of Benin and the Nun. Like them, 
 the most aggravated forms run a speedy course, 
 and are invariably followed by fatal results, from 
 the absence of any appropriate plan of treatment. 
 Charms and medicine-bags fabricated by the Ebo 
 dibia or doctors, and held in the hand, or worn 
 attached to the neck by copper wire, are the means 
 relied upon as preventives against both sickness 
 
 * Page 336. 
 
THE BIGHT OF BIAFRA. 93 
 
 and danger. In those districts of the Ebo country 
 adjoining the river Andony, native practitioners 
 are divided into two communities, male and female, 
 both of whom are well known by the separate 
 appellations of dibia woca and dibia wy.* The 
 latter class are chiefly composed of women some- 
 what advanced in age, who solely perform the 
 operation in the rite of female circumcision. They 
 are also the vendors of multitudinous specifics for 
 the removal of those morbid affections incidental 
 to the younger portion of their sex. In Bonny the 
 native title conferred on surgeons of vessels is 
 Breabo. Lepra, scabies, and other diseases of the 
 common integument, are usually confined to the 
 lower classes of slaves, from their neglect of the 
 necessary ablution of the body, careless and un- 
 cleanly habits, and undue exposure to the vicissi- 
 tudes of the climate. When such are allowed to 
 assume a chronic form, they become very intracta- 
 ble, and often resist the most vigorous remedies. 
 Instances of a deficient or abnormal organization 
 of the cutaneous textures are seen in the male and 
 female Albinos, several of whom may be met with 
 in the different villages. In the other rivers they 
 are comparatively rare, and it has been asserted 
 
 * Dibia signifying doctor, and woca man, wy is the common expres- 
 sion for woman. Among the native tribes in the various countries of 
 "West Africa, the terms employed to denote the 'medical practi- 
 tioners are the following: Lock-a-Mattaku, Benin; Gangur or 
 Gangam, Kongo ; Maimahgan^ Haussa ; Ebbebok, Old Callebar ; 
 Jarrahlah, Mandingo ; Enishogung or Ologung, Yarruba ; Dey-yo, 
 Kroo, &c. 
 
94 THE BIGHT OF BIAFRA. 
 
 that in some parts they are put to death soon after 
 birth. 
 
 Pneumonia, catarrhs, and other pulmonic affec- 
 tions, are extremely prevalent in the cold rainy 
 months, their invasion being, in all probability, 
 connected with the greater volume of blood which 
 is then thrown into the deeper-seated organs and 
 cavities from the languid and depressed action of 
 the capillary circulation. Cerebral maladies are 
 seldom of a serious nature, unless emanating from 
 mechanical injuries. In congestion of the vessels 
 of the brain or its membranes, accompanied by 
 much febrile excitement, relief is experienced from 
 the native process of cupping, which consists in 
 making three parallel longitudinal or horizontal 
 incisions on either temple, from ten lines to an 
 inch in length, and about eight lines apart. These 
 incisions are performed by a sharp razor, or knife, 
 and a small calabash is then applied, the air being 
 then exhausted by burning paper or cotton secun- 
 dum art em. After the abstraction of a few ounces 
 of blood, the wounds are dressed with a black car- 
 bonaceous matter, manufactured from the oil 
 lamps. The employment of this substance leaves 
 a dark indelible stain behind, which, as the indi- 
 vidual advances in age, is never wholly obliterated, 
 although its removal is occasionally attempted. 
 This mode of cupping is one constantly adopted 
 by the natives in the Bights, in all painful affec- 
 tions of the head. Variola, fortunately, is not of 
 regular occurrence, since its visitations are of a 
 
THE BIGHT OF BIAFRA. 95 
 
 very pestilential character. In Ebo, the people, 
 from the malicious statements of the Bonnians, 
 imagine that European surgeons enjoy the faculty 
 of generating this devastating epidemic by placing 
 a germinating dust in the palm of the hand, and 
 diffusing it by the breath throughout the sur- 
 rounding atmosphere. My friend Mr. King, of 
 the Ethiope steamer, has informed me that this 
 singular opinion exists in several of the towns of 
 Cross river, and that his appearance was the signal 
 for the quick dispersion of their inhabitants. 
 
 Dysentery and other enteritic complaints are pre- 
 valent in all seasons, but more particularly at the 
 commencement and close of the wet. Numbers 
 fall victims to their malignant severity, without 
 respect to either age, sex, or occupation. Rheu- 
 matic and other fugitive pains prevail here, as in 
 temperate climes, from unsettled states of the 
 weather, and are treated by repeated ablutions of 
 warm water. Where the pain is more fixed and 
 circumscribed, a series of deep scarifications are 
 made over the part, which is then assiduously 
 bathed with hot fomentations to promote the free 
 oozing of the blood, and these applications are per- 
 severed in till the requisite impression be obtained. 
 The propriety of this mode of vascular depletion 
 for the alleviation of human suffering, is one 
 clearly suggested by an all-provident nature, and 
 forcibly inculcated in the majority of the African 
 tribes by the dictates of an imperious necessity, as 
 
96 THE BIGHT OF BIAFRA. 
 
 a remedial equivalent producing all the good effects 
 of the more scientific resources of civilized nations. 
 
 Hernia, both congenital and acquired, may be 
 occasionally seen in those slaves who are of a lax 
 muscular fibre, or who have been subjected to 
 heavy toil. Exomphalos, or umbilical hernia, is 
 rather viewed in an ornamental light, and some 
 people, under this idea, allow the intestines to 
 protrude to a considerable extent. Gonorrhoea, 
 syphilis, and other genito-urinary disorders, dis- 
 play their numerical superiority here as elsewhere 
 in these regions. Calculous diseases are appa- 
 rently unknown. The Ebo's, from an hereditary 
 predisposition to melancholy and despondency, are 
 affected with the malady which Dr. Winterbottom 
 has termed lethargus, or sleepy sickness, a disease 
 that possibly originates from an impaired condition 
 of the cerebral apparatus, and which has been 
 thought to be one of the sequences of the deranged 
 organic functions of the skin. Cases of this pecu- 
 liar affection are very uncommon, two or three 
 only having come under my observation during 
 some years' residence in this part of Africa. 
 
 In phlegmonous and other tumours, or in local 
 turgescence of the capillary vessels, where any 
 tendency to suppuration exists, and in which 
 topical bleeding is not required, the green pods 
 of the Capsicum fructescens, pounded into a pulp, 
 are applied to the part, the acridity of its essential 
 oil acting as a powerful counter-irritant. On 
 
THE BIGHT OF BIAFRA. 97 
 
 several occasions in which I have seen this pungent 
 pepper employed, it could not otherwise but have 
 augmented the painful sensations of the patients ; 
 they have, nevertheless, borne its infliction with 
 the most philosophic fortitude. On some of the 
 domestic slaves brought from the inland districts, 
 a curious operation is practised when in infancy, 
 and previous to their transmission for sale. It 
 consists in the dissection or corrosion of the cuticle 
 covering the forehead from its subjacent textures, 
 which leaves a large unpleasant cicatrix as the 
 person progresses in years. Natives so disfigured 
 have been designated by the title of Eche, the 
 result of this partial cuticular denudation being 
 considered as a popular mark of distinction in 
 those countries in which its performance is incul- 
 cated. Polygamy, in conformity with the usages 
 of African life, is fully tolerated in all classes ; the 
 number of wives each individual may possess 
 varying in proportion to his wealth and position 
 in society. The females are not so prolific as 
 those of the kingdoms of Soudan, and rarely give 
 birth to more than two or three children, if so 
 many. Should, however, any woman at her 
 accouchement be unfortunately delivered of twins, 
 both the mother and her offspring are condemned 
 to immediate destruction, inasmuch as the affair is 
 viewed in the light of a public degradation, the 
 Jujumen asserting that, under such circumstances, 
 it places the woman upon a disgraceful equality 
 with the brute creation. The wife, provided she 
 
 H 
 
98 THE BIGHT OF BIAFEA. 
 
 is a favourite, not ^infrequently escapes with life, 
 but the children are never suffered to exist. This 
 barbarous custom is also adopted by the Ebo's of 
 the Quorra and Andony, and by the people of 
 Guiana, in South America. It is likewise upheld 
 in some of the towns of Benin, according to the 
 statements of Bosnian, who relates that "in all 
 parts of the Benin territories twin births are 
 esteemed good omens, except at Arebo (Reggio), 
 where they are of the contrary opinion, and treat 
 the twin-bearing women very barbarously, for 
 they actually kill both women and children, and 
 sacrifice them to a certain devil."* Parturition in 
 the negro female has been generally represented 
 to be an easy process, and not attended with much 
 danger; such, however, is not invariably the case. 
 Inquiries among the different tribes have amply 
 satisfied me, that in many instances the parturient 
 woman has perished from want of a little timely 
 assistance in those complex and preternatural 
 labours which have hitherto been supposed to be 
 of less frequency among them than in the females 
 of more civilized communities. Puberty in these 
 regions commences about the age of eleven or 
 twelve years, and sometimes much earlier. 
 
 Women, during the continuance of the cata- 
 menia, are deemed unclean, and are not permitted 
 to touch or go near any object in use. Most of 
 them, when in this state, retire from public life, 
 and are usually immured in a solitary apartment, 
 
 * Description of the Coast of Guinea, p. 425. 
 
THE BIGHT OF BIAFBA. 99 
 
 until the cessation of the discharge, and the subse- 
 quent purification, allows of their liberation; all 
 sexual intercourse in the interim being firmly pro- 
 hibited. In the mterior it is a well-known fashion 
 for the females to paint themselves in glaring 
 colours, in order to denote the existence of this 
 periodical secretion, and at the same time to warn 
 strangers from being in any degree contaminated 
 by their propinquity. It is well worthy of remark, 
 that several of these ordinances are precisely in 
 accordance with those Mosaic laws laid down in 
 the book of Leviticus,* which strictly enjoin many 
 wise and salutary precautions relative to this 
 subject. Females of all ranks are accustomed to 
 besmear different parts of the skin with the 
 powder of a species of redwood tree, triturated 
 with palm oil. This pigment has been thought to 
 correct the foetor of the perspiration, and also to 
 enjoy certain prophylactic influences. Not a few, 
 however, adorn themselves with it, to heighten 
 the effect of their charms. In Katunga, Kabbah, 
 Boussa, and other towns in central Africa, it is 
 also used for similar purposes. Clapperton says, 
 that it is brought from Benin, "pounded into a 
 powder, and made into a paste ; women and chil- 
 dren are rubbed with this, mixed with a little 
 grease, every morning ; and very frequently a 
 woman is to be seen with a large score of it on her 
 face, arms, or some part of the body, as a cure for 
 
 * Chap. xv. &c. 
 H 2 
 
100 THE BIGHT OF BIAFRA. 
 
 some imaginary pain or other."* Circumcision is 
 performed on both male and female ; the consum- 
 mation of this rite, however, in the latter sex, is 
 not of such general prevalency as in Ebo and Old 
 Callebar. 
 
 The Eio Bonny has been justly considered to be 
 the least insalubrious river of this Bight, and not 
 so inimical to European constitutions as the others, 
 owing, doubtless, to the merchant vessels lying 
 but a few miles from its mouth. The wide and 
 open expanse of the stream, its near proximity to 
 the ocean, with the sanative effects of a more pro- 
 tracted sea breeze, contribute, however, to render 
 it less fruitful in those deleterious agencies that 
 predominate in the other maritime localities of 
 tropical Africa. The deaths among the white 
 crews who reside in this place seldom exceed 
 twenty -five per cent., and in the healthy season 
 it often occurs that they do not lose a single hand 
 out of a large complement of men. All vessels, 
 when they enter these rivers for any length of 
 time, are housed over with mats, made from a 
 species of palm, which, although not waterproof, 
 serves as a temporary protection from the rays of 
 a fervid sun, and the inclemencies of the weather. 
 The natives of this river, in their physical con- 
 formation, resemble the Ebo's of the inland dis- 
 tricts, especially in their pale yellow skin, and its 
 smooth delicate organization. They are of less 
 
 * Journal of Second Expedition into Interior of Africa, p. 136. 
 
THE BIGHT OF BIAFRA. 101 
 
 stature, thinner, and of more symmetrical pro- 
 portions, without that tendency to corpulency 
 manifested by other tribes of a similar progenital 
 derivation. Notwithstanding the intimate com- 
 mercial connection which has prevailed between 
 them and the white traders, but slight progress 
 has been effected in the amelioration of their 
 wretched habits, nor has there been any inclina- 
 tion towards the adoption of the more intelligent 
 and refined customs of Europeans. A glance at 
 the class of men who figure as the representatives 
 of civilized society would not render the explana- 
 tion difficult. Treacherous, vindictive, of fierce 
 and brutal passions, with a host of degrading vices 
 peculiar to the lowest negro tribes, there are, per- 
 haps, but few people in Western Africa who bear 
 a more disreputable and odious character. Like 
 the inhabitants of New Callebar, they are professed 
 cannibals, and, with many disgusting and supersti- 
 tious ceremonies, eat the flesh of their prisoners of 
 war, after putting them to death with the most 
 callous indifference. By the ancients, the inhabi- 
 tants of this part of the coast were named Xyliuces 
 Ethiopes. The currency of the country is a small 
 copper bar, in the shape of a horse-shoe, and termed 
 a manilla. 
 
 Fifteen miles to the eastward of Rough Corner 
 is the Rio Dony, or St. Domingo, now known as 
 the river Andony. Its narrow and contracted 
 entrance, blocked up by a shallow bar of sand, is 
 alone an obstacle to the admission of trading 
 
102 THE BIGHT OF BIAFRA. 
 
 vessels, and the little commerce it carried on for- 
 merly was monopolised by slavers. This stream 
 leads to the short Ebo, previously alluded to, and 
 also to the countries of the Mocoes and Quas, 
 in the latter of which the customs and language of 
 the natives are almost identical with those of Old 
 Callebar. There are two or three insignificant 
 villages a few miles inland on the margin of the 
 eastern bank.* 
 
 The coast from this river inclines to the east- 
 ward for sixty miles, to the estuary of the Old 
 
 * Few individuals are aware of the fact that an inland communica- 
 tion by water may be established between the Rio Andony and the 
 Rio Volta, without the necessity of undertaking a sea voyage. The 
 route per canoe may be described as follows : 
 
 1. From the Rio Andony to the River Bonny, by the communi- 
 cating creek that passes to the eastward of the town of Bonny. 
 
 2. From the Rio Bonny to New Callebar, over the flats, within the 
 estuary of the two streams. 
 
 3. From the New Callebar river to the Quorra, by the creek below 
 the town, which subsequently separates into two divergent branches, 
 one leading to the town of Brass, and the other passing more to the 
 eastward, and entering the Quorra some distance from its embouchure. 
 
 4. From the Quorra, or Rio Nun, to the Rio Formosa, either by 
 the River Broadway, below Ebo, or by the numerous petty creeks 
 connected with the Rio Escravos and other streams, all of which com- 
 municate more or less with the Benin. 
 
 5. From the Formosa, or Benin river, to the town of Lagos, by 
 what is termed the Lagos creek, situated a few miles above the 
 English factories, (passing to E. Lagos river and the Cradoo lake), and 
 through which the slaves purchased in the Quorra usually pass to 
 more maritime depots on the northern shores of the Bight. 
 
 6. From Lagos, through West Lagos river, by Badagry, to Why- 
 dah and Grand Popo. 
 
 7. From Grand Popo, by the creek and salt water lake, past the 
 fort of Quitta, to the town of Aoonah, and from thence to the Rio 
 Volta. 
 
THE BIGHT OF BIAFRA. 103 
 
 Callebar river; it is low, thickly wooded, and 
 unattractive, and is thinly populated by a wild and 
 savage race, who have been denominated Funimen. 
 The Rio Calbarine, or Old Callebar, is a large and 
 noble stream, about ten miles broad at its junction 
 with the sea. Its earliest frequenters were the 
 Dutch, who gave it the title of Oude Calburgh, but 
 who soon ceased to visit it in consequence of the 
 extreme unhealthiness of the anchorage near the 
 towns. Two peninsular projections, termed Tom 
 Shots and Backassey, or East Head, mark the 
 respective terminal boundaries of the land on 
 either side. The first, or western point, is in Lat. 
 4 36' N. and Long. 8 19' E. Effeat, or Tom 
 Shots town, is a dirty and unimportant village, 
 erected within a curve of the beach, and encom- 
 passed by mangrove woods, which conceal it 
 from view. Its inhabitants possess extensive 
 fisheries, of which the chief products, a species 
 of Silurus, are smoked and cured in immense 
 quantities for the remote markets of the interior. 
 For forty miles this river presents -one broad and 
 continuous stream, until it arrives at an insular 
 swamp, called Parrot Isle, where it separates into 
 two navigable branches; the left, or largest one, 
 named Cross River, flows for several hundred 
 miles through a beautiful and fertile country, 
 which has only recently been explored through 
 the indefatigable exertions of Mr. Becroft. The 
 second, or eastern branch, runs a brief course of 
 forty or fifty miles, and abruptly terminates in a 
 
104 THE BIGHT OF BIAFRA. 
 
 petty creek. On it are located those mercantile 
 towns to which European traders resort. 
 
 After passing Tom Shots Town, the western 
 bank of this river becomes more elevated. The 
 strand here is formed of the friable particles disin- 
 tegrated from a series of low sandstone cliffs, 
 which are more or less hid from view by a folia- 
 cious screen of young woodshoots. The higher 
 portion of the land adjacent to Parrot's Isle has 
 received the appellation of Tobacco Head, from a 
 species of the Nicotianum having been discovered 
 in a wild state growing thereon. The opposite, or 
 Backassey shore, is a vast densely wooded and 
 swampy flat, intersected by four tributary streams 
 that empty their water into the main trunk, viz. 
 Backassey, Little Backassey, Little Qua, and Qua 
 Rivers. The last of these, which is the one of the 
 greatest magnitude, and most accessible, takes its 
 source from the uplands north-east of River Town, 
 where its banks, before entering the Delta, are 
 diversified by native farms and cultivated planta- 
 tions, to which the affluent inhabitants of Old 
 Callebar retire for the restoration of their health 
 in cases of sickness. One point connected with 
 the medical topography of these regions is de- 
 serving of consideration. From the aperture of 
 Qua River down to East Head, and for some 
 leagues beyond the outer bar, the soundings are 
 indicated by black, viscid, and alluvial mud, which 
 projects over more than a third of the bed of the 
 stream ; the other two-thirds, as far as Tom Shots 
 
THE BIGHT OF BIAFKA. 105 
 
 Point, being composed of banks and patches of 
 straw-coloured sand. This, similar to most of the 
 embouchures of the rivers in the Bights, is 
 not embellished by any picturesque or pleasing 
 scenery; and the only signs of human habitations 
 are a few dusky fishing villages, built on the verge 
 of the forest, the abject and destitute condition of 
 the natives of which are precisely the counterpart 
 of their wretched domiciles. This river has been 
 stated to be one of the radiating branches of the 
 Quorra ; this is, however, an error, since it has not 
 the slightest communication with it. 
 
 Fishtown is an obscure village, populated by 
 fishermen, and erected upon a headland six or 
 seven miles above Qua River, on the same side. 
 This promontory has been distinguished by the 
 name of Fishtown Point, and is one of the prin- 
 cipal guides for the navigation of the shipping. 
 In the centre of the river, nearly facing it, and 
 about a mile distant, is Parrot Island, attired in 
 the sombre livery of the Ehizopherse, and, as its 
 title implies, the haunt of the Psittacus erythacus 
 (grey parrot), who congregate in immense flocks 
 within its recesses to roost or rear their young. 
 
