had quite a large quantity of
provisions, water, canvas, spars, and other matters, and last, but not
least, all my nieces' and my own boxes. The sailors constructed two
tents in a sheltered spot high up on the beach--one for themselves and
one for us--and we at length retired to spend our first night in the
character of castaways.

"About an hour before daybreak we were rudely awakened--to find
ourselves in the power of the savages. I am of opinion that we must
have been watched during the whole of the previous day, for the surprise
of the camp was complete; we had been noiselessly surrounded, and,
whilst we unfortunate women were spared, the equally unfortunate men
were, for the most part, slain in their sleep; not one had escaped--at
least we never afterwards saw any of them alive. The camp was of course
ransacked, and when every man had possessed himself of whatever happened
to take his fancy, we were placed in the centre of the band and conveyed
to this place, where we have been detained close prisoners ever since.
The scattered contents of the camp must afterwards, I fancy, have been
collected and brought to this village, for a few days later our boxes--
broken open and the contents in a dreadfully soiled and disordered
condition--were brought to us, and upon our replying in the affirmative
to the questions put to us by signs as to whether they were our
property, were left in our possession. I have only to add that the
wreck, and the horrors which succeeded it, proved too much for poor
Lucilla in her then somewhat weak state of health, and she fell into a
low fever with delirium, which prostrated her for nearly three months,
and from the