 From Parrot Isle the river gradually diverges 
 for ten or twelve miles more to the eastward, 
 having on either side an insular swamp detached 
 from the main land, that on the right being deno- 
 minated James's, and that on the left Alligator 
 Island. A sandy shore on the inner part of the 
 latter is the favourite resort of numerous alii- 
 
106 THE BIGHT OF BIAFRA. 
 
 gators ; hence its appellation. The morass here is 
 intersected by several unimportant streams, at the 
 mouths of which and along the wooded banks are 
 extensive shoals of alluvial mud. A little above 
 Alligator Island is a large creek (Seven-fathom 
 Creek), and nearly abreast of it on the opposite 
 side is a conspicuous projection, termed Seven- 
 fathom Point. From this point the river expands 
 into a noble and spacious reach, tending for seven 
 or eight miles to the northward, until checked by 
 the elevated uplands of Old-town. 
 
 The early history of Old Callebar, like most of 
 the other inhabited regions of Western Africa, is 
 involved in much obscurity. Among the natives 
 little is known concerning the primary colonization 
 of their river, and all the information I could glean 
 upon this subject was, that their ancestors, many 
 centuries since, had emigrated from a distant coun- 
 try up Cross river. This statement is the one, 
 perhaps, most in accordance with those views 
 which maintain, that the tide of population had 
 radiated first from Ebo, on the Quorra ; and such 
 appears to be borne out by several curious pecu- 
 liarities which exist in common with them, both in 
 their physical structure and customs. 
 
 The town, which all the natives concur in assert- 
 ing to be of the most ancient date, was, as the 
 name implies, Old-town, which is now but scantily 
 populated. For several centuries this place con- 
 tinued to be the metropolis and principal trading 
 depot for merchantmen and slave ships. About 
 
THE BIGHT OF BIAFRA. 107 
 
 three hundred years ago, many of its inhabitants, 
 from the harsh and cruel treatment of their rulers, 
 emigrated to a sandy district within a creek, five 
 miles distant, and there founded Creek-town. Again, 
 as this town increased in magnitude and pros- 
 perity, so did its government become the more 
 arbitrary, and from similar causes as the preceding, 
 a troop of emigrants passed from it, and having 
 purchased a piece of land from the petty chief of 
 Qua-town, settled down there and erected River- 
 town, or Attarpah, which from its eligible site, 
 proximity to the ocean, and other local advantages, 
 gradually arose under the judicious control of 
 several able chiefs, to occupy that superiority, 
 which its rivals had originally enjoyed; and, with 
 the exception of Creek-town, has now the supreme 
 government over all the towns and villages in its 
 immediate vicinage.* 
 
 In proportion as the stream becomes less im- 
 pregnated with the saline particles of the tidal 
 influx, the banks, though marshy, and below the 
 level of high water, assume a more lively and 
 variegated aspect. Arborescent shrubs projecting 
 over the water are indiscriminately blended with a 
 profusion of oil palms, cocoa-nut, and other grace- 
 ful trees belonging to the Palmce, whose pinnated 
 branches waving above the ocean of evergreen 
 foliage, offer a more delightful contrast to the dark 
 
 * For more general details respecting the government, customs, 
 and other peculiar traits of these natives, vide Jameson's Edinburgh 
 Philosophical Transactions, vol. xl. p. 313. 
 
108 THE BIGHT OF BIAFRA. 
 
 and lugubrious scenery below. On the eastern 
 bank, about five miles from Seven-fathom Point, 
 the mangrove woods stretch to the village of 
 Henshaw-town, where the land suddenly rises. 
 This place consists of little more than a dozen 
 houses, erected on sandy patches divested of their 
 dense herbage. The population is near two hun- 
 dred, mostly dependent on the chief from which 
 the village derives its title. A long and narrow 
 path leads to the river, fringed on both sides with 
 the forest brushwood, and on its lower slopes by a 
 sward of thick grass, amid which are the graves of 
 a few Europeans. Adjoining the landing-place of 
 this hamlet is the outlet of a spring of fresh water, 
 from which the shipping is supplied. It is not an 
 easy matter to discover this watering-place, on 
 account of the tangled thickets that encompass it. 
 From this spot a somewhat precipitous and closely 
 wooded eminence, about two hundred feet in alti- 
 tude, encroaches on the river, and constitutes the 
 southern limit of the Old Callebar town. Attar- 
 pah, or River-town, the metropolis of these regions, 
 is pleasantly located upon an easy acclivity within 
 a semi-circular amphitheatre facing the river, 
 having a back-ground formed of verdant wood- 
 lands of a moderate height. The town is chiefly 
 built on an inferior slope, the houses being clus- 
 tered together in irregular groups that approximate 
 close to the beach. The streets in their outline 
 are similar to those of the other African towns 
 previously adverted to, and are merely tortuous 
 
THE BIGHT OF BIAFKA. 109 
 
 and intricate bye-paths, rendered difficult to thread 
 from the mud walls and foliaceous fences of the 
 adjacent domiciles effectually concealing all objects 
 but the arid sand with which they are strewed. 
 Near the palace of the king and the market areas, 
 they are of much greater width, and are diversified 
 with a vegetation of quite a tropical character. 
 The houses of Old Callebar are far superior in 
 their construction to those of any other nation in 
 the Bights. They comprise a series of equilateral 
 or oblong courts, half roofed over, and occupying 
 a considerable extent of ground. The building 
 materials are the same as those used elsewhere, the 
 floors being a composition of hardened sand. The 
 most remarkable architectural structures, however, 
 that attract the attention of the stranger, are the 
 massive wooden mansions of the king and chiefs. 
 These edifices were originally built in Liverpool 
 and Clarence, transhipped from thence in detached 
 pieces, and reconstructed there under the super- 
 intendence of European carpenters. Their sides 
 are formed of stout planks overlaying each other 
 so as to facilitate the passing off the rain. The 
 habitable rooms are on the upper story, and are 
 well lighted either by glass windows or latticed 
 apertures, which have in front of them an open 
 corridor that surrounds the entire building. These 
 apartments are elegantly fitted up with magnificent 
 mirrors, chandeliers, sofas, &c., intermingled with 
 pictures, vases, earthenware, and other expensive 
 articles of bijouterie. They serve as an ordinary 
 
110 THE BIGHT OF BIAFRA. 
 
 lounge for the white traders, but their cool and 
 refreshing gloom, with their comfort, neatness, and 
 freedom from the noisy disturbances of the ship- 
 ping, peculiarly recommend them as temporary 
 hospitals for the white valetudinarian. The roofs 
 are covered with mats manufactured from the palm 
 tree, obliquely placed one above the other. Within 
 the town the soil is for the most part composed of 
 sand, which on the upper ridges and plateaus 
 where the plantations commence, becomes en- 
 crusted with a dark vegetable loam, amalgamated 
 more or less with its siliceous substratum. In 
 these districts immense beds of sandstone consti- 
 tute the general base, the horizontal strata of 
 which are very perceptible in the excavated paths 
 of the suburbs. Vegetation here, as in the other 
 elevated regions of central Africa, flourishes in 
 unsurpassed exuberancy, with a richness and bril- 
 liancy of blooming hues that cannot but elicit the 
 admiration of the beholder. 
 
 The esculent plants and fruits that meet the eye 
 are the Achras Zapotilla, 1 Dimocarpus Africanus 
 Spondeas lutea? Citrus Vulgaris? Anacardium occi- 
 dentalef Clerodendrum Africanum, Calladium escu- 
 lentum? Cyperus crassipes, Vinca rosea? Convolvulus 
 latatas? Citrus aurantii? Abrus precatorius, 9 with 
 various species of Killingia^ Hibiscus, Cucurbita, 
 &c. The Egg plant, Solatium Melongena, known in 
 
 1 Naseberry. 2 Hog plum. 3 Bitter orange. 4 Cashew nut. 
 s Cocoes. 6 Scarlet periwinkle. 7 Sweet potatoes. 8 Orange tree. 
 9 Wild liquorice. 
 
THE BIGHT OF BENIN. Ill 
 
 Sennaar, Darfour, Egypt, and other parts of 
 northern Africa, by the name of ^LssO^L Ba- 
 dindjan, is also plentifully cultivated by the natives 
 of this river, who eat it in a raw state always 
 after their meals. When boiled, it serves as one 
 of the ordinary accompaniments of a European 
 dinner in Western Africa, and in its proper 
 season is an excellent substitute for other vege- 
 table edibles less easy of attainment. There are two 
 varieties of the plant indigenous to Old Callebar, the 
 first of which produces a fruit tolerably large, and 
 the other one much less in size. Of the two, the 
 natives prefer the latter. In Soudan, a species of 
 Solanum brings forth a black fruit, which the natives 
 consider as poisonous. The Cassia Occidentalis, one 
 of the most common African weeds, growing in waste 
 places and other uninhabited clearances, is also 
 found in abundance in the environs of the towns. 
 Under various preparations, it forms one of the 
 favourite remedies of the Joloffs, who term it Ban- 
 tamarah. Among the plants of the Amomum family 
 noticed in this river, the A. Clusii is the variety 
 most exhuberant in growth. It may be found in 
 the spacious thickets in the neighbourhood of 
 Attarpah and the other towns in the river. It is 
 also indigenous to the Gold and Slave coasts, and 
 grows plentifully on the outskirts of Clarence, 
 Fernando Po, where it is known under the name 
 of bastard Mallagetta. The seeds are contained 
 in a soft acidulous pulp of a pleasant flavour, 
 which the natives use in lengthened expeditions, 
 
112 THE BIGHT OF BIAFRA. 
 
 to obviate the inconveniences of thirst. They are 
 also occasionally administered as an adjunct to 
 allay the irritative effects of cathartic and other 
 medicines.* The fences of the outer tenements 
 are adorned with festoons of variegated creepers, 
 of which the Ipomea palmata, blended in the waste 
 places with the Canna Indica (Indian shot), and 
 /. involucrata are the most conspicuous. On the 
 environs of the town the country is characterised 
 by undulations, covered by bushy shrubs, in some 
 parts partially cleared away by the native pro- 
 cesses of cultivation. On the native farms may be 
 procured limes, plaintains, yams, maize, papayas, 
 soursops, pine apples, sugar canes, cassada, cala- 
 vancies, guavas, pumpkins, &c., and also all the 
 live stock and cured fish to be found in thQ other 
 rivers. A sandy shore, circumscribed by muddy 
 patches, gradually slopes into the stream, its 
 margin being dotted by the cask-houses of the 
 different vessels that are moored only a few yards 
 from them. A narrow creek skirts the northern 
 suburbs of the town, penetrating into a wooden 
 dell, from which issues a flow of fresh water of 
 excellent quality, that supplies the wants of the 
 population. The inhabitants of Attarpah do not 
 exceed ten thousand, excluding the slaves of their 
 agricultural settlements. They are an affiliated 
 branch of the Quorra Ebo's, but are in many 
 
 * I am indebted to the kindness of Dr. Pereira for the distinctive 
 characters that separate this from other species of Amomums, with 
 which it has generally been confounded. 
 
THE BIGHT OF BIAFRA. 113 
 
 respects at variance with them, both in their cus- 
 toms and physical conformation. 
 
 The diseases of the natives of Old Callebar are 
 almost the counterpart of those mentioned in the 
 former localities, differing only in their type, which 
 is generally of a more sthenic and inflammatory 
 character. Ophthalmia predominates more among 
 the tribes that inhabit the mountainous sandstone 
 districts than in those of the deltas of rivers. One 
 of the principal causes to which it has been 
 ascribed, is the loose siliceous soil reflecting the 
 rays of a fervid sun; but there are, doubtless, 
 other concomitant local influences to which it may 
 be equally referred. Iritis, ophthalmia tarsi, and 
 cataract, are common, the latter often affecting 
 both eyes. Apoplexy, congestions, and other 
 morbid lesions of the brain and its meninges, are 
 more prevalent in the aged people. The curative 
 measures adopted for their relief by the native 
 doctors, who are old women, are the shaving of 
 the head, and the application of a tight silk 
 bandage around its circumference ; if, however, 
 these means have not the desired effect, they 
 resort to the process of cupping, as performed by 
 the natives of Bonny. One or two cases of puer- 
 peral mania came under my notice at Creek-town, 
 but it is a rare event to meet with women so 
 affected, since persons of all ranks, if suffering 
 from any maniacal disorder, are seldom permitted 
 to reside within the precincts of the larger towns, 
 and are carefully avoided by their inhabitants, 
 
114 THE BIGHT OF BIAFKA. 
 
 who entertain the curious idea that their saliva, 
 if thrown upon others of sane mind, has the effect 
 of rendering them similarly affected. Their treat- 
 ment appears to be rather harsh and severe. 
 Should any female by mischance bring forth 
 twins at a birth, she is not put to death, as is 
 the usual custom of the Ebo tribes, but forthwith 
 banished to a small town selected for this purpose 
 near the confines of the Etoo country in Cross 
 River; public opinion deeming the accouchement 
 of such an outrageous character as to affix an 
 indelible disgrace, not only on the woman, but on 
 her family and connections. From the regard paid 
 to personal cleanliness with the habit of daily ablu- 
 tion of the body, they enjoy a certain immunity 
 from those cutaneous maladies so conspicuous 
 among the inhabitants of the other rivers in the 
 Bights. The one of most prevalency is that deno- 
 minated by the Bonnians Kraw-Kraw, which is an 
 aggravated form of scabies, attended with much 
 irritation. Gonorrhoea and syphilitic ulcerations 
 are frequently seen in native practice; no remedy 
 is used for their cure, and they are allowed to 
 wear themselves out. Cretinism, or goitre, does 
 not appear to exist in this river, nor, indeed, in 
 any of the lowland countries of the Delta ; nor are 
 the natives in general liable to these peculiar 
 morbid affections. Bronchocele may be observed 
 at intervals in some of the younger females, but 
 according to the assertions of the country prac- 
 titioners, it is seldom of long duration, disappear- 
 
THE BIGHT OF BIAFRA. 115 
 
 ing as they advance in age. Enlargement of the 
 different glands of the face, &c., with Cynanche 
 tonsillaris and parotidea, especially the latter, are 
 not of unfrequent occurrence during the conti- 
 nuance of the dry easterly winds of December and 
 January. Enemata are sometimes administered to 
 infants and children of a tender age, by means of 
 the bottle gourd ( Cucurbita lagenaria), on account 
 of the difficulty and repugnance they display to 
 swallow the nauseous purgatives that are resorted 
 to. They are commonly exhibited in dysentery 
 and disorders of the large intestines arising from 
 constipation. Hydrocele, and other diseases of 
 the scrotum, may be observed here, as in the 
 other swampy localities of Western Africa. The 
 people of this town manifest the most decided 
 aversion to the performance of any surgical opera- 
 tion, and so strong is their abhorrence 'of ampu- 
 tation, that many would rather suffer death than 
 the loss of an extremity. When, however, any 
 portion of the limb has been taken off, either 
 by alligators or ground-sharks, they check the 
 haemorrhage by applying a hot piece of iron, 
 which has sometimes been of permanent benefit. 
 
 From Attarpah the banks present a range of 
 declivitous highlands, extending to Abbutong or 
 Old-town, built about three quarters of a mile up 
 the river on the terminal summit of them. By 
 tradition this town has been asserted to be one of the 
 most ancient date ; it has but few inhabitants, who 
 are not engaged in any commercial traffic with 
 
 i 2 
 
116 THE BIGHT OF BIAFRA. 
 
 Europeans. Its site is healthy, and commands a 
 fine prospect of the river and its forest scenery. 
 From Old-town the stream sharply turns to the 
 westward through a flat and heavily wooded 
 swamp, on the left bank of which, a few miles 
 distant, are two or three small creeks. The first 
 of them takes a circuitous course to join a branch 
 from the Cross Kiver, and passes by Creek-town or 
 Occorotunko, which consists of a limited number 
 of scattered houses delightfully situated on a sandy 
 eminence that gently declines to the water's edge. 
 Both the buildings and their habitants are consi- 
 derably less than those of the metropolis. The 
 streets are wide and spacious, not so much fre- 
 quented, and possess a more picturesque appear- 
 ance than the other native thoroughfares of Old 
 Callebar. The population of this town averages 
 about five thousand. Around the suburban edi- 
 fices, and in the open wastes, the ground is 
 clothed with cucurbitous plants and the Indian 
 shot. Among the vegetable productions indige- 
 nous to this district may be enumerated a few 
 peculiar to the interior of Africa. Many of them 
 are valued for their medicinal properties, such as 
 the Sterculia acuminata? Sagus vinifera? Parkia 
 Africana* Pterocarpus erinacea* &c. The Acacia 
 Nilotica, Calamus secundiflorus, Mucuna urens, Bro- 
 melia ananas* Myrianthus arborea, Avicennia tomen- 
 tosa, and Acacia scandens, also exist. The fruit of 
 several of the plants belonging to the gourd tribes, 
 
 1 Kola nut. 2 Wine palm. 3 Locust tree. 4 Redwood tree. 5 Pine apple. 
 
THE BIGHT OF BIAFRA. 117 
 
 which luxuriantly overrun the woodland planta- 
 tions of the interior, increase to an inordinate 
 magnitude in the fertile regions of Old Callebar. 
 Of this circumstance the natives fully estimate the 
 advantage, by constructing them into household 
 and other utensils which answer a variety of 
 useful purposes. In general they are divided 
 into two unequal portions, the upper fitting into 
 the lower half, and thus forming either a covered 
 dish for the conveyance of their food to the table, 
 or as a commodious vehicle for the preservation and 
 transportation of their clothes, ornaments, and other 
 petty merchandize, from one town to another. 
 Their external surface is polished and carved into 
 elegant arabesque designs.* The Arachis hypogea, 
 or African ground nut, one of the most useful 
 vegetables to the natives from the fruit which it 
 produces, is also indigenous to this river. As an 
 article of food, it is employed not only in Soudan, 
 Haussa, and Ebo, but in the Kongo and other 
 countries of Angola, as also by the Wolofs and 
 Mandingos in Senegal and Bambarra. The latter 
 people term it Teoh, and cultivate it very exten- 
 sively for the purposes of commerce, and at the 
 present time many thousand tons are exported 
 from the French and English possessions in 
 
 * Ibn Batuta, an Arabian traveller of the 14th century, remarks 
 that " the gourd grows so large in Soudan, that they will cut one into 
 halves, and out of these make two large dishes. The greatest part 
 of their vessels, moreover, are made of the gourd." -Translation of 
 his book of travels by Dr. Lee, p. 236. 
 
118 THE BIGHT OF BIAFRA. 
 
 northern Africa to Europe, on account of the 
 oil contained in the nut, and which has been 
 discovered to answer remarkably well in the manu- 
 facture of soap. The fresh leaves and stalks, 
 when administered as food to horses and cattle, 
 are exceedingly nutritious, and animals so fed 
 rapidly increase in both size and condition. 
 
 The river, from the outlets of the preceding 
 creeks, is luxuriantly embellished with aquatic 
 evergreens, and is extremely erratic in its course 
 to the northward, its width varying from two to 
 four hundred yards. The illustrious Humboldt 
 has remarked that the common mangrove does not 
 grow in fresh- water Swamps ; his statement, how- 
 ever, is not altogether correct, inasmuch as many 
 isolated clumps of the Rhizopherae may be observed 
 beyond Old-town, where the stream has not the 
 slightest admixture with the oceanic waters. A 
 few miles on the right, along the slope of some 
 rising grounds, are some villages and native plan- 
 tations, designated by the earlier slavers as little 
 Guinea company. Five or six miles above them, 
 on the left, are the sandy table-lands of Addearbo, 
 or great Guinea Company, the higher portions of 
 which are from three to five hundred feet in alti- 
 tude. The slopes of these hills seem in the 
 distance to be somewhat precipitous ; they are 
 enlivened by irregular masses of wood, with a 
 number of connected hamlets that peep out from 
 amid them. From this place the river regularly 
 
THE BIGHT OF BIAFRA. 119 
 
 dwindles in magnitude as it is traced more inland, 
 and at length becomes apparently lost in the inter- 
 minable swamps that conceal its source. 
 
 The natives of the Old Callabar towns, from 
 their early intimacy with European traders, have 
 made considerable progress in the arts of civiliza- 
 tion, and, since the abolition of the slave trade, are 
 gradually becoming a people of superior intelli- 
 gence. Perhaps there could not be a greater 
 proof of their high respect for white residents, 
 than the fact that the penalty of death is enforced 
 against any native who may maltreat, or even 
 elevate his hand to injure them. Slavery here 
 is milder than in the other rivers, and domestic 
 vassalage exists only in the name. Fresh water, 
 stock, dried fish, yams and other vegetables, are 
 plentiful, and can be purchased at moderate prices. 
 This river, in the sickly season, is exceedingly 
 unhealthy to the white seaman, the mortality 
 among them frequently amounting to more than 
 fifty per cent. The currency of these countries 
 consists of copper rods. 
 
 European practitioners in any degree conver- 
 sant with the medical customs of the negroes of 
 intertropical Africa, cannot fail to be deeply im- 
 pressed with the marked attention paid by the 
 native doctors to the due action of the cutaneous 
 tissues, and their encouragement of this as a 
 means for relieving disease. The Mahomedan 
 code of laws, whose sanatory injunctions are so 
 well adapted for the advancement of the moral 
 
120 THE BIGHT OF BIAFRA. 
 
 and physical condition of the barbarous pagan 
 tribes in central Africa, strictly enjoins not only 
 abluent but other hygienic measures for the pro- 
 motion of cleanliness, and the proper discharge of 
 the cutaneous functions. The inhabitants of most 
 of the maritime localities in the Bights are fully 
 acquainted with the importance of these views, 
 and treat the remittent and other fevers to which 
 they are subject by endeavouring to excite a long- 
 continued and copious exudation of sweat from the 
 cuticular pores, by the aid of heated sand-baths, 
 ablutions of hot water, and rude attempts to imitate 
 vapour-baths. In some countries the patient is 
 placed close to a large fire for such purposes, whilst 
 in others he is held over it, water being slowly 
 dropped thereon, so that the steam, as it ascends, 
 may act on the affected portion of the body. After a 
 careful observation of the good effects of this remedial 
 system, I was led to pay more particular study to 
 the utility of its application, and at length to try 
 a modified adaptation of it for the cure of those 
 adynamic remittent fevers so destructive to Euro- 
 pean life. I have no hesitation in asserting, that 
 not only myself, but many others, who have expe- 
 rienced its efficacy by the speedy restoration to 
 health, can vouch for its superiority over the ordi- 
 nary practice of venesection, saline purgatives, and 
 large doses of calomel, &c. 
 
 Shortly after my return to England from Western 
 Africa, where I had been prosecuting a series of 
 investigations into the nature nnd causes of endemic 
 
THE BIGHT OF BIAFRA. 121 
 
 fevers, I was much gratified by the perusal of two 
 interesting articles on the special functions of the 
 skin, by Dr. Willis,* whose pathological views, 
 contained in them, are in several respects strikingly 
 confirmatory of my own, while his application of 
 them to the treatment of tropical diseases merits 
 the most attentive consideration. It would be 
 evidently out of place in these introductory papers 
 to enter into any details concerning his and my 
 own views on the pathology of the febrile affections 
 of tropical Africa ; they will be given at a future 
 opportunity, in a separate volume. 
 
 Fifteen miles from Old Callebar is the Rio del 
 Rey, or King's River ; it is divided from the former 
 by the swampy peninsula of Backassey, the most 
 prominent portion of which has been termed 
 Backassey Point. The Rio del Rey is now never 
 frequented by merchant vessels, although plenty 
 of palm oil, and other lucrative articles, may be 
 procured from the natives, who are a shy and 
 timid race, owing to the want of European inter- 
 course. According to Barbot, those who resided 
 on the upper banks of this river were called Cal- 
 bonges, and he says that they are "generally a 
 wild and brutal race, very cruel and unnatural; 
 insomuch that among them it is common for a 
 father to sell his children, a husband his wives, 
 and a brother his sisters, or other relations. "-f 
 This is, however, an exaggerated picture ; they are 
 not so ferocious as he states them to be. In the 
 
 * Medical Gazette, 1843-44, p. 1 and 481. f Barbot, Op. id. B. 4. p. 335. 
 
122 THE BIGHT OF BIAFRA. 
 
 17th century, the Dutch troops from D'Elmina 
 solely exported the commercial products of this 
 river, which consisted of dyewoods, ivory, and 
 slaves. On the eastern side of this stream is the 
 elevated chain of hills known as the mountains of 
 Rumby, which, with the lofty and isolated Qua 
 Mount, may be discerned at a considerable distance 
 in clear weather. The latter is sixty or seventy 
 miles deeper inland, near the source of the Rio del 
 Rey, and is of volcanic formation. On the inferior 
 declivities of these mountainous regions, a multi- 
 tude of petty villages and towns stud the country 
 on all sides. 
 
 From the Rio del Rey to the river Bimbia, the 
 coast inclines more to the south-east, and embraces 
 a tract of land nearly fifty miles in extent. A 
 slight projection of the shore (Pt. Limboh) con- 
 stitutes the western limit of the bay of Amboises, 
 between which and Bimbia Point is included that 
 district designated in native parlance as Back- 
 wullah. The Spaniards named these lofty high- 
 lands alta tierra de Ambozi. Within the bay of 
 Amboises, or Ambas, are three small inhabited 
 islands, viz. Damah, Ambas, arid Mondoleh, the 
 latter of which, being the largest, seems to be well 
 suited for a colonial settlement, a reservation being 
 made with regard to its salubrity. With the ex- 
 ception of Fernando Po, it is, perhaps, the only 
 insular locale that could be recommended for such 
 purposes, either in point of eligibility or healthi- 
 ness. On the eastern side of Bimbia Point is King 
 
THE BIGHT OF BIAFRA. 123 
 
 William's town, the metropolis of the district of 
 Bahtungo ; and opposite it is Nicholls' Isle, so 
 entitled after Colonel Nicholls, the late worthy 
 governor of Fernando Po. The houses, like those 
 of other African towns, are framed with palm 
 sticks, plastered with mud composts, and are 
 extremely filthy. A few miles to leeward is the 
 village of Massin, adjoining which there is a con- 
 venient watering place for vessels. 
 
 The river Bimbia, originally called the Rio 
 Pequeno, or little Camaroons river, is about two 
 miles broad at its entrance. It runs for a few 
 miles to the eastward, and divides into two 
 branches, both communicating with the river 
 Camaroons. From this river to Cape Camaroons 
 the land is of a low and alluvial character, and 
 about eleven miles in length. The Rio Cama- 
 roens, or Camaroons, formerly termed Jamoer, is 
 one of the finest rivers in the Bight of Biafra, and 
 has obtained its title from the Portuguese word 
 camarao, signifying a shrimp. Several minor or 
 tributary streams tend conjointly to enlarge its 
 embouchure, but none of them are of any great 
 magnitude. The western limit of the coast, known 
 as Cape Camaroons, is placed in Lat. 3 53' N. and 
 9 0' E. Long. A short distance from it inland 
 are the apertures of two or three large creeks that 
 pass through an impenetrable mangrove forest. A 
 little above this morass are the unimportant vil- 
 lages of Old King Bell, in which the barracoons 
 of the ordinary slave-ships that visited these 
 
124 THE BIGHT OF BIAFEA. 
 
 regions were erected. In the interior, on the 
 left, are the dark and imposing outlines of the 
 stupendous Camaroon mountain, whose majestic 
 peak (Mongo Malobah) has been stated to be 
 13,760 feet above the level of the sea. The 
 southern extremity of the shore, on the right 
 side of the estuary of this river, is a remarkable 
 sandy promontory, named Suellaba Point, in close 
 proximity to which is the river Malimba, and a 
 few miles above it that of Quaqua, leading to the 
 metropolitan town of Longassi. The shore from 
 this spot rises to the height of sixty or eighty feet 
 above the water, and is richly clothed by a pro- 
 fusion of fresh trees. On the verge of these 
 heights, in regular succession, may be noticed 
 the different towns of King Bell, King Acqua, 
 Dido's, and John Acqua's. The native habitations 
 are neatly constructed of the usual materials, and 
 are mostly built in long parallel lines on either 
 side of a principal street or avenue, each hut being 
 encompassed by groves of cocoa-nut, palm, and 
 piaintain trees, the light green foliage of which 
 adds an additional interest and beauty to their 
 otherwise picturesque effect. The streets are wide, 
 open, and clean, and in their structural disposition 
 partake more of European designs than elsewhere. 
 The towns are moderately healthy, and the diseases 
 endemical to them assume the same character as 
 those in the Old Callebar. Their remedial treat- 
 ment is also similar. The aggregate population 
 of these towns may be estimated as below twenty 
 
THE BIGHT OF BIAFBA. 125 
 
 thousand. By the ancients they were successively 
 termed Hesperii Ethiopes and Achalinces Ethiopes. 
 They are a well-made, powerful, and warlike race 
 of people, proverbial for their shrewdness and dis- 
 honesty. The exports of this river are chiefly 
 palm oil and ivory. There are two kinds of palm 
 oil from the lowland countries of equatorial Africa. 
 The first is of a thick or butterlike consistency, 
 in color a palish yellow, but often of very inferior 
 quality. It is brought from the table lands of Ebo 
 in canoes belonging to the native traders of Brass, 
 Bonny, New and Old Callebar, &c. The second 
 variety is always recognised by its greater fluidity and 
 rich golden tint ; its specific gravity predominates 
 over the former, and therefore is less liable to adul- 
 teration. It is chiefly produced in this and the 
 Subo districts of Benin river, and is highly appre- 
 ciated by the oil merchants of Europe. The mor- 
 tality among the Europeans averages from twenty 
 to thirty per cent, per annum. 
 
 Sixteen miles to the southward of Suellaba Point 
 is the river Borea, and from it to Garajam Point, a 
 distance of forty miles, the shore from its recession 
 inland has been denominated the Bight of Pan- 
 navia. From this part to the Cape of St. John, 
 the coast for a hundred and twenty miles tends 
 more to the westward, is low, thickly wooded, with 
 a sandy foreground, and has two or three unfre- 
 quented rivers that empty their waters into the 
 ocean. Little or no trade is carried on with their 
 inhabitants. St. John's Cape is the northern 
 
126 THE BIGHT OF BIAFBA. 
 
 boundary of Corisco bay, which contains the 
 Elobey and other isles, and also the Eio da Angra, 
 or the river Mooney. Corisco island was, in 1679, 
 taken possession of by the Dutch, who sent a 
 detachment of forty men from their chief factory 
 of Elmina to establish a colony. After erecting a 
 fort and several houses, they were at length forced 
 to abandon it, on account of the great mortality 
 that prevailed among them. Cape Esterias is the 
 southern point of this bay ; it is thirty miles from 
 that of St. John's, and is the intervening land that 
 separates the river Gaboon from Corisco. The 
 Rio Gabon, or Gaboon, is situated in Lat. 37' 48" 
 N. and Long. 9 30' 30" E., its mouth being about 
 ten miles in width. On its eastern bank, nine 
 miles from Point Clara, is King Qua Bens-town, 
 and on the same side, three miles from it, is 
 that of King Glasses. A conspicuous projection, 
 Oweendo, or Red Point, may be observed six miles 
 distant from this last town ; to the south-east of it 
 are the islands of Konikey and Parrot. On the 
 southern shore, about forty-five miles from the 
 entrance of the river, is Naango, or King George's 
 town. The mercantile exports from this river are 
 palm oil, camwood, ivory, various dyewoods, &c. 
 There are several missionaries settled in the native 
 villages. The French have recently erected a fort 
 near one of the towns, and carry on at present but 
 a nominal trade with its people. Mr. Bowditch, 
 who resided for some months at Naango, in allusion 
 to the vegetation of this country, says, that " the 
 
THE BIGHT OF BIAFRA. 127 
 
 redwood trees abounded with many which were 
 new to me. The mangroves clothed the banks of 
 the creeks and rivers, even growing some yards 
 from the banks in the water, and their lower 
 branches frequently covered with oysters. The 
 palm- wine tree was plentiful. Like most parts of 
 Western Africa, the woods were so covered be- 
 neath with shrubs and plants, that they seemed 
 impenetrable. Immense runners twisting together 
 dropped from the branches like large cables : gene- 
 rally covered with parasites, sometimes adhering 
 to the parent stem, they became themselves a tree, 
 and at others shooting across to the branches of 
 the neighbouring trees, seemed to connect the 
 forest in a general link." The Hirudo medicinalis, 
 a common leach which exists in the tropical 
 regions of Western Africa, is of a much less size, 
 but in other respects fully equal to the European 
 species, can be procured from the fresh-water 
 swamps in the upper course of this and the other 
 rivers of the Bight. The natives, from some inde- 
 finable dread, evince great dislike to their employ- 
 ment, and rarely, if ever, allow the application of 
 them in disease, invariably preferring the topical 
 abstraction of blood when it is required, by the 
 more tedious process of cupping. One of the 
 most important hygienic measures to which the 
 Africans in general are thoroughly attached, is the 
 cleanliness and preservation of the teeth. The 
 means they take to secure this object are simply 
 by cutting off the young branches of certain 
 
128 THE BIGHT OF BIAFRA. 
 
 trees, with the properties of which they are well 
 acquainted. These shoots are denuded of their 
 bark, and pared down to the length of from ten to 
 fifteen inches, and are termed " chew-sticks," on 
 account of the mastication of one of their extre- 
 mities until the wooded fibre has degenerated into 
 a pulpy expansion. With this vegetable brush, 
 during their leisure hours, they unceasingly rub 
 both gums and teeth, till the latter acquire and 
 retain that pearly hue and beautiful whiteness for 
 which they have been distinguished. 
 
 The Bliglia sapida? Elais Guineensis^ Bassia 
 Parkia, Cocos nucifera, Raphia vinifera, with other 
 wine palms, more or less abound in the forests and 
 wooded enclosures in proximity to the towns. From 
 the Raphia, or, as it is sometimes termed, Sagus 
 vinifera, may be obtained one of the most efficient 
 and valuable tonics that has hitherto been classed 
 amongst the catalogue of native medicines. It is 
 prepared by roasting the fruit before a slow fire, 
 so as to permit the separation of the cortical pulp 
 from the nut which it encloses. This substance, 
 after the application of a proportionate degree of 
 heat, gradually loses its intense astringency, leaving 
 a bitter and slightly aromatic principle, which, 
 when suffered to digest in some alcoholic medium, 
 imparts to it that peculiar bitter extractive on 
 which its virtues depend. In the absence of 
 quinine and other tonics, I have frequently ex- 
 hibited this tincture, in combination with other 
 
 1 Soap berry. 
 
THE BIGHT OF BIAFRA. 129 
 
 indigenous carminatives in those impaired conditions 
 of the stomach indicated by loss of appetite and fre- 
 quent vomitings, with other morbid peculiarities, 
 that occur after prolonged attacks of remittent fever, 
 and with the best results.* Grains of Paradise, now 
 usually termed Malagetta pepper, is the produce of 
 the Amomum Grana Paradisi, which is found grow- 
 ing in a wild state in the thickets and other wooded 
 districts of this river, as it also is, more or less, in 
 most of the countries of Western Africa. It for- 
 merly constituted no unimportant article of com- 
 merce, and great quantities were exported to 
 Europe from that portion of the Windward coast 
 which still retains the name of the Grain or Pepper 
 coast. In a mercantile point of view, its value at 
 present is comparatively low. The inhabitants of 
 the different countries in which it is indigenous, use 
 it for domestic purposes, and also as a remedial agent. 
 It is known in Yarruba by the name of Obro, by the 
 natives of the Congo and Ambriz as Dungo-zarzo, 
 and to the Mandingo's by the term Palancunpon. 
 Of the Cucurbitacece, which also luxuriantly abound 
 
 * Pallisot de Beauvois, a French botanist, who resided for several 
 months in the Rio Formosa, in his splendid work entitled Flore des 
 Royames (COware et de Benin, Paris, 1805, has described and illus- 
 trated several specimens of the Palmce, and, among others, the 
 R. Vinifera, of which he mentions two varieties, viz. : 
 
 1. Raphia Vinifera, Calix florum masculorum sessilis., Fructus 
 
 oblongus. 
 
 2. Raphia pedunculata, Calix florum masculorum pedunculatus, 
 
 Fructus subrotundus et subpyriformis. p. 78. 
 
 Both of these trees are to be met with in most of the rivers of tropical 
 Africa. 
 
 K 
 
130 THE BIGHT OF BIAFRA. 
 
 in the Gaboon, the young gourd of the Cucurbita 
 lagenaria is, perhaps, one of the most palatable 
 when boiled, inasmuch as it is easy of digestion, 
 and is less liable to disagree with those morbid 
 states of the alimentary canal to which the white 
 valetudinarian is frequently exposed after attacks 
 of endemic disease. Sandy Point, or Round 
 Corner, is the southern termination of the shore in 
 Gaboon River ; from it the coast gradually becomes 
 of a more concave outline as far as Cabo Lopo 
 Gonzalves, or Cape Lopez, a distance of sixty-six 
 miles. Near this cape, which lies in Lat. 36' 0" S. 
 and 8 40' E. Long, is the town of King Passol, 
 the neat and uniform appearance of whose houses, 
 with their accompaniment of verdant scenery, 
 somewhat resemble those of the River Camaroons. 
 The Bight of Biafra, or Biafara, may be said to 
 end here, which may also be considered to be the 
 terminus of the Guinea coast, although many of 
 the old geographers state that the Rio Camaroens 
 was its southern limit, and the commencement of 
 Western or lower Ethiopia. 
 
PART III. 
 
 THE ISLAND OF FERNANDO PO. 
 
 INDEPENDENT of the few small islands that lie con- 
 tiguous to the mainland in various portions of this 
 Bight, there are others whose magnitude, posi- 
 tion, and commercial importance, are such as to 
 render a more minute and distinct description of 
 each a great desideratum. The large islands are 
 four in number, viz., Fernando Po, Princes, St. 
 Thomas's, and Anno Bon. The first of this group 
 of isles is of far greater size than the others, and 
 is, moreover, the one chiefly visited by the home- 
 ward and outward bound merchant vessels that 
 trade to this portion of the coast of Western 
 Africa. 
 
 Fernando Po was discovered towards the close of 
 the fifteenth century, by a Portuguese adventurer, 
 Fernando del Po, in one of his expeditions to the 
 southern coasts of the African continent. The 
 remarkable grandeur and luxuriance of its wooded 
 declivities, with the precipitous ravines and deep 
 picturesque gorges, embellished by that magni- 
 ficent forest vegetation alone found within the 
 tropics, surmounted by dark and towering peaks, 
 led him to bestow upon it the appropriate title of 
 
 K 2 
 
132 THE ISLAND OF FERNANDO PO. 
 
 Ilha Formosa, or the beautiful isle. In the course, 
 however, of the succeeding century, in order to 
 distinguish it more conspicuously from the other 
 islands in its vicinity (which, from their beauty and 
 similarity of scenery, might equally merit the appli- 
 cation of the preceding designation), the name of 
 its enterprising discoverer was conferred upon it ; 
 a title that it now retains, and by which it is gene- 
 rally known. 
 
 This island is of an oblong quadrilateral form, 
 about thirty-five miles in length, and from fifteen 
 to seventeen in breadth. It is situated a short 
 distance from the continent, Cape Horatio its 
 northern extremity being only nineteen miles from 
 the opposite bay of Amboises. 
 
 Basaltic scoriae, in different stages of decompo- 
 sition, with aluminous and other stratified conglo- 
 merates, intimately blended with and based on 
 brecchiae of pebbles, ashes, and other substances, 
 the results of igneous action, fully determine the 
 geological features of Fernando Po, and attest its 
 volcanic origin ; while the recent exploration of 
 Clarence Peak, in confirmation of the correctness 
 of these views of its physical formation, has been 
 satisfactorily proved to be an extinct crater of 
 considerable magnitude. Throughout the isle, the 
 land in general rises somewhat abruptly from the 
 sea, exposing to the eye faces of basaltic and other 
 rocks embedded in the soft friable masses of scoriae, 
 the crevices of which are frequently filled up by 
 tufts of plants and by brushwood. In other places, 
 
THE ISLAND OF FERNANDO PO. 133 
 
 where the declination of the land is of a less pre- 
 cipitous character, and becomes more easy in its 
 descent, beaches of fine black sand, with huge 
 rounded fragments dislocated from the circum- 
 jacent cliffs, are found at their base, the acclivities 
 surmounting which are uniformly concealed by 
 a dense underwood of shrubs and young trees. 
 On the inferior slopes, these volcanic vestiges are 
 covered with a superficial crust of dark red clay, 
 mixed with the loam of decayed vegetation, which, 
 being clothed with extensive woods of bombax, 
 palm, redwood, and other trees of gigantic dimen- 
 sions, presents a very imposing and beautiful effect. 
 Like all mountainous regions in equatorial Africa, 
 the upper plateaux and heights are diversified by the 
 mingled links of a varied vegetation, which, partly 
 corresponding with the woody productions of a 
 more temperate clime, and partly with those found 
 on the lower or maritime districts of the island, are 
 of a less exuberant growth, and do not assume 
 that gorgeous richness so peculiar to African land- 
 scapes within the tropics. Adjoining the limits of 
 these woods, the ground is conjointly strewed by a 
 thick jungle of dwarf bushes and trees, inter- 
 sprinkled with occasional specimens of the abo- 
 rescent fern ( Filix arbor ea). Beyond this a verdant 
 sward of grass ascends within a short distance 
 from the more lofty peaks, and is selected by game, 
 numerous herds of deer, and wild buffaloes, as 
 their ordinary pasturage. In the dry months, the 
 natives set fire to the long withered stems, in order 
 
134 THE ISLAND. OF FERNANDO PO. 
 
 to drive these animals into their power, and it is 
 possible that from this circumstance the report has 
 originated of the volcanic eruptions of flame, said 
 to have been noticed on the summit of the moun- 
 tain. The distant range of highlands, as they rise 
 from the flat and undulating terraces that consti- 
 tute the extreme periphery of the island, propor- 
 tionately increase in altitude, and finally converge 
 into two terminal peaks, joined by a continuous 
 ridge some miles in extent. The highest of them, 
 called Clarence Peak, is almost constantly enve- 
 loped in fleecy clouds. 
 
 This peak was first ascended by Mr. Becroft, in 
 1843, when the crater appeared to have been of a 
 very ancient date, and was composed of pulveru- 
 lent lava, around which existed a circular space 
 destitute of any vegetation. In altitude it is 
 10,160 feet above the level of the ocean, and, in 
 the fine clear mornings of the rainy season, may be 
 observed from the towns of Old Callebar, a dis- 
 tance beyond one hundred miles. 
 
 The aborigines of Fernando Po are designated 
 Adeeyahs, but they are better known under the 
 term " Boobie," a word which signifies in their 
 native language a stranger, and seems to have 
 been applied by them to Europeans, from their 
 friendly salutations of " Cow-way Boobie"* when 
 meeting together. These inhabitants, in develope- 
 ment of form, possess several physical traits that 
 contribute to sever them from those natives popu- 
 
 * How do you do, stranger. 
 
THE ISLAND OF FERNANDO PO. 135 
 
 lating the alluvial lowlands of the Delta. Traces, 
 however, of that structural affinity which embodies 
 the majority of the negro races into one family, are 
 equally perceptible, although less prominently 
 marked, in those organic points which more closely 
 ally the multitudinous tribes in this part of 
 Western Africa. In corporeal mould, these people 
 are well and firmly made, of a pliant and muscular 
 rotundity, in stature slightly above the average 
 negro standard (those of Camaroons excepted), 
 and, from their active and regular mode of life, 
 are of a vigorous and hardy constitution. Obesity 
 of figure, so much esteemed by their neighbours of 
 the opposite coast as one of the perfections of a 
 manly organization, and so ardently coveted by the 
 females as the ne plus ultra of their beauty, is not 
 appreciated among them in the same favourable light. 
 A moderate fulness in contour, with a disposition 
 to a compact wiriness of the trunk and limbs, may 
 be said to constitute their physical exterior. The 
 cranium, in its outline, partakes of the usual negro 
 conformation, with compressed lateral parietes, re- 
 tiring forehead, and woolly hair. The face, although 
 somewhat disfigured by their national tokens, viz., 
 three or four large cicatriced incisions, extending 
 obliquely from the zygomatic arch to the angle of 
 the mouth, is somewhat prepossessing, and, in many 
 instances, resembles those of Europeans. The fea- 
 tures, from their attenuation and regularity, are 
 less heavy and unmeaning, while the chin and 
 lower facial outline partially lose that harsh, angular 
 
136 THE ISLAND OF FERNANDO PO. 
 
 prolongation so predominant in African commu- 
 nities elsewhere. Their skin, of a brownish black, 
 is frequently daubed over with a yellow ochre and 
 red clayey pigment, the latter of which they like- 
 wise incorporate with their hair in transverse bands 
 and long pendent jets. With the exception of a 
 few tufts of dried grass suspended over the pubic 
 region, both sexes are publicly seen in a complete 
 state of nudity, most of them being decorated with 
 broken shells, the vertebrae of snakes, and other 
 rude ornaments of savage life. The inhabitants of 
 this isle, from their secluded and scattered villages, 
 are rarely seen in sufficient numbers to furnish any 
 statistical information ; and it is, therefore, from 
 the absence of these necessary details, difficult 
 to arrive at any precise conclusion in respect 
 to the total population. They have been computed, 
 at different periods, to vary from seven to ten thou- 
 sand. Within the last few years there has been a 
 progressive increase, and their numbers now would 
 fall little short of twelve thousand. They are not 
 amenable to any fixed government, being sub- 
 divided into a series of petty tribes, each of which 
 is placed under the jurisdiction of its own inde- 
 pendent chief, or koklerakoo, whose power, though 
 unrestricted, is not so arbitrary as the monarchial 
 despotisms of the continental chiefs. 
 
 The Boobies are a quiet, inoffensive, and un- 
 assuming race, tolerably shrewd and intelligent, 
 very kind and affable to white visitors, and fully as 
 warlike and turbulent among themselves, as evinced 
 
THE ISLAND OF FERNANDO PO. 137 
 
 by their frequent fierce intestine wars. Differing 
 in several respects, not only in language, manners, 
 and mode of life, from other African nations 
 situated near them, they are still, however, tinc- 
 tured with their superstitious fears and prejudices, 
 adhering, but in a milder degree, to their barbarous 
 laws and debasing customs. 
 
 The Boobie towns are chiefly built on the 
 denuded crests of the midland slopes, and gene- 
 rally consist of from fifteen to twenty habitations, 
 which may be considered as mere sheds. Adjoin- 
 ing them are inclosures for the preservation of 
 sheep, poultry, goats, &c., of which they rear 
 moderate quantities for sale. Surrounding these 
 villages are plantations of yams, cassada, palm and 
 plaintain trees, and other clearances set apart for 
 future cultivation. Of late years the requisitions 
 of homeward-bound vessels have enhanced the value 
 of stock and other provisions ; and, from the supply 
 being inadequate to meet the pressing demands, 
 the prices have consequently much advanced. 
 
 The diseases incidental to the natives are com- 
 paratively limited, both in number and variety ; 
 they usually manifest less of that adynamic type 
 which invests nearly two-thirds of the endemic 
 affection of the swampy lowlands. The elevated 
 sites of their towns, located in a salubrious climate, 
 with an immunity and freedom from the moist 
 and sultry atmosphere of the districts below, aided 
 by an invigorating diet, and the salutary exer- 
 cise derived from their hunting excursions, secure 
 
138 THE ISLAND OF FERNANDO PO. 
 
 them from the common, loathsome, and inveterate 
 forms of cutaneous suffering, and give to other 
 morbid deviations from health more of an inflam- 
 matory character. Owing to their exposure to 
 the inclemencies of the weather, they are greatly 
 affected with rheumatic and other erratic pains, 
 whose attacks maybe readily traced, with bronchitis 
 and other pulmonary disorders, to the same promi- 
 nent causes. In accordance with their social cus- 
 toms, and in proportion to the preponderance of 
 females in each sept, a plurality of wives are per- 
 mitted. Women here, as in other regions of tropi- 
 cal Africa, are not very fruitful in child-bearing. 
 Syphilis, and its chronic sequences, are reported to 
 prevail among them on a scale of proportionate 
 severity. Two or three cases of Urethritis, at- 
 tended by a purulent discharge, have come under 
 my observation ; and it is not unlikely that these, 
 and other depraved conditions of the genito-urinary 
 organs, are of such frequent occurrence, as to be 
 readily confounded with Gonnorrhoea. Circumcision 
 in the male, and its corresponding operation in the 
 female, viz., excision of the nympha3 and clitoris, 
 so far as I can understand, are not specially incul- 
 cated or practised. Ulcers of the lower extremities, 
 almost habitual to the people inhabiting that im- 
 mense belt of forest jungle extending from the Rio 
 Formosa to the Rio del Rey, are also prevalent in 
 the Boobie towns, but under a more benignant 
 aspect, being rather simple indolent sores than the 
 foul and destructive phlagedenic ulcer of syphilitic 
 
THE ISLAND OF FERNANDO PO. 139 
 
 taint. Young plaintain, or other tender leaves, 
 besmeared with palm oil, and kept on the ulcerated 
 surfaces by grass withes, encircling the limb, are 
 the only curative means their intellectual resources 
 could invent. The marks of numerous superficial 
 scarifications for the abstraction of blood, may be 
 distinguished on different parts of the body; and 
 this method for the removal of inflammatory pains 
 from the integument, or deeper seated textures, is 
 one universally of African suggestion. A rude 
 and singular process of venesection is had recourse 
 to in diseases of more serious import; it is per- 
 formed by making a vertical incision on both sides 
 of the vein, which is then raised on the point of a 
 spear and divided transversely. In amputation of 
 the hands, a cruel penal sentence summarily in- 
 flicted on all women guilty of conjugal infidelity, 
 the bleeding is restrained by the application of a 
 heated piece of iron, or dipping the stumps in 
 boiling oil, the resulting eschar, when separating, 
 not being followed by any ill effects or further 
 haemorrhage. Females thus mutilated may be 
 seen daily wandering about the streets of Clarence. 
 In the preceding cursory remarks, I have endea- 
 voured to convey a general topographical view of 
 this isle. I shall now proceed first to furnish a 
 more detailed description of the localities visited 
 by Europeans, and then enter into an examination 
 of the vague and unscrupulous reports so assi- 
 duously adduced in support of the insalubrity of 
 its climate 
 
140 THE ISLAND OF FERNANDO PO. 
 
 Between two and three hundred years had inter- 
 vened, subsequent to the discovery of Fernando 
 Po, before an attempt was made towards its colo- 
 nization. The Portuguese, in consideration of the 
 cession of Ascension, yielded up the sovereignty 
 of this island into the hands of the Spaniards, who 
 forthwith commenced the establishment of a colony 
 in Melville Bay, about the year 1780. In conse- 
 quence of the growing competition of other nations 
 already engaged in the slave trade, at that period 
 fully legalised and in the height of its prosperity, 
 it was discovered that their success would be much 
 facilitated by a central depot, placed at a moderate 
 distance from the embouchures of those rivers from 
 whence the exportation was carried on ; accord- 
 ingly a site on its western shore was determined 
 on (Melville Bay), and the erection of a fort rapidly 
 completed. The new settlement, however, after 
 some years' trial, did not prosper. Whether the 
 oppressive policy or coercive measures of their 
 governors, for the subjugation of the natives, had 
 aroused their hostility, and converted them into 
 enemies, and thus compelling them to quit the 
 place, it is not easy to ascertain. In all proba- 
 bility, the failure of their commercial speculations, 
 with the seizure and deportation of those abori- 
 gines who fell into their hands, was the real cause 
 of their enmity, an enmity which has undisguisedly 
 descended even to the present day. 
 
 On account of the enormous sacrifice of life at 
 Sierra Leone, the British government, instigated 
 
THE ISLAND OF FERNANDO PO. 141 
 
 by the favourable representations of the local eligi- 
 bility and salubrity of Fernando Po for the sup- 
 pression of the traffic in slaves within the Bights, 
 resolved to occupy one of the many lowland tracts 
 so available for a mercantile communication with 
 the opposite continent. With this intention, Cap- 
 tain W. Owen was despatched in his Majesty's ship 
 Eden, with instructions to survey a spot suitable 
 for the foundation of a colony, and in October, 
 1827, this vessel arrived in Maidstone Bay with a 
 cargo of emigrant artificers, provisions, &c., from 
 Sierra Leone. Point William, a bold and signifi- 
 cant promontory, with the circumjacent district, 
 was formally selected and taken possession of, its 
 underwood and superabundant forest timber being 
 cleared away, without any opposition on the part 
 of the natives, with whom several amicable treaties 
 were effected. The name of Clarence was then 
 bestowed upon it, in honour of his late Majesty, 
 William IV. 
 
 From the progressive influx of settlers, the new 
 town eventually increased both in magnitude and 
 population, and soon became sufficiently flourishing 
 under the judicious control of Colonel Nicholls, 
 the previous commandant of Ascension Island, who 
 had been sent as governor with a detachment of 
 marines to garrison the place. 
 
 In the meanwhile, nothing could exceed the sur- 
 prise, consternation, and jealous fears of the other 
 African colonies, at the contemplated transference 
 of the various official courts of business to their 
 
142 THE ISLAND OF FERNANDO PO. 
 
 rising rival, and every effort that ingenuity could 
 devise, or misrepresentation produce, was brought 
 forward to avert the consummation of such a 
 calamitous event. Exaggerated and highly colored 
 statements were secretly circulated concerning the 
 extreme unhealthiness of the island, and particu- 
 larly directed against the town of Clarence. 
 
 Keport after report was industriously circulated 
 by individuals who had never seen the island, the 
 style of which was eminently calculated to foster 
 intimidation, and engender those gloomy feelings of 
 dislike and dread that might lead to the utterance 
 of opinions detrimental to its future permanency. 
 Slight and trivial ulcerations were magnified into 
 phlagedenic abscesses of the worst character, and 
 simple remittents and intermittents into fevers of 
 the lowest asthenic type. To recover from their 
 attacks was unquestionably beyond the reach of 
 science or human aid ! These promulgations had 
 the wished for success ; the admiral of the 
 station paid a transitory visit to the town, and 
 immediately after his departure a condemnatory 
 report emanated from him, not only against it, but 
 the whole island. This proved its coup de grace, 
 the opposition interests having achieved the vic- 
 tory, and Clarence was relinquished to those 
 inhabitants who were willing to remain in it, the 
 governor, officers, and garrison being withdrawn. 
 The West African Company purchased the military 
 buildings, storehouses, and other effects, and ap- 
 pointed Mr. Becroft their agent and superintendent. 
 
THE ISLAND OF FERNANDO PO. 143 
 
 Notwithstanding the loss of government patronage, 
 the town continued to improve, and promised fair 
 to augment in wealth and commerce. Unfortu- 
 nately Mr. Becroft was recalled, and several agents 
 successively filled his post, whose impolitic and 
 vacillating measures became so thoroughly un- 
 popular, as to forebode the worst results for the 
 welfare of the colony. In 1842, the company sold 
 their vested rights and privileges to the Baptist 
 Missionary Society, by whom a numerous body of 
 white and colored teachers were transmitted to 
 inhabit their official residences. Their arrival, so 
 far, has induced no beneficial change ; the ravages 
 of neglect and decay, that too palpably indicate 
 the fallen condition of this once flourishing settle- 
 ment, still remain unchecked. In 1843, a Spanish 
 man-of-war entered the harbour of Clarence, and 
 on the 27th of February hoisted her colours, and 
 resumed the dominion of the island on behalf of 
 the crown of Spain, reinstating Mr. Becroft as 
 sole governor and commandant, under whose 
 authority it now continues. 
 
 Maidstone Bay comprehends that intermediate 
 line of coast between Cape Bullen, to the westward, 
 and Port William, on the north-west. It is shallow, 
 with a regular gradation of soundings, commencing 
 at twenty -four fathoms, and, from its smooth waters 
 and sheltered position, affords a secure anchorage 
 to ships of any tonnage. Although it is not beyond 
 four or five miles in width, Port William is a re- 
 markably long and narrow promontory, running 
 
144 THE ISLAND OF FERNANDO PO. 
 
 out for some distance seaward, half a mile to the 
 south-west of which is another and slighter exten- 
 sion of the shore, called Adelaide Point. Enclosed 
 by these two projections is a semilunar indentation 
 of the land, known as Clarence Cove. In close 
 proximity to the latter point are two detached 
 rocks, thinly sprinkled with vegetation, and con- 
 nected by a reef; they are also denominated Ade- 
 laide Islets. A strong and useful wharf formerly 
 stood in the centre of the Cove, and constituted 
 the landing place to the town ; it has now partially 
 disappeared, and the black sandy beach on either 
 side of it answers the purpose. Some ruinous 
 sheds and storehouses, once the property of the 
 defunct African Company, lie around it; and to 
 the left of them, on the strand, is a cleared space, 
 on which the trading canoes of the natives are 
 drawn up. 
 
 The road leading to the town obliquely winds 
 to the summit of the almost perpendicular decli- 
 vities, near one hundred feet in height, the ascent 
 of which, from their steepness, is extremely incon- 
 venient. Commanding a prospect of the bay is a 
 range of seven or eight substantial and well-built 
 houses, whose snow-like exteriors may be discerned 
 many leagues distant ; these edifices are built 
 within a dozen yards of the cliff, a commodious 
 and neatly constructed road, fringed by the Cactus 
 Opuntia, or prickly pear, passing in front of them. 
 They are now inhabited by the Missionaries and 
 more opulent colonists. Paradise, Government, and 
 
THE ISLAND OF FERNANDO PO. 145 
 
 Longfield houses (the latter recently pulled down) 
 were erected at the expense of the British crown, 
 and originally formed the residences of the execu- 
 tive and commissariat officers. Attached to Govern- 
 ment House is an extensive but negligently culti- 
 vated garden, in which orange, lime, soursop, 
 coffee trees, and various esculent vegetables grow 
 in profusion. 
 
 Midway on Point William is the building that 
 once was reserved for the hospital of the settlement 
 and the sickly crews of vessels, but now ignobly 
 desecrated by mercenary uses wholly in opposition 
 to the humane intentions of its founders. Though 
 of restricted dimensions and somewhat inefficient 
 in its internal economy, its healthy and congenial 
 site, isolated from the town with its loitering in- 
 habitants, somewhat partially redeem these defi- 
 ciencies. Its position is tolerably well chosen for 
 the requisite ventilation by its exposure to the full 
 sweep of an invigorating sea breeze, whose de- 
 lightful and salutary coolness, in combination with 
 the lulling sound of the surf beneath, and the 
 beautiful mountain scenery around, contribute to 
 produce a good effect on the languid patient, and 
 assist in the removal of that despondency and 
 depressing langour which exerts such a baneful 
 influence on the frames of fever-worn seamen 
 and others. 
 
 In the vicinage of the hospital may be traced 
 the ruins of the magazine (built of stone), black- 
 smith's shop, and other buildings ; and further to 
 
 L 
 
146 THE ISLAND OF FERNANDO PO. 
 
 the northward may be seen a small monumental 
 obelisk, with an appropriate inscription recording 
 the melancholy fate of those persons who perished 
 in the ill-fated Niger expedition. 
 
 The town of Clarence is erected on a clear and 
 level area, gently declining as it approaches the 
 base of the chain of woodland hills that skirt it on 
 the west. It is located in latitude 3 45' north, and 
 longitude 8 47' east. Its geological conditions 
 are in all respects conformable to those of the 
 strata of the sea cliffs, and are of the same eleva- 
 tion. The plan of the town is that of a square, 
 whose longest diameter exceeds three quarters of 
 a mile, from the lateral prolongation of the houses 
 at irregular intervals. Two or three principal 
 avenues pass from one common thoroughfare on 
 the verge of the beach, and are intersected at right 
 angles by a number of lesser streets, all of which 
 are uniformly wide and spacious, but disgustingly 
 dirty. The native dwellings, composed of pieces 
 of wood roughly fashioned and put together, and 
 roofed either with shingles or palm-leaf mats, 
 seldom rise above one story in elevation, except in 
 a few instances, such as those of the more respecta- 
 ble inhabitants and the government edifices pre- 
 viously alluded to. They occupy in picturesque 
 arrangement both sides of the street, the majority 
 of them being whitewashed externally, which gives 
 the whole an air of neatness and comfort. At- 
 tached to each is a small garden of fruit trees and 
 plants, enclosed by fences of the Jatropha Curcas 
 
THE ISLAND OF FERNANDO PO. 147 
 
 and other shrubs, the bright glossy verdure of 
 which confers a pleasing and homely charm on the 
 tout ensemble of the place. The greater portion of 
 these habitations, however, are falling into a state 
 of decay, and present a very dilapidated aspect, 
 while from indifference and a natural indolency, 
 their occupants have suffered a rank vegetation 
 to pervade their gardens and even the public 
 thoroughfares. 
 
 To the southward of the town, half concealed 
 by thickets and dense masses of foliage, is the 
 burial ground of the colony. In it lie interred the 
 remains of Richard Lander, Captain Bird Allen, 
 R.N., Dr. Vogel, the celebrated botanist, and 
 others, whose graves with those of the inhabitants 
 are overspread by a luxuriant carpet of grass and 
 weeds. R. Lander was attacked by the people of 
 Hyammah, in conjunction with the crews of some 
 Bonny canoes, when proceeding on a trading mis- 
 sion up the Quorra in an open boat. A wound 
 received in the skirmish by a musket shot of cop- 
 per, that penetrated the glutei muscles, soon 
 occasioned gangrene, which, from inattention and 
 the want of medical aid, rapidly proved fatal, and 
 he expired in Clarence shortly after his arrival, in 
 the prime of life. 
 
 Apart from the perils and difficulties that beset 
 his path in the exploration of the maritime regions 
 of equinoctial Africa, the inexperienced European 
 has to contend against far more deadly enemies 
 in the deleterious nature of those influences pecu- 
 
 L 2 
 
148 THE ISLAND OF FERNANDO PO. 
 
 liar to the clime and country which he visits ; and 
 I may remark, in this place, that an estimate may 
 be formed of the mortality from the fact, that out of 
 near forty travellers in Africa, no less than two- 
 thirds have fallen a sacrifice either by disease or 
 the treacherous hostility of the natives. Among 
 those who have perished in the Bights and the 
 central countries in communication with them, 
 may be enumerated Mungo Park, killed at Boossa ; 
 Clapperton, who expired at Sakkatoo ; Nicholls, in 
 Old Callebar; Belzoni, Agatto; Lander, Clarence; 
 Coulthurst, Old Callebar, &c., all of whom, with 
 the exceptions of Park and Lander, died from 
 endemic maladies. 
 
 Behind the cemetery is Hay Brook, a rivulet of 
 fresh water, highly extolled by the inhabitants for 
 its excellent qualities, particularly for the cleans- 
 ing of clothes and other domestic uses. On the 
 western outskirts of the town is a congregation of 
 mud hovels termed Kru-town from a number of 
 stray Kru-men making it their temporary home. 
 From this suburb a road to the left leads through 
 the woods to Cockburn Cove, a mile distant, into 
 which a small running stream (Cockburn Brook) 
 empties itself. 
 
 The population of Clarence varies from eight 
 hundred to one thousand, and the houses, including 
 those in the course of erection, amounts to one 
 hundred and eighty. The negro inhabitants are 
 an admixture of most of the races of Western 
 Africa, and include those of Haussa, Dahomy, 
 
THE ISLAND OF FERNANDO PO. 149 
 
 Popo, Gold Coast, Old Callebar, Ebo, Benin, Cam- 
 meroons, Sierra Leone, Congo, Bornou, Yarruba, 
 Bainbarra, Adj-jah, Gaboon, &c. With them are 
 amalgamated a few whites and a semi-coloured 
 offspring of a blended parentage. 
 
 Exclusive of the vegetable products ordinarily 
 cultivated by the natives of the continental districts, 
 there are also others found in Clarence, such as 
 tomatoes, cabbages, ginger, African plums, tama- 
 rinds, eschalots, indigo, papaws, arrow-root, sweet- 
 sops, soursops, cotton, kola nuts, and a large red 
 pepper of a fine flavor. The yam is abundantly 
 grown in the fertile plantations of the Boobies, and 
 constitutes their principal article of diet. It differs 
 in several respects from the Ebo and other conti- 
 nental species, surpassing them in delicacy and in 
 a nutritious, mealy farina, being divested of that dry 
 and woody fibre so common to the other varieties. 
 These yams are deservedly esteemed as the best 
 of their kind in Western Africa. Their agreeable 
 and healthy qualities may allow them precedence 
 beyond most edibles that are placed on the Euro- 
 pean's table; their daily use, therefore, can be 
 conscientiously recommended to all unseasoned 
 visitors, as much for their beneficial effects on the 
 system as one of those dietetic prophylactics on 
 which he must chiefly rely for the maintenance 
 of his health. The populations of most countries 
 where it abounds value it as an indispensable ne- 
 cessary of life, and gratefully celebrate the maturity 
 of its growth by a round of feasts and religious 
 ceremonies. 
 
150 THE ISLAND OF FERNANDO PO. 
 
 Plaintains, bananas, pine apples, oranges, limes, 
 and other esculent fruits, may likewise be pro- 
 cured by paying an inordinate price for them. 
 Yams have become more scarce since the importa- 
 tion of some fresh settlers from the West Indies, 
 and can now only be purchased at the rate of 
 three dollars per hundred. 
 
 Strange as it may appear, the cocoa-nut tree, of 
 such universal prevalence in the Delta, is not indi- 
 genous to the isle, nor is there any record of its 
 existence in any of the upland districts, although 
 the oil and wine palms flourish there in profusion. 
 Six or eight years since, two young shoots were 
 planted, one at Clarence, the other on Cape Bullen, 
 and the masters of the Bonny vessels introduced 
 and planted the nuts of several in Goat Island, 
 which now thrive remarkably well. Sheep, goats, 
 poultry, &c., might be on the eve of extinction at 
 Clarence, judging by the price affixed to them. 
 Fish, however, may be caught in any quantity 
 along the coast with a seine, particularly in the 
 lesser bays, in the sequestered and sandy nooks of 
 which the green turtles (Testudo My das") deposit 
 their eggs during the earlier months of the dry 
 seasons. These turtle are of an immense size, and 
 afford to the debilitated invalid a wholesome repast 
 in the way of fresh food. Their haunts, when once 
 discovered, render them of easy capture. Deer, 
 monkeys, game of various descriptions, &c., may be 
 shot in the interior jungles. Numberless little rills 
 flow from the higher mountain steeps, and unite in 
 their passage through the wooded vales, swelling 
 
THE ISLAND OF FERNANDO PO. 151 
 
 into larger streams, which again conjoining into 
 moderate sized brooks, rapidly descend over the 
 broken undulations of the lowlands, and disem- 
 bogue themselves through outlets seldom difficult 
 of access. Thus fresh water may be easily ob- 
 tained, the sole trouble and expense being its con- 
 veyance on shipboard. At the landing place of 
 Clarence, an iron tank, continually filled from a 
 natural spring, supplies the shipping that touch 
 there, and the mouths of Hay and Horton brooks 
 in Goderich Bay, to the right of Point William, 
 yield equal facilities for watering. The trade of 
 the island is centered at Clarence, and is as yet in 
 its infancy. The purchase of palm oil, ivory, and 
 stock at Bimbia and Camaroons, embrace their 
 chief commercial transactions. 
 
 From Cape Bullen to St. George's, or West Bay, 
 the coast extends to the northwest to the distance 
 of thirty miles, precipitous basaltic rocks restrict- 
 ing the boundaries of the land. Indented at inter- 
 vals are various secluded bays or coves, surrounded 
 by brushwood and forest timber of colossal pro- 
 portions. In most of them, where they form the 
 terminations of the larger ravines, fresh water 
 rivulets exist, which, passing over the rocks, have 
 all the coolness and purity of those belonging to a 
 more temperate clime. Adjacent to the eastern 
 point of West Bay are two small islets named 
 Goat and Kid Islands, or rather isolated rocks 
 detached from the mainland, the superficial soil of 
 which nourishes a few cocoa-nut trees, first planted 
 
152 THE ISLAND OF FERNANDO PO. 
 
 by some English traders, as I have previously 
 mentioned. 
 
 Perhaps among the picturesque and diversified 
 landscapes that occasionally appear on the African 
 coast, none can be found to vie in luxuriance or 
 natural beauty with the picture which this bay 
 presents to the eye of the stranger. Rising majes- 
 tically several thousand feet above the level of the 
 ocean, and soaring far beyond the masses of clouds 
 that cling to its wood-girt summits, the dark and 
 sombre mountain peaks of the isle stand pre-emi- 
 nently forth in bold relief against the lighter sky, 
 the rich and magnificent forest vegetation which 
 decorates its slopes, teeming with an endless variety 
 of foliage of all tints and hues, from the red and 
 russet drapery of sere autumn's reign, to the 
 gay and lovely verdure of more joyous spring, 
 exciting a thousand confused sensations of plea- 
 sure, admiration, and delight. The sickly and 
 wearied invalid, half tired of life, contemplates with 
 surprise and delight this beautiful panorama, and 
 as he pauses, in doubtful mood, a host of pent-up 
 emotions gush forth hope, joy, and a renewed 
 life, with visions of a cheerful and happy home, 
 arise and animate him with brighter prospects for 
 the future. 
 
 A great diversity of opinion exists at the present 
 moment respecting the salubrity of Fernando Po, 
 owing to the conflicting statements of medical 
 officers and others who have visited or resided for 
 brief intervals on different districts of the island. 
 
THE ISLAND OF FERNANDO PO. 153 
 
 A dispassionate examination, however, into the 
 merits of these reports will fully disclose the mea- 
 gre data and partial information upon which the 
 majority of them are based, and, at the same time, 
 expose the exclusive tendency of their views, obvi- 
 ously in several, the result of very superficial 
 knowledge and cursory experience. The hasty 
 generalization of a few isolated facts, unsupported 
 by the authority of consecutive records, or the con- 
 firmatory proofs of subsequent investigation, can 
 never be relied on as affording a decisive estimate 
 of the character or prospects of any comparatively 
 unknown country, nor ought such to be adduced 
 as a consistent exposition of the real circumstances 
 of the case. A palpable error, and one that has 
 hitherto been unhesitatingly followed, is that which 
 ascribes the apparent unhealthiness of one particu- 
 lar locality as applicable to the whole island. 
 Probably, therefore, among the principal causes 
 which have produced an unfavourable opinion of 
 the town of Clarence, was its near propinquity to 
 the main land, and from this circumstance alone, it 
 would seem that in several instances the inexpe- 
 rienced visitor has been betrayed into the belief that 
 the place was subject to the same noxious influ- 
 ences and adynamic diseases that were prevalent 
 in the fenny lowlands of the opposite continent. 
 Many considerations, however, tend to prove that 
 the site of this colony was not the most eligible 
 that might have been chosen, if salubrity or the 
 health of the European settlers had been the 
 
154 THE ISLAND OF FERNANDO PO. 
 
 primary object in view; and very little doubt 
 therefore remains, that its selection was guided 
 more from the commanding position which it occu- 
 pied; a position that, combining various facilities 
 as a port, would either serve for the progressive 
 establishment of a commercial intercourse with the 
 natives of the adjacent coast, or as an advantageous 
 station and depot for the naval cruisers, in which 
 they might refit or watch the estuaries of those 
 rivers where the contraband traffic in slaves was 
 then carried on. Again, another prominent event, 
 which to the more timid furnished an apparent but 
 illusory proof in support of the validity of these 
 conclusions, was the fearful severity of that fatal 
 epidemic introduced on the isle by H.M.S. Eden 
 and Champion in 1829, from Sierra Leone. 
 
 In order to place in a more conspicuous point of 
 view the peculiar effects of the climatorial influ- 
 ences of Fernando Po, it will be advisable to briefly 
 study their action on the European constitution 
 under a two-fold aspect, viz. : 
 
 1. In the unacclimated, or those Europeans who 
 
 have riot on any previous occasion resided 
 on any part of the west coast of equatorial 
 Africa. 
 
 2. In the acclimated, or those who have been sub- 
 
 jected to the diseases of this or other portions 
 of the African continent. 
 
 1. It must be borne in mind that the preceding 
 remarks are not intended to inculcate the impres- 
 sion that the lower districts of this island are so 
 
THE ISLAND OF FERNANDO PO. 155 
 
 salubrious as to be altogether exempt from that 
 particular class of febrile and other similar morbid 
 affections endemic to other insular localities, nor yet 
 to suggest the view of their immunity from those 
 diseases which, although comparatively trivial in 
 their nature, nevertheless occasionally partake 
 somewhat of an epidemic character, and are more 
 or less common at different seasons of the year. 
 A wide distinction, however, must be drawn be- 
 tween these and the more fatal maladies of the 
 adjacent continent. It would appear to be almost 
 an inevitable law in these regions of Western 
 Africa, that no individual, under whatever circum- 
 stance he may have been brought up, or for what- 
 ever length of time he may have been stationed in 
 other tropical countries fully as unhealthy, can 
 claim any exemption from the attacks of the various 
 local and other climatic fevers of this equatorial 
 division. The endemic remittent, or, as they 
 are often improperly denominated, the seasoning 
 fevers of Fernando Po, are much milder in their 
 invasion, less dangerous in their career, and are 
 rarely if ever of that pestilent or insidious asthenic 
 type, which in the debilitated or broken up consti- 
 tutions of seamen and others always forebodes the 
 worst results. When judiciously treated in their 
 earlier stages, the subsequent prostration of both 
 mind and body is not so great, the disease becom- 
 ing more tractable under the administration of 
 the ordinary febrifuge medicines ; and the medical 
 officer, in general, will experience but little difficulty 
 
156 THE ISLAND OF FERNANDO PO. 
 
 in bringing his patient safely through the ordeal of 
 this long dreaded and punitory process. 
 
 2. Another fallacious argument which has been 
 brought forward in evidence of the insalubrity of 
 Fernando Po, is the fact that several of the seamen 
 of vessels who have occasionally touched at the 
 island, have been prostrated and cut off by fever or 
 dysentery within a brief period after their arrival 
 at one of the anchorages. 
 
 These febrile outbreaks are, however, not of 
 such frequency as might be supposed, considering 
 the statements which have from time to time been 
 bruited forth referring to their occurrence. Doubt- 
 less the problem of their visitation may be satis- 
 factorily solved by a rational explanation of a 
 similar series of events which have casually come 
 under my cognizance during a residence at Clarence 
 in the rainy season. Europeans composing the 
 crews of men of war and merchant vessels who 
 are constantly exposed to the predominant influ- 
 ences of an African climate, either in proximity 
 to the shores or within the estuaries of rivers, 
 are not always susceptible to the deleterious 
 effects of malaria that emanate therefrom, nor do 
 they invariably suffer from the immediate attacks of 
 fever, as might be naturally expected would be the 
 result of a prolonged existence within their sphere. 
 In numerous instances, individuals have been known 
 to enjoy excellent health for a considerable period 
 after the imbibition of the morbific germs, owing 
 to a certain aptitude or adaptation of their consti- 
 
THE ISLAND OF FERNANDO PO. 157 
 
 tution to the ordinary climatorial agencies of the 
 locality. In these cases, the slow developement of 
 the germs, and their non-arrival at the proper stage 
 of maturity, may be ascribed to that state of dor- 
 mancy or quiescence which originates from the ab- 
 sence of the true exciting cause. In support of these 
 views, I shall adduce the following illustration : 
 Towards the close of the month of June, 1841, 
 a large ship, to which I was then attached, having 
 a complement of forty white men, passed from the 
 Old Callebar river to Fernando Po to procure the 
 necessary supplies of fresh water and provisions 
 prior to the homeward voyage. During the period 
 of seven months in which the crew were engaged 
 in loading the vessel at the usual anchorage of the 
 town, they suffered but slightly from the endemic 
 diseases of the place. Some weeks, however, pre- 
 vious to their departure, in consequence of the 
 temporary roof which protected the vessel having 
 been removed, the sailors were exposed to the 
 heavy rains, particularly for the few days they 
 were occupied in navigating the vessel over the 
 different bars of the river; all, however, were in 
 the enjoyment of good health when they entered 
 the port of Clarence. Forty-eight hours had barely 
 elapsed from their arrival, when several of the 
 men began to complain of the premonitory symp- 
 toms of fever, and before a week had passed over, 
 the majority were prostrated by severe remittents, 
 from which many were with difficulty recovered. 
 It will be manifest that in these cases the exposure 
 
158 THE ISLAND OF FERNANDO PO. 
 
 to the rains, previously to their arrival in Fernando 
 Po, were the predisposing sources, while the tran- 
 sition from a humid and sultry atmosphere, to a 
 climate with a temperature comparatively low, 
 were the real exciting causes of the disease. 
 
 Among those writers who have directed their ani- 
 madversions upon the insalubrity of Fernando Po, 
 Mr. Boyle may be cited as the principal authority, 
 to show what degree of faith is to be placed on the 
 accuracy and value of official reports drawn up 
 from perverted views and the ex-parte assertions of 
 others. It is a curious fact that this officer, who 
 was colonial surgeon of Sierra Leone, never once 
 visited or resided on this island, and who, in place 
 of investigating the truth or soundness of these 
 reports, appears to have coolly set the affair at 
 rest, by implicitly relying on the various cogent 
 reasons and other laudable motives which influ- 
 enced his colonial compeers in their hostility 
 against the colonial settlement of it. He remarks 
 that " unhappily this island has hitherto proved no 
 garden of Eden no oasis of the desert ; but from 
 the first moment of the British flag waving over 
 its soil, up to the last advices, it has been rapidly 
 declining in reputation. But the mortality which 
 has occurred among the European settlers is the 
 most decisive proof of the insalubrity of the 
 island."* Mr. Boyle was, perhaps, not sufficiently 
 conversant with diseases of the Bights to be aware 
 that the great devastation and loss of life created 
 
 * On Diseases of Western Africa, p. 354. 
 
THE ISLAND OF FERNANDO PO. 159 
 
 among the early settlers proceeded not from ende- 
 mic influences, but from the introduction of that 
 epidemic fever on the island, termed the yellow or 
 Bulam fever ; one that, in several respects, is clearly 
 distinct from the remittents of the swampy regions 
 of the opposite coast, and is evidently unknown in 
 those localities frequented by the white traders. 
 Precisely under the same category may be in- 
 cluded those observers who, viewing it in the 
 distance, have calmly attested its unhealthiness by 
 stating that it is " swampy in the extreme !" 
 To prove the wide discrepancy of opinion that 
 prevailed at that period on this question, and at the 
 same time to afford an apparently unbiassed and 
 impartial description of the state of affairs, I shall 
 quote a writer in the Quarterly Review, who, in 
 allusion to the inutility of Sierra Leone as a 
 settlement for the civilization of the native Afri- 
 cans, states, " It was to remedy those evils that 
 an establishment has recently been formed on that 
 most beautiful, fertile, and magnificent of islands, 
 Fernando Po; it is the favourable prospects that 
 these evils will be remedied (viz., the sufferings 
 and deaths of the captured slaves on their passage) 
 that has caused so much jealousy, and so many 
 false reports as to its unhealthiness, from the free 
 negro traders of Sierra Leone. Instead of listen- 
 ing to them, let us hear what Capt. Owen says, 
 after a residence of ten months. We have before 
 us a letter of the 23d of September last, in which 
 he writes thus : " The health of our settlement 
 
160 THE ISLAND OF FERNANDO PO. 
 
 has been as good as it would have been in any 
 part of the world. There has not been a single 
 death for nearly four months, out of a population 
 of six hundred and fifty souls ; and I have only to 
 add, that nothing can exceed the good order and 
 good disposition of my little colony, and that no 
 spot in Africa is so eminently suited for a naval 
 and commercial station. The deaths that occurred 
 in the first five or six months were occasioned by 
 ulcered legs got in clearing away the jungle, and 
 by the imprudent artificers, while in a state of fever, 
 indulging to excess in ardent spirits; but the 
 causes, and with them the melancholy effects, have 
 ceased."* Colonel Nicholls, the former governor 
 of the island, with Mr. Becroffc, both officers of 
 long residence and great experience of this part of 
 Africa, fully coincide with the previous remarks, 
 and the former also candidly avers that he " has 
 known a ship of war stationed for several years at 
 Fernando Po that never lost a single man until 
 she sent a prize up to Sierra Leone, and half the 
 people died there."f To place in a prominent 
 point of view those climatorial distinctions and 
 variations that may be noticed between Fernando 
 Po and the regions of the Delta, I have carefully 
 drawn up the following table, compiled from the 
 observations of Colonel Nicholls, Mr. Becroft, and 
 myself, the greater portion of which were taken in 
 Government House, and on board several vessels 
 moored in the harbour : 
 
 * No. 77, p. 181. f Vide Parliamentary Report. 
 
THE ISLAND OF FERNANDO PO. 
 
 161 
 
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 oaoooooooooo 
 
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162 THE ISLAND OF FERNANDO PO. 
 
 To Europeans who have been stationed for any 
 length of time in the rivers or inland districts of the 
 Delta of the Niger, a visit to this island would be 
 attended with many advantages, especially to those 
 who have been sufferers from that low nervous 
 irritability or mental despondency; distressing 
 sequelae that not unfrequently supervene after the 
 visitations of remittent and other febrile diseases. 
 In agues, chronic dysentery, and other morbid 
 affections of obstinate duration, the change of 
 climate often produces the most decided benefit, 
 and I can only conclude these observations by re- 
 marking, that had those individuals whose anxiety 
 has hitherto been to depreciate the utility or decry 
 the healthiness of this island, been resident for the 
 same number of years with myself and others in 
 the pestilent swamps of equatorial Africa, they 
 would ere this have learned to appreciate the value 
 of the boon so appropriately placed within the 
 grasp of most African voyagers, and one which, 
 above all other considerations, is prized by the 
 convalescent, viz., the rescue from a premature 
 death, and the restoration to the usual occupations 
 of ordinary health. 
 
PART IV. 
 
 THE ISLANDS OF PRINCES, ST. THOMAS, 
 AND ANNO BONA. 
 
 THE ISLAND OF PRINCES. 
 
 THE Island of Princes is situated one hundred 
 and five miles to the westward of Cape St. John, 
 the nearest point of land on the African continent, 
 and about one hundred and thirty miles to the 
 south-west of Fernando Po. It was discovered so 
 early as 1471, and the name of Ilha de Principe 
 conferred upon it, in honour of Don Henry, a Por- 
 tuguese prince of the blood royal. The merit of 
 its discovery has been ascribed to D. E. Santarem, 
 whilst by others it has been asserted that John de 
 Escobar first promulgated its existence. In extent 
 it is rather small, being only ten miles in length, 
 and six in breadth. As it is somewhat elevated 
 above the ocean, it may be discerned on the clear 
 evenings of the rainy season for a considerable 
 distance. The most striking features that offer 
 themselves on a first view, are the curious and 
 grotesque outlines of several of the mountain peaks 
 that stud the island in all directions. One of the 
 
 M2 
 
164 THE ISLAND OF PRINCES. 
 
 most remarkable of these conical rocks has been 
 named the Parrot's Bill, and another has had the 
 title of Prince's Mount bestowed upon it. 
 
 The soil, for the most part, is a mixture of de- 
 composed volcanic remains and vegetable matter, 
 and is very fertile and productive, nearly all the 
 native plants, after their first cultivation, growing 
 more or less in a wild state, and requiring but 
 little care or notice. The whole island is luxu- 
 riantly clothed by an enlivening woodland scenery, 
 with an occasional oasis worked out by the hand 
 of man, the gayer verdure of which lends additional 
 beauty to the spot, when contrasted with the 
 stately trunks and dark green foliage of the cir- 
 cumjacent forests. 
 
 Princes possesses two ports, the first of which, 
 designated Port Antonio, is situated on the north- 
 east side of the island, at the bottom of a capacious 
 landlocked bay, known under the same appellation, 
 the entrance of which is guarded by two small 
 dilapidated forts. The anchorage within this 
 harbour has been stated to be one of the best in 
 the island, not only as regards a secure shelter 
 from the tornadoes, but from the convenient facili- 
 ties it affords for the purchase of refreshments, &c. 
 The houses are generally of a mean and dirty 
 aspect, and those erected upon European designs 
 are not endowed with any great pretensions to 
 comfort or neatness, and are fast falling into decay. 
 The town is more or less in a filthy condition, while 
 the scattered huts and their irregular outhouses, 
 
THE ISLAND OF PRINCES. 165 
 
 intersected by narrow streets, are bordered by a 
 rank vegetation, which with other tokens of neglect 
 and indifference, impose on the mind of the stranger 
 no favourable impression as to its prosperity or 
 salubrity. The surrounding scenery, however, is 
 exceedingly beautiful and picturesque. 
 
 The population of the island mostly consists of 
 negroes descended from the slaves formerly im- 
 ported from the neighbouring coastal regions : these, 
 with mulattoes and other mixed races, and a few 
 Portuguese residents, are the only inhabitants to be 
 met here. The commerce now has dwindled down 
 to the verge of extinction ; a few native boats and 
 canoes, an occasional man-of-war, with two or 
 three trading vessels, are the sole indications of 
 its present mercantile traffic. Provisions, such as 
 beef, mutton, fowls, with different kinds of vege- 
 tables, may be procured without difficulty. Good 
 fresh water may be also abundantly supplied. 
 
 The second harbour, named Agulhas or West 
 Bay, lies on the western coast of the isle, nearly 
 equi-distant from both extremities. It is two 
 miles broad, and has sufficient depth of water to 
 recommend it to vessels of the largest burden. 
 Fine coffee, sugar, tamarinds, pine-apples, and 
 other tropical fruits, flourish in all the predial 
 districts, while wood and water, two indispensable 
 requisites in the nautical economy of homeward- 
 bound vessels, can be obtained on moderate terms. 
 The centre of this island has been asserted to be 
 situated in Lat. 1 25' N and 7 20' E. 
 
166 THE ISLAND OF PRINCES. 
 
 Princes' island, from its position, some miles 
 distant from the main continent, from the non- 
 existence of swampy lowlands and wooded marshes, 
 and those morbific influences so invariably gene- 
 rated in the pestilential regions usually visited by 
 the African trader, appears to have acquired a far 
 better sanatory reputation than can be justly ascribed 
 to it. Although its isolation from the neighbouring 
 main renders it less liable to that moist and sultry 
 climate and those noxious exhalations so peculiar 
 to those swamps, yet time and the experience of 
 many individuals has however clearly proved that 
 there are some seasons of the year in which there 
 is little or no variation in the form of its diseases, 
 nor any dissimilarity from their ordinary type, the 
 mortality in this island has been equally as great 
 as in the other habitable localities of the Bights; 
 nay, frequently more so, from the frequent ravages 
 of those epidemic scourges which in their visits 
 attack indiscriminately both black and white people, 
 and spare neither age, rank, or sex. Such then 
 has been the more correct delineation of the climate 
 and endemic diseases of Princes; the island is, 
 therefore, one that can never be conscientiously 
 recommended for the preservation or restoration 
 of the health of any invalid; and although this 
 statement may be at variance with those who 
 profess to have a more extended knowledge of 
 these subjects, yet I feel assured that the result of 
 a few consecutive trials will fully demonstrate that 
 the opinion I have advanced is one that is based 
 
THE ISLAND OF ST. THOMAS. 167 
 
 upon recorded data, and is in accordance with the 
 observations of long and enlightened experience. 
 
 THE ISLAND OF ST. THOMAS. 
 
 THE Island of St. Thomas, the next in size and 
 importance to Fernando Po, is of an oval form, 
 about thirty-two miles in length, and eight in 
 breadth. It is situated sixty-six miles to the 
 south-west (S.W. by W.) of Princes, which it far 
 surpasses, not only in magnitude, but in population 
 and commerce. Near the close of the fifteenth 
 century, some Portuguese navigators fell in with 
 it, and the promulgation of their discovery, with 
 an exaggerated and highly colored picture of the 
 advantages that might ensue from its possession, 
 soon occasioned its occupation. In a few years it 
 was deemed a valuable colonial acquisition, so 
 much so, that the attention of government was more 
 immediately directed towards its welfare, under 
 the fostering protection of which it rapidly rose in 
 prosperity, and in the course of time became one 
 of the most flourishing settlements of the Portu- 
 guese crown in this part of Africa. 
 
 Prior to the colonization of Brazil, and ere its 
 immense productive resources were developed, this 
 island had so far advanced in importance as to 
 constitute the chief emporium of the Portuguese 
 commerce; beneficial attempts had been directed 
 towards the introduction and establishment of 
 Christianity, the partitioning of districts for the 
 
168 THE ISLAND OF ST. THOMAS. 
 
 improvement of the ground and the growth of its 
 vegetable exports, with the construction of public 
 roads, villages, and other national works, all of 
 which proved eminently conducive to the stability 
 of its mercantile interests. Plantations of indigo 
 and the sugar-cane, which then comprised its staple 
 articles of traffic, yielded such profitable harvests 
 as to amply compensate the cultivator for all the 
 toil and expense laid out on them. Under these 
 prosperous circumstances, numerous sugar mills 
 were constantly kept in full employment, and ulti- 
 mately proved a source of no inconsiderable emolu- 
 ment to those who had the management of them. 
 
 The coffee-tree also received due consideration; 
 large tracts of land were planted with this remu- 
 nerative commodity, its excellent flavor, and other 
 peculiar qualities, placing it high in European 
 opinion, while its manifest superiority over all 
 other kinds then in the market, induced the parent 
 country to secure its importation by a strict and 
 timely monopoly. At length a deadly rival sprang 
 up, which soon subverted these brilliant prospects ; 
 the rich and magnificent expanse of wealth dis- 
 closed by the Brazilian territory to their mercenary 
 desires, quickly led the Portuguese to pay a more 
 studious regard to its capabilities, and the lucrative 
 results that might accrue to them from their 
 conquest of it. This they soon effected. The 
 boundless magnitude of the field for commercial 
 speculation, apparently unfettered by any serious 
 obstacle to the accomplishment of their golden 
 
THE ISLAND OF ST. THOMAS. 169 
 
 dreams, combined with a certain degree of exemp- 
 tion from those fatal maladies of the opposite 
 continent, easily overbalanced every propitiatory 
 sacrifice offered to avert the doom of its elder com- 
 petitor, and to prevent in future any possibility of 
 rivalry, the abolition of the commercial advantages 
 of St. Thomas was imperatively demanded. It 
 is almost needless to remark that it was granted. 
 The sugar plantations were suffered to run waste, 
 the mills destroyed, and the cultivation of other pro- 
 duce was ordered to be restricted within narrower 
 limits. It required no depth of foresight to pre- 
 dict the issue, since the ruin of the island from 
 that date has been progressive, and the selfish 
 policy of its enemies too successfully enforced. 
 
 In physical characteristics, St. Thomas uniformly 
 corresponds with those geological formations com- 
 mon throughout this petty archipelago of isles, and 
 which have been prominently displayed in the 
 previous delineation of Fernando Po. The base 
 and mountain declivities are composed of compact 
 masses of basalt, blended in the lower plateaux 
 with fragments of vesicular lava and other vestiges 
 that attest its volcanic origin, the greater portion 
 of which are amalgamated with or encrusted by 
 successive layers of vegetable loam. A curious 
 fact, in connection with this subject, has not 
 escaped the attention of several nautical writers 
 who have visited these islands, viz., that the sub- 
 terraneous action which has led to the production 
 of these igneous rocks has assumed one particular 
 
170 THE ISLAND OF ST. THOMAS. 
 
 direction from N.E. to S. W., the contrary points 
 from which the regular sea breeze and the Har- 
 mattan winds proceed, and that a line so drawn 
 from the mountains of Kumby through the stu- 
 pendous Camaroons, &c., will nearly intersect the 
 whole of them. To the European not familiarized 
 with the prodigal luxuriance of an intertropical 
 vegetation, the first glimpse of the natural scenery 
 of this and the other islands would elicit unequi- 
 vocal tokens of pleasure and admiration. So far 
 as the eye can reach, one dark and sequestered 
 wilderness of woods extends its sway from the 
 rocky beach to the highest range of peaks, its 
 variegated foliage, under the molten radiance of a 
 fervid sun, exhibiting a variety of gorgeous shades 
 that set descriptions at defiance. A mountainous 
 ridge of unequal elevation passes longitudinally 
 through the centre of the island, having its outline 
 broken into a multitude of grim and fantastic 
 peaks, airy pinnacles, and huge fragments of rock, 
 the impress of the mighty power of those fiery and 
 terrific convulsions now in final repose. The 
 most lofty eminence has been computed to be above 
 seven thousand feet in altitude, and its summit 
 may be descried far at sea above those fleecy 
 clouds that descend and overshade its forest-clad 
 sides. 
 
 The aspect of the country, in proportion as it 
 approaches the confines of the islands materially 
 alters in character, gentle undulations usurping the 
 place of the rugged sierras, while native plantations 
 
THE ISLAND OF ST. THOMAS. 171 
 
 and well stocked farms dispersed over its fruitful 
 districts, suffice to tell how far the labour of cultiva- 
 tion has progressed. The mansion and more humble 
 domiciles of the planter and his slaves, environed 
 by the banana, orange, and plaintain trees, the gifts 
 of a torrid soil to its owners, now more frequently 
 glance forth from amid the fertile fields of mandioca, 
 maize, and coffee ; and the ruins of deserted mills 
 and casas, half choked and hidden by shrubs and 
 noxious weeds, with gem-like groups of palm and 
 cocoa-nut trees rearing their taper stems above the 
 entangled thickets, still further contribute to the 
 enchantment of the picture. 
 
 The town of Santa Anna de Chaves, the capital 
 of the island, is founded at the bottom of a beauti- 
 ful harbour of the same name, and is the usual 
 place of resort for most vessels that come for the 
 purposes of trade, or for refreshments. The bay 
 of Santa Anna lies on the eastern side of the 
 island, and is defended by a small castellated fort 
 on the southern point of its entrance. Two insig- 
 nificant islets, one on the north named Ilha de 
 Cabras, or Cabreta Island, and the other to the 
 south of the bay, called the Isle St. Anna, are the 
 distinguishing landmarks to those ignorant of the 
 passage to the port. The town, although of mode- 
 rate dimensions, affords at present but faint traces 
 of its early opulence and grandeur. Its decorated 
 churches, stately edifices, and other architectural 
 structures, have silently disappeared during the 
 lapse of years, and all the monuments of its bye- 
 
172 THE ISLAND OF ST. THOMAS. 
 
 gone prosperity are confined to a few stone houses, 
 whose mouldering exteriors perfectly harmonize 
 with the prospects and fortunes of their later and 
 less wealthy occupiers. Great numbers, how- 
 ever, of wooden houses and native huts tend to the 
 enlargement if not to the ornament of the town, and 
 bestow a cheerful air over the whole, for in each 
 court-yard are planted cocoa-nut, palm, and other 
 splendid trees of indigenous growth, which, upon 
 their arrival at maturity, radiate their feather-like 
 branches around, and not only embellish the pre- 
 cincts of the place, but add essentially to the ease 
 and comfort of their inhabitants by the luxurious 
 coolness their umbrageous canopy diffuses to those 
 located within their shade. The population prin- 
 cipally consists of negroes brought from the ad- 
 joining continent, mingled with mulattoes and 
 other dusky grades that betoken some approach to 
 European consanguinity. It embraces but few 
 whites. The average number of human beings in 
 St. Thomas may be estimated as below twelve 
 thousand. 
 
 The country in the vicinity of St. Anna de Chaves 
 bears convincing proofs of the exuberant fertility 
 of the soil, and the carpet of verdure, enamelled 
 by the exquisite bloom of countless plants, truly 
 announces with what a munificent hand nature 
 has distributed her treasures in the favored locali- 
 ties of these sunny islands. The edible fruits 
 and vegetables reared in the vicinity of the 
 town are chiefly those which custom and a long 
 
THE ISLAND OF ST. THOMAS. 173 
 
 established requisition has plentifully called into 
 cultivation. It is, therefore, in conformity with 
 these objects that the Mandioca or sweet cassada 
 is so universally planted for the manufacture of 
 farina, inasmuch as it not only supplies their 
 domestic wants, but is a valuable article of com- 
 merce. Independent of the slave ships that usually 
 touch at the island to procure a sufficient quantity 
 of it for the subsistence of their living freights, it 
 is likewise transmitted to the other Portuguese 
 possessions in southern Africa, where, from the 
 aridity of the land and dearth of rain, its produc- 
 tion is often a matter of difficulty. As a portion 
 of the diet of the convalescent, farina, when pro- 
 perly made from the Jatropha Janipha is a very 
 nutritious and digestible edible, and may be ad- 
 ministered in those cases where it is agreeable to 
 the palate ; but some caution should be taken that 
 the bitter or poisonous cassada Jatropha Manihot 
 has not been the plant from which it has been pre- 
 pared, since its exhibition has not unfrequently 
 been followed by serious consequences. The 
 African bean, or callavancy, is another useful pro- 
 duct, held in much request by the foreign shipping, 
 and is generally purchased to promote the health 
 of the crews. 
 
 Limes, melons, oranges, yams, plaintains, sweet 
 potatoes, cabbages, pine-apples, papaws, maize, 
 peppers, and, indeed, nearly all the vegetable 
 esculents found in Western Africa, are readily 
 bartered for old and worn out apparel in preference 
 
174 THE ISLAND OF ST. THOMAS. 
 
 to either money or spirits, and this mode of pay- 
 ment equally applies to the islands of Princes and 
 Anno Bona, the natives of which are always de- 
 sirous of receiving such habiliments in exchange 
 for their produce, which is, perhaps, more in con- 
 sonance with their taste and vanity for dress. 
 Beef, pork, mutton, goats, poultry, turtle, and fish, 
 may be found more or less in the market, the price 
 of the former being regulated by the quantity 
 required by the vessel ; it, however, cannot be pro- 
 cured at the same moderate rates demanded in 
 other parts of the Bights. 
 
 Another small harbour, known as Man of War 
 Bay, is situated more to the northward of St. 
 Anna de Chaves, and is not much visited unless 
 by small vessels, since the bay is so shallow that 
 those of large tonnage are obliged to anchor out- 
 side. Favorable accounts have been given of the 
 facilities which it affords for the supply of wood 
 and excellent fresh water, and with less drawbacks 
 than at the preceding port, where they are not so 
 easy of attainment. With the exception of beef 
 and some minor deficiencies, all the fresh provisions 
 may be obtained here as in other districts of the 
 island. The most conspicuous marks by which 
 the port may be known, are the " Misericordia 
 Chapel," founded on the crest of an adjacent hill, 
 and the white exterior of Fernandilla House, so 
 entitled from the estate of which it constitutes a 
 portion. At a few hundred yards to the eastward 
 of the latter is the watering place for the shipping. 
 
THE ISLAND OF ST. THOMAS. 175 
 
 The town resembles others of Portuguese con- 
 struction, and is fully as dirty. 
 
 Separated by a channel two miles in width to 
 the southward of St. Thomas is the small rocky 
 islet denominated Ilha da Kolas. It is densely 
 wooded, and abounds with different species of 
 game, which may furnish occasional pastime for 
 the visitor. From the few natives that live upon 
 the isle, fresh stock, such as pigs, poultry, &c., 
 with turtle and fish, may be procured to a limited 
 extent; and although wood is plentiful, no water 
 exists, inasmuch as it has to be brought from the 
 opposite island. The western extremity of Ilha de 
 Rolas is directly under the equator, hydrographical 
 writers placing it in longitude 6 36' 30" E. Five 
 miles to the westward of it may be noticed the 
 Seven Stones, a reef of rocks of some elevation 
 above the waters of the ocean. 
 
 According to opinions of modern origin, St. 
 Thomas may claim higher pretensions to healthi- 
 ness than either the wild and primeval solitudes 
 of the adjacent continent, or the less genial wood- 
 lands of its kindred neighbour, Princes. There 
 can be no question as to its superiority over the 
 localities situated on the African coast, its insular 
 position, greater distance seaward, more frequent 
 breezes and other climatorial advantages, would 
 render it a work of supererogation to carry on 
 the comparison further ; but when these reports 
 place on a par with those settlements on the coast 
 the island of Princes, and thereby admit its 
 
176 THE ISLAND OF ST. THOMAS. 
 
 inferiority to the present isle, they require to be 
 thoroughly investigated, since they appear to be 
 based on such indefinite data, and are enforced 
 by such hypothetical reasonings, that the sound- 
 ness and propriety of them may well be mooted. 
 My limited space will only permit me to allude 
 to the scientific researches of a lucid writer, 
 Colonel Sabine, E.A., who, in his essay on the 
 African currents, has endeavoured to indicate 
 their supposed effects upon the climates of those 
 islands with which they are in proximity. He 
 remarks, " That it has been shown that the water 
 of the equatorial current is from ten to twelve 
 degrees colder than that of the coast of Guinea, 
 and that its northern border, which at other seasons 
 passes the meridian of St. Thomas, at the distance 
 of from one hundred and twenty to one hundred 
 and eighty miles south of its southern extremity, 
 was found in June in contact, or very nearly so, 
 with the island itself; and it is not improbable 
 from the consideration of the causes which occa- 
 sions its advance towards the equator when the sun 
 is in its northern signs, that in July it may extend 
 so far as even to include the whole island of St. 
 Thomas within its limits." "The comparative 
 unhealthiness of Princes Island to that of St. 
 Thomas, and of both to Anno Bon, as the resi- 
 dence of Europeans, has been frequently and par- 
 ticularly noticed by Portuguese authorities, and is 
 universally recognized at Princes Island and St. 
 Thomas. It may be a sufficient explanation to 
 
THE ISLAND OF ST. THOMAS. 177 
 
 remark that Anno Bon is surrounded by the 
 equatorial current, Princes always by the Guinea 
 current, and that the position of St. Thomas is 
 intermediate, and its climate is occasionally influ- 
 enced by both. In tropical climates, a very few 
 degrees of temperature constitute an essential 
 difference in the feelings of the natives and in the 
 health of Europeans." 
 
 To the proposition, so far as it extends to an 
 alteration of atmospheric temperature, originating 
 from a greater or less coolness of the oceanic sur- 
 face, and the beneficial change that would conse- 
 quently ensue from the depression or reduction 
 of those calorific influences peculiar to unhealthy 
 tropical climes, I cordially assent, but with the 
 reservation, that the operation of these agencies 
 be of permanent duration. Now the equatorial 
 current regularly approaches the northward in 
 proportion as the rains advance, and again recedes 
 to the south precisely as the sun returns ; its con- 
 tinuance, therefore, in the vicinity of St. Thomas 
 is solely confined to the rainy months, which in the 
 Bights, apart from all maritime considerations, are 
 the most healthy periods of the year to Europeans. 
 The valid objection which may be urged against the 
 beneficial effects of the current in influencing the 
 general salubrity of the island,1s the limitation of its 
 accession for a fixed period, and its prevalence when 
 least required. If the equatorial current prove of 
 any utility, it should be in those seasons the most 
 pernicious to the health of the white resident, viz., 
 
 N 
 
178 THE ISLAND OF ST. THOMAS. 
 
 the latter end of August, in September, October, 
 and November, the sickly months of the Bights of 
 Benin and Biafra, and also of the islands located 
 within their boundaries ; for, as I have elsewhere 
 stated, it will then have passed far to the south- 
 ward, and cannot exercise the slightest control. 
 St. Thomas may, in all probability, at this time, 
 be surrounded by the Guinea current, the same as 
 Princes Isle, and will be equally liable to the same 
 changes and mutations of weather as affect it. The 
 only difference is that of situation, the former being 
 a little more than two degrees to the westward, a 
 difference barely perceptible, if we consider it in re- 
 lation to the creation or prevalence of endemic 
 affections. In Africa there are invariably certain 
 periodic visitations of sickness, dependent on natural 
 causes, and on peculiarities of physical conforma- 
 tion in the human race. Thus the two healthy 
 seasons for Europeans in western equatorial Africa 
 are most unfavorable to the health of the negroes, 
 and, vice versa; hence the necessity of studying 
 these climateric variations in a more comprehensive 
 point of view. Alternations of temperature and 
 of seasons have, from primitive experience, been 
 specially pointed out as the most prolific sources 
 of disease in most of the countries of the globe ; if 
 then such are the general causes of ill-health in 
 temperate climates, with what fearful potency will 
 they be endowed in regions more hostile to the 
 European constitution. Colonel Sabine is, per- 
 haps, not aware that implicit credit is seldom placed 
 
THE ISLAND OF ST. THOMAS. 179 
 
 on the representations of the Portuguese authori- 
 ties in these islands, particularly when they refer 
 to the merits of their respective salubrity. Those 
 who, like myself, have passed many years on the 
 African coast, know that mercantile interests, like 
 the secret state machinery, require a cautious and 
 subtle policy in their management, and that in 
 numerous instances there is no moral engine which 
 exerts such a dominant influence in undermining 
 the reputation of any colony, and deterring the 
 inexperienced visitor or competitor from residing 
 hi it, as the withering fear of death. The heca- 
 tombs of human victims, sacrificed on the altars of 
 a destructive climate, not only confirm the terrors 
 of the timid, but tend to establish the truth of the 
 report. It is, therefore, not a rare event for the 
 population of one place to question or deny the 
 healthiness of another, as best suits their purpose, 
 and I need only cite, as an example, two of our 
 northern settlements in western Africa, the rival 
 colonists of which, although half of them occasion- 
 ally perish in an unhealthy season, yet each stoutly 
 maintains the superior salubrity of their own 
 locality over that of the other. Their contentions, 
 in this respect, are a bitter burlesque on European 
 life in Africa. 
 
 The diseases to which the white inhabitants of 
 St. Thomas are subject, do not present sufficient 
 pathognomonic variations to separate them from 
 the same class which pervades the marshy deltas 
 and the banks of the more accessible rivers on the 
 
 N2 
 
180 THE ISLAND OF ST. THOMAS. 
 
 coast. In the latter localities, however, the greater 
 prevalence of fevers more adynamic in their type, 
 and less tractable in their cure, may be said to 
 constitute the line of demarcation, so far as it is 
 perceptible. Simple remittent fevers, mild and 
 brief in their course, with quotidian and quartan 
 intermittents and other ephemeral febrile affections, 
 seldom demanding active measures, comprize the 
 lighter class of maladies which trouble the Portu- 
 guese. Bilious and congestive remittents of an 
 asthenic or inflammatory character, complicated 
 with cerebral, gastro-enteritic, and other visceral 
 derangements, among which may be included those 
 graver continental affections, generally of a less 
 successful issue, form those of the most serious 
 class. Organic lesions of the liver and spleen, and 
 that most intractable and fatal of all African dis- 
 eases, dysentery, are often met with. Enlargement 
 and hepatization of the spleen, being one of the 
 more constant sequelae of remittents, and other 
 febrile diseases, are not rare. 
 
 The morbid affections incidental to the negro 
 population are, in the majority of cases, restricted 
 to the cutaneous structures, although congestion 
 and inflammation of the deeper seated cavities are 
 of equal frequency in the cold rainy months. 
 
 Lepra, scabies, pneumonia, pleuritis, diarrhoea, 
 tenia, and, in fact, a host of African disorders may 
 be noticed among them, under every form and 
 grade, from the merciless phlagedenic ulcer to the 
 more protracted pulmonic abscess, the exemplary 
 
THE ISLAND OF ANNO BONA. 181 
 
 patience, fortitude, and resignation of these un- 
 happy beings under their afflictions being such as 
 to excite feelings of deep commiseration and regret. 
 Recently, I am informed, the Portuguese govern- 
 ment has determined to appoint a greater number of 
 medical officers, so that these cases of prolonged 
 misery will, I trust, become less public. The 
 suppression of the slave trade, however, has had 
 one good effect, viz., that of compelling a more at- 
 tentive consideration to the medical wants of their 
 surviving slaves. 
 
 THE ISLAND OF ANNO BONA. 
 
 ANNO BON, or Anno Bona, the most southerly of 
 this group of islands, was first discovered about 
 the year 1498, and derives its title from being first 
 observed on a new year's day ; hence, under such 
 propitious auspices, the application of the term, 
 which implies a good or prosperous year. 
 
 It is of a conical shape, seven miles in length, 
 and from twenty-five to thirty miles in circum- 
 ference, its acclivities gradually converging upwards 
 from their base, until they terminate in a few crests 
 or peaks. Lying in latitude 1 25' South, and in 
 longitude 5 42' E., it is somewhat out of the track 
 of the homeward-bound palm-oil ships which 
 usually pass to the northward of the equator; a 
 stray man-of-war, and the merchant vessels that 
 trade to the southern coast of Africa, being its 
 chief visitors. The town is erected on the verge 
 
182 THE ISLAND OF ANNO BONA. 
 
 of a narrow strip of white sand, that constitutes 
 the outer boundary of a small bay on the north- 
 east side, a grove of cocoa-nut, banana, and other 
 ornamental trees, that intermingle among the 
 dwellings, concealing the greater number of them, 
 a part of the suburbs being alone visible. The 
 bright and gaudy foliage of this wooded screen, 
 enriched by the gay and brilliant flowers of innu- 
 merable creepers, whose snake-like convolutions, 
 passing from branch to branch, in withes and 
 pendent festoons of delicate blooms, throw an 
 indescribable charm over the whole place. Anno 
 Bon contains no white inhabitants, its population 
 being exclusively negroes, the residue of a slave 
 cargo, who are said to have first colonized the 
 island, the vessel conveying them to the coast of 
 Brazil having been wrecked on the reef of rocks 
 projecting from it. Although still a degraded 
 race, rude in manners, and but little civilized by 
 their intercourse with Europeans, they are esteemed 
 as a kind, inoffensive, and hospitable people, and 
 bear a good reputation among African traders. 
 The number of inhabitants does not exceed eight 
 hundred, of which nearly two-thirds are resident in 
 the town, whilst the others live in scattered hamlets 
 in various districts of the isle. They are well sup- 
 plied with poultry, goats, pigs, &c., but their chief 
 subsistence is derived from fishing, at which they 
 are very expert, the banks and rocky inlets which 
 begirt the land yielding them ample opportunities 
 for the employment of their piscatory skill. Among 
 
THE ISLAND OF ANNO BONA. 183 
 
 the finny tribes often brought for sale, may be 
 enumerated numerous flying fish of a large size, 
 snappers, red groupers, rock-fish, and other kinds 
 of fish highly valued for their flavour and rarity in 
 different parts of the world. 
 
 The fruits and vegetables peculiar to tropical 
 countries are found here in tolerable abundance, 
 according to the season of the year in which they 
 arrive at maturity; those which may be commonly 
 purchased are tamarinds, oranges, limes, sweet pota- 
 toes, earth nuts, maize, cocoa-nuts, cassada, beans, 
 sugar-canes, peppers, bananas, plaintains, and 
 pomegranates. 
 
 Pure fresh water may be taken from a spring to 
 the southward of the town, but it has been remarked 
 to be rather difficult of access when any surf sets 
 in. On the flat summit of the principal peak, a 
 pond of fresh water exists, filling up what was 
 originally the crater of an active volcano. To 
 the streams that occasionally pour forth down its 
 declivities, from its overflow, with the deposition of 
 rain and heavy dews, may be ascribed the extreme 
 richness of the soil, and the luxuriant vegetation that 
 flourishes in all directions. From the elevation of 
 the land, the attraction and condensation of the 
 cloudy strata are of daily occurrence, and thus the 
 contents of this natural reservoir are never ex- 
 hausted. 
 
 In 1641, the Dutch invaded and took the island 
 from the Portuguese, but after a brief possession it 
 was finally relinquished by them, on account of its 
 inconvenient distance from the coast and its inade- 
 
184 THE ISLAND OF ANNO BONA, 
 
 quate resources. It afterwards nominally reverted 
 to the dominion of the crown of Portugal, which 
 made a few faint efforts towards its colonization, 
 but these, like all weak and ill-directed attempts, 
 soon failed from want of the necessary means, and 
 at length the governance of the island fell into the 
 hands of the natives, and at present continues 
 under the presidency of an old chief, who acknow- 
 ledges himself as the Portuguese viceroy. This 
 island was, however, ceded to Spain in 1778. 
 
 Anno Bon has been considered by some Euro- 
 pean writers (but upon what authority appears to 
 me doubtful), to be the most healthy of all the 
 islands in the Bight of Biafra, and the one best 
 adapted for the restoration of those impaired con- 
 stitutions, arising either from severe attacks of fever 
 or a long protracted residence in a sickly locality. 
 
 Probably a milder and more equable climate, 
 less sultry and oppressive, from the opposing influ- 
 ences of westerly breezes that prevail with others 
 more to the southward during the greater portion 
 of the year, and the less frequency of tornadoes 
 and other violent atmospheric changes, all tend to 
 render it more adapted to the constitutions of the 
 iiiiaccliniated, while to those who have experienced 
 all the severity of African disease, its insular 
 climate, and other local advantages, may go far 
 towards the improvement of the health, and the 
 removal of that general debility which mostly 
 ensues after the protracted low remittent fevers of 
 the coast. 
 
THE ISLAND OF ANNO BONA. 185 
 
 Notwithstanding the satisfactory assurances 
 brought forward in favour of its superior salubrity, 
 this island has been stated to produce fevers of a 
 very severe character, but whether they were 
 generated from endemic causes, or from the deve- 
 velopement of morbific germs contracted in the 
 alluvial flats of the Delta, and thus manifesting 
 themselves from the change of locality and atmos- 
 phere, is a matter of mere conjecture. 
 
 However, independent of the usual sources of 
 disease, there are doubtless reasons for imagining 
 that under different aspects some unknown pecu- 
 liarity or prejudicial agency, more or less exists 
 in every country and island in equinoctial Africa, 
 not hitherto detected or even appreciated, and from 
 which Anno Bona is not entirely exempt. 
 
INDEX. 
 
 Page 
 
 ABUKUTA, situation of, &c. - 23 
 
 emigration of slaves from Sierra Leone to - ib. 
 
 Acquijah, situation of 16 
 Adansonia digitata, medicinal and other uses of in Africa - 50 
 Adeeyahs, inhabitants of Fernando Po, physical conforma- 
 tion and customs of, &c. - 135 
 
 estimate of their numbers - 136 
 
 Adj-jah, distinguishing mark of its inhabitants, their phy- 
 sical character, &c. - - 16 
 Aetius, his account of the practice of excision, &c., among 
 
 the ancient Egyptians - 31 
 Africa, great mortality in, often unjustly ascribed to clima- 
 
 torial influences - 13 
 
 travellers in, great mortality amongst 148 
 
 African currents, probable influence of, on the climate of 
 
 the islands in the Bights - 176 
 
 Akoo slaves, emigration of, &c., to Abukuta - 23 
 
 Allen, Capt. Bird, R.N., his grave at Fernando Po - 147 
 
 Albinos, frequent occurrence of, in Bonny - 93 
 
 Alkoran, precept of, as to suckling children, &c. - 55 
 
 Amboises, bay of, and the islands therein 122 
 
 Amomum Clusii, description and uses of - 1 1 1 
 
 Grana Paradisi, former trade in and 
 
 present uses of - 129 
 
 Amputation, abhorrence of, by the natives of Old Callebar 115 
 
 of the hands, as a punishment for adultery - 139 
 
 Andony river, situation of, &c. 102 
 
 inland communication from other rivers 
 
 (Note) - - - - . ib. 
 
188 INDEX. 
 
 Page 
 
 Anno Bona, topography, history, and description of the 
 
 island of - 181 
 
 comparative salubrity of the climate of - 184 
 
 Anointing the skin, practice of, by females - 99 
 Appellima, country residence of the King of Bonny - 88 
 Arabia, female circumcision practised in 30 
 Arachis hypogea, use and commercial purposes of, in Africa 117 
 Ardrah, account of the kingdom and town of 21 
 Attarpah, the present metropolis of Old Callebar, descrip- 
 tion of - 108 
 
 population of - - 112 
 
 Aveiro, Alfonso de, his exploration of Benin river 39 
 
 BACKASSET rivers, position of - 104 
 
 Badagry, situation and description of - 21 
 
 Baobab tree found in Warre"e - 50 
 
 medicinal uses of - 50 
 
 Barbot, his remarks on the effects of bites of musquitoes, &c. 59 
 
 his account of the inhabitants of the Rio del Rey 121 
 
 Bassia Parkia, or shea butter tree, uses of in Dahomey, &c. 39 
 
 Battarra, village of, situation - 56 
 
 Becroft, Mr., his exploration of Benin River - 47 
 
 ascents of the Quorra in 1835 and 1840 74 
 
 exploration of Cross River 103 
 
 ascent of Clarence Peak, Fernando Po - 134 
 
 appointed governor of Fernando Po, &c. - 143 
 
 meteorological and other observations at Fer- 
 nando Po, by - - 160 
 Belzoni, his death and tomb at Agatto - 46 
 Benin, Bight of, general topography of 14 
 
 perceptible odour arising from its swamps - 14 
 
 soundings in - 15 
 
 extent and insalubrity of 65 
 
 Benin River, situation and description of 
 
 natives of, of Ebo descent - - 57 
 
 insalubrity of - 58 
 
 mortality amongst seamen in - 60 
 
 Biafra, Bight of, topography and description - 66 
 
INDEX. 189 
 
 Page 
 
 Bights, see Benin and Biafra. 
 
 Bimbia River, situation of 123 
 
 Bonny River, general description of 82 
 
 Ebo, origin of the population of 68 
 
 . exportation of slaves from - 82 
 
 . palm oil from 82 
 
 comparative salubrity of - 100 
 
 physical aspect of the natives of 100 
 
 currency of the country of - - ib. 
 
 Bonny Town, situation and description of 84 
 
 provisions procurable at 86 
 
 population of 
 
 Boobee in Warre"e, account of - 56 
 
 Boobies of Fernando Po, see Adeeyahs 
 
 Bosman, his account of the destruction of twins in Benin 
 
 River - 98 
 
 Botany of Whydah - 19 
 
 slave coast generally 37 
 
 Benin river - 41 
 
 Jacqua - 45 
 
 Warree - 50 
 
 Bonny 86 
 
 OldCallebar - - 110 
 
 Occorotunko, and its neighbourhood 116 
 
 -Gaboon River - 127 
 
 Boyle, Mr., his report on the climate of Fernando Po - 159 
 Brass River, vide Quorra 
 
 Brass Town, situation and population of, &c. - 77 
 British colonies in tropical Africa, salubrity of, as com- 
 pared with other parts of the coast 7 
 Brown, Dr., description of excision, &c., in the females of 
 
 Darfour - 33 
 
 Building, mode of, at Bonny, &c. 85 
 
 superior kind of, in Old Callebar 109 
 
 ditto at Clarence, Fernando Po 146 
 
 Burckhardt's account of female circumcision in Nubia, &c. 34 
 Bulam fever, introduction of, into Fernando Po from Sierra 
 
 Leone ------ 154 
 
190 INDEX. 
 
 Page 
 
 CALLAVANCY, or African bean, beneficial uses of - 173 
 
 Callebar, Creek, situation of 56 
 
 New, Ebo origin of its population - 68 
 
 description of 78 
 
 Old, description of- 103 
 
 successive capitals of 107 
 
 comparative civilization of its inhabitants 119 
 
 Camaldolese, Fra Mauro, map of Western Africa, by - 67 
 
 Camaroons river, account of - 123 
 
 . population of 124 
 
 Camaroon mountain, elevation of 124 
 
 Camwood, exportation of, from Gaboon 126 
 
 Cannibalism of the natives of Bonny and New Callebar - 101 
 
 Cape St. John, situation of - 125 
 
 St. Paul's, situation of 14 
 
 Lopez, position of, &c. - 130 
 
 Capsicum fructescens, use of, as a counter-irritant - 96 
 
 Cassada, preparation of mandioca from 45 
 
 Cassia occidentalis, medicinal uses of - 1 1 1 
 Cataract, great prevalence of, amongst the natives of the 
 
 Quorra - 71 
 
 Cautery, actual, used by the natives to stop haemorrhage - 115 
 
 Cemetery at Fernando Po - 147 
 
 Children, custom of shaving the heads of - 54 
 
 weak state of, in infancy - ib. 
 
 lengthened period of suckling, &c, - 55 
 
 Circumcision of males in Yarruba, Benin, &c. - 24 
 
 , _ WarrSe - - 52 
 
 Bonny 100 
 
 Circumcision of females, general account of - 27 
 early prevalence and probable 
 
 origin of 36 
 
 performed by female operators - 93 
 
 practised in Bonny, &c. - 100 
 
 Clarence Peak, in Fernando Po, an extinct crater - - 132 
 
 Clarence town, foundation of - 141 
 
 situation and description of - 146 
 
 population of - 148 
 
INDEX. 191 
 
 Page 
 
 Climate of tropical Africa, remarks on 6 
 
 of Fernando Po - 154 
 
 Clitoris, excision of, practised in Western Africa - 29 
 
 mode of operation in Callebar river - 30 
 
 not commonly practised in Benin - 52 
 
 elongation of, by women in the Jaboo 
 
 country - . ib. 
 
 Cocoa-nut tree, recent introduction into Fernando Po - 150 
 
 Coffee, cultivation of, at St. Thomas 168 
 
 Copper currency in Bonny and Old Callebar - 101 
 
 Corisco Bay, boundaries of - 116 
 
 island, great mortality of Dutch settlement on - 126 
 
 Goto coast, name formerly in use - 16 
 
 Cradoo Lake, situation of - 25 
 
 Cross River, explanation of - 103 
 
 Cucurbita Citrullus, medicinal uses of 37 
 
 Lagenaria, domestic uses of - - - 130 
 
 Cupping, native practice of, at Bonny . 94 
 at Old CaUebar 1 1 3 
 
 DAHOMEY, slaves obtained at, exported from Great Popo 17 
 
 conquest of Whydah by the sovereign of - 19 
 
 Dalzell, Mr., description of circumcision in Dahomey 24 
 
 Demoralization of social life in Western Africa - 32 
 
 Diarrhoea, prevalence of, in the rainy months 53 
 
 Diseases most prevalent on the slave coast - 25 
 
 of Jacqua - 43 
 
 of Benin River - 48 
 
 of Bonny and New Callebar 92 
 
 of Old Callebar - - 113 
 
 Camaroons River - 124 
 
 Fernando Po 137 
 
 St. Thomas, isle of - 179 
 
 Dodo river, situation of - - 64 
 
 Dracunculus, or Guinea-worm on the slave coast, &c. - 44 
 
 native operation for removal of - ib. 
 
 Dysentery, prevalence of, in marshy localities, &c. 95 
 Dysentery, use of enemata for the cure of, by the natives 115 
 
192 INDEX. 
 
 Page 
 
 EBO or Ebu, situation of - 70 
 
 Ebo's, practice of female circumcision by 31 
 
 of the Quorra, the great source of the population of 
 
 the Bights, &c., and their distribution - 68 
 
 their belief in the evil eye 91 
 
 their predisposition to lethargus, &e. - 96 
 
 their practice of destroying twins - 98 
 
 Egg plant, its cultivation as an esculent - - 1 1 1 
 
 Elephantiasis in slaves from Soudan - 56 
 
 Epidemic disease introduced into Fernando Po, &c. - 159 
 
 Equatorial current, its probable influence on the climate of 
 
 the islands in the Bights 176 
 
 Evil eye, popular belief in amongst Africans - 91 
 
 Expeditions to explore the Quorra and Tchadda 73 
 
 Eyeo, or Katunga, an inland country - 22 
 
 FERNANDO Po, general description and topography of 131 
 
 estimate of native population of - - 136 
 
 colonization of, by the Spaniards 140 
 
 colonization of, by the British - 141 
 
 Farina, preparations of, from the Jatrophae, &c. 45 
 
 * deleterious effects of, from Jatropha Manihot, &c. - 173 
 
 wholesome properties from Jatropha Janipha, &c. ib. 
 
 Fetish ceremonies resorted to for the cure of diseases - 24 
 
 for appeasing evil spirits - 42 
 
 use of spathodea campanulata in - 50 
 
 Fevers, use of the vapour bath in - - 120 
 Fida, see Whydah 
 
 Fish town, destruction of, in Benin river 42 
 
 Foko, village of, description of - - 78 
 
 Foulahs, practice of female circumcision amongst 30 
 
 Funimen, native tribes termed - - - - 102 
 
 GABOON River, topography of 126 
 
 exports from - ib. 
 
 Gambia, comparatively unfavourable situation of settle- 
 ments upon - 9 
 
INDEX. 193 
 
 Page 
 
 Geology of Fernando Po - - 132 
 
 St. Thomas 169 
 
 George town, on the Benin river - - 41 
 
 Gold coast, picturesque appearance of 10 
 
 termination of, at the Rio Volta - 15 
 
 Gossipium arboreum, use of, &c. 38 
 
 Gourds, luxuriant growth, &c. - 117 
 Griwhe, vide Whydah. 
 
 Ground nuts, commercial value in Africa 117 
 
 Guadja Trudo, king of Dahomey, conquest of Whydah, by 19 
 
 Gugligou, situation of 17 
 Guinea current, its probable influence on the climate of the 
 
 islands in the Bights - 166 
 
 HAKLUTT'S description of Benin river 39 
 
 Henna plant brought to the coast from the interior - 89 
 
 Hepatitis, increase of, amongst the natives - 54 
 
 Hernia, its occurrence amongst the slaves - 96 
 
 Hirudo medicinalis, procurable in most of the rivers - 127 
 
 dislike of the natives to the use of 126 
 
 Hospital at Point William, Fernando Po 145 
 Hybiscus Abelmoschus, cultivation and use of - 88 
 Esculentus, salutary use of - 89 
 
 IBN BATUTA, description of utensils made from the gourd, 
 
 by - 117 
 
 Idiotcy, rarity of in the Bights - 54 
 
 Iguana, veneration of, by the Bonnians 87 
 
 Indigoferse, uses of, various species of - 20 
 
 native names of - ib. 
 
 Islands in the Bight of Biafra, remarks on the climate of - 175 
 
 Ivory, trifling exports of, from the Quorra - 72 
 
 JABOO cloths, manufacture of - 38 
 
 curious practice by the women of 52 
 
 Jacqua creek, town, &c., situation and description of - 43 
 
 prevalence of syphilitic diseases there - ib. 
 
 Jatropha Janipha and Manihot, preparations of Farina 
 
 from - - - - - - -46 
 
194 INDEX. 
 
 Page 
 
 Jenne, slaves from, classed as Popos - 16 
 
 Joloffs, their medicinal use of the Baobab - 51 
 Juidah, vide Whydah 
 
 Jujumen, the Ebo priests 70 
 
 Juju-town, population and general description of 83 
 
 curious tradition as to its origin - ib 
 
 KOBDOFAN, practice of female circumcision in 30 
 
 LAGOS river and port, situation and description of 23 
 
 Lander, Richard, his death and burial at Clarence - 147 
 
 Lind, Dr., his opinion of the air of Whydah - 18 
 
 Lotus found in Warree 52 
 
 esteem and use of by the Egyptians. (Note.) - ib. 
 
 MAIDSTONE BAY, description of 143 
 
 Maize, production and use of on the slave coast - 38 
 
 Mallagetta pepper, account of its present uses 129 
 Mallaku, or evil spirit, propitiation of, by the destruction 
 
 of a village ~ - 42 
 
 Mallams, the medical practitioners of the Quorra 71 
 
 Mandingo's, practice of female circumcision by the - 30 
 
 Maniacal diseases, unfrequency of on the coast 54 
 
 treatment of persons suffering under - 113 
 
 Manilla's the currency of Bonny 101 
 
 Man of War Bay, St. Thomas, description of 174 
 
 Medical profession, high esteem of the negro tribes for 61 
 
 Medical practitioners, both male and female, amongst the 
 
 natives - - - - - - 93 
 
 their great attention to the action of 
 
 the skin - 119 
 
 Medical treatment adopted in cases of fever - 61 
 
 by native doctors - 92 
 
 by inhabitants of Fernando Po - 133 
 
 Medicines, great desire of the native tribes for 61 
 
 Meteorological table for Fernando Po - 161 
 
 Merolla da Sorrenta, Jerome, his account of a mission to 
 
 Warre"e 63 
 
INDEX. 195 
 
 Page 
 
 Missionaries, Capuchins, first missionaries to equatorial Africa ib. 
 
 vestiges of their visit at Warree 64 
 
 Wesleyan schools at Badagry - 22 
 
 Baptist, established at Fernando Po 143 
 
 Mondoleh, island of, its capabilities for a settlement - 122 
 
 Mortality amongst Europeans on the Benin river 60 
 
 in the expeditions to the Quorra, &c. - 74 
 
 in Bonny River - 100 
 
 in Old Callebar River - - 119 
 
 in Camaroons River 125 
 
 in African travellers - 148 
 
 Musquitoes, annoyances from - 59 
 
 NICHOLL'S, Col., the first British governor of Fernando Po - 141 
 
 his report as to the salubrity of ditto 160 
 
 meteorological observations by - 161 
 
 Niger, vide Quorra. 
 
 Niger expedition, monument at Fernando Po to the me- 
 mory of those who perished in the - 146 
 
 Nomenclature of places in gold and slave coasts, oriental 
 
 origin of 21 
 
 Nymphse excision of, or what purposes practised in Western 
 
 Africa, &c. - 31 
 
 OCCOROTUNKO, topography of - - 116 
 Oldfield, Mr., his account of the native diseases of the Quorra 71 
 
 Old Town, original capital of Old Callebar - 107 
 
 Opthalmia, prevalence in the Quorra - 71 
 
 in Old Callebar 1 1 3 
 
 Origin of the population of the Bights - 68 
 
 Ouidah, vide Whydah. 
 
 Owaree, vide Warree. 
 
 Owen, Capt., his report as to the salubrity of Fernando Po 159 
 
 PALMA village, situation of - 25 
 
 Palm oil, culinary and medicinal uses of 41 
 
 prophylactic virtues attributed to - 52 
 
 large exports from rivers in the Bight of Biafra 66 
 
196 INDEX, 
 
 Page 
 
 Palm oil, two distinct kinds produced - -125 
 
 Palm wine, preparation and use of 57 
 
 great abundance of, at Foko - 79 
 
 Paloma, the island and town of, situation of - 63 
 
 Pannavia, Bight of, position of coast so called - - 125 
 
 Paurey, situation of - 15 
 
 Peter Fortis' land - 90 
 
 Phthisis, prevalence of, in the rainy months - 53 
 
 fatal character of in marshy localities - - ib. 
 
 Pleuritis, prevalence of, in the rainy months - ib. 
 
 Pliny, his account of fascination by the voice - 92 
 
 Pneumonia, great frequency of, in the cold rainy months 53 
 
 Polygamy, general practice of 97 
 
 Popo, Great, situation and description of 17 
 
 Little, ditto ditto 16 
 
 Port Antonio, in Princes island, description of 164 
 
 Porto Novo, the seaport of Ardrah - 21 
 
 Portuguese, their early acquaintance with Western Africa 1 
 
 slave factories at Badagry - 22 
 
 early expeditions to explore the Guinea 
 
 coast - 67 
 
 - discovery of Fernando Po by the 131 
 
 ditto Princes Island - 163 
 
 ditto St. Thomas 167 
 
 temporary settlement at Anno Bon . - 184 
 
 Princes Island, topography and population - 163 
 
 insalubrity of 166 
 
 Prolongatio labiorum pudendi, practised by females on the 
 
 slave coasts - . 24 
 
 Puberty, the usual age of, amongst negro females - 98 
 
 QUA rivers, topography of 104 
 
 Quinine, substitute for, prepared from Raphia vinifera 128 
 
 Quitta, fort of, situation of - 15 
 
 Quorra, the, its communication with Benin River 49 
 
 situation and description of - 59 
 
 most common diseases of the natives of - 70 
 
 exports from - 72 
 
INDEX. 197 
 
 Page 
 
 Quorra, the, averagejnortality amongst seamen there - 72 
 
 ancient speculations concerning - - ib. 
 
 [expeditions to - 73 
 
 Lander mortally wounded in 147 
 
 KABBAH, situation of - 70 
 
 cleanly habits of its inhabitants 71 
 
 Reggio, situation of 46 
 
 Rheumatic pains, treatment of, by natives - 95 
 
 Rio del Rey, situation and population of - - 121 
 
 dos Forcados, ditto 63 
 
 Esclavos, supposed communication with Callebar - 56 
 
 situation of 63 
 
 Rio Formosa, vide Benin River. 
 
 Nun, vide Quorra. 
 
 Ramos, situation of - - 64 
 
 Volta, inland communication from, to the Rio Andony 
 (Note) - - 102 
 
 Rolas, llha da, account of - 175 
 Rumby mountains, situation of 122 
 Raphia vinifera, its medicinal properties - - 128 
 varieties described by Pallisot de Beauvois 129 
 
 SABINE, Col., remarks of, on the currents of Western Africa 176 
 
 St. John's river, situation of 77 
 
 Sagus vinifera, its medicinal uses - 128 
 
 Salt, influence of, in the prevention of tenise - 53 
 
 Salt town, healthy anchorage and position of * 57 
 
 Santa Anna de Chaves, town and bay of - - 171 
 
 Sengana Rio, situation of - 64 
 
 . termination of the Bight of Benin there - 65 
 
 Sharks held sacred at New Callebar - 81 
 
 fed with bodies of criminals - 84 
 
 Ships, the, practice of roofing in, on the African coast - 100 
 Sierra Leone, pleasing appearance of 9 
 Skin, the action of, great attention to, by native practi- 
 tioners - 119 
 Skin, action of, importance of, in treatment of endemic fevers 120 
 
198 INDEX. 
 
 Page 
 
 Slave coast, portion of the Bight of Benin so called - 25 
 
 Slaves, precautions against deterioration of, by unchastity - 33 
 Slave trade, partial suppression of, in the Bight of Benin 15 
 Small pox, vide Variola. 
 
 Snake worship at Whydah - 21 
 Solanum melongena, cultivation and use of - 110 
 Soudan, practice of female circumcision in - 30 
 Soundings in the Bight of Benin - 15 
 Spleen, enlargement and hepatization of 180 
 Strabo, his account of female circumcision - 29 
 Subo country, salubrity of 47 
 Swamps, odour from, in the Bights - 14 
 Syphilis, great prevalence of, at Jacqua 43 
 at Bonny - 96 
 
 TENI^J, prevalence of, in Western Africa 53 
 
 Tchadda, expeditions to explore - 73 
 
 Teeth, great care taken of the, by the Africans 127 
 
 Temperature of Fernando Po, table of - 161 
 
 Thomas, St., island of, description and history of - 167 
 
 population - - 172 
 
 salubrity 175 
 
 Tribes African, similarity of certain customs to those of 
 
 the Semitic races - 90 
 Turtle, great size of, at Fernando Po 150 
 Twins, destruction of, by the Bonnians - 97 
 banishment of the mother of, in Old Callebar 114 
 
 ULCERS, frequency of, amongst slaves - 56 
 
 Understone, or Abukuta, account of - 23 
 
 VAPOUR bath, various forms used in the treatment of 
 
 disease - 120 
 
 Varanus Niloticus, veneration of, by the Bonnians 87 
 
 Variola, dreadful ravages of, in Warr6e, Soudan, &c. - 48 
 
 use of Boabab in the treatment of - 51 
 
 curious ideas respecting its European origin by the 
 
 Bonnians - - * - 95 
 
INDEX. 199 
 
 Page 
 
 Vegetable productions of Whydah - 19 
 
 _ of the slave coast generally 37 
 
 entrance of Benin River - - 41 
 
 of Jacqua - 45 
 
 of Warr6e - 50 
 
 of Old Callebar 110 
 
 of Occorotunko - 116 
 
 Gaboon River - 127 
 
 Fernando Po - 149 
 
 Venesection, mode of, practised by natives of Fernando Po 135 
 
 Vogel, Dr., his grave at Fernando Po 147 
 Volcanic action, direction of, in the islands of the Bight of 
 
 Biafra - - 169 
 
 WALSH, Capt., his early trading voyages to Benin 40 
 
 Warre"e, situation and description of - 49 
 
 Watering places at Youngtown 80 
 
 at Henshaw-town -. 108 
 
 atAttarpah 112 
 
 at Clarence - 151 
 
 . near Bimbia Point - 123 
 
 Princes island - - 165 
 
 Man of War Bay, St. Thomas's 174 
 
 Anno Bona - 183 
 
 Wesleyan missionaries, their school at Badagry 22 
 West African company, temporary settlement of, at Fer- 
 nando Po - 142 
 West Bay, Fernando Po, situation of - 150 
 
 picturesque appearance of - 151 
 
 Princes isle, situation of - 165 
 
 Worship of animals, remarks on - 87 
 
 Whydah, its situation, &c. - 18 
 
 -conquest of, by king of Dahomey - 19 
 
 snake worship in - 21 
 
 Wyndham, Capt., early voyage of to the Bights - 1 
 his visit to Benin River 39 
 
 YAMS, excellent species of, in Fernando Po - - 149 
 
200 INDEX. 
 
 Page 
 
 Yarruba, practice of circumcision in - 24 
 Youngtown, in Benin, great slave traffic formerly carried on 
 
 there - 47 
 
 population and diseases of 48 
 
 New Callebar, situation of - 79 
 
 population of - 80 
 
 insalubrity of 81 
 
 vulgaris(?) venerated by the natives of New Cal- 
 
 lebar ------ 81 
 
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 MICROSCOPIC ANATOMY OF THE HUMAN BODY 
 
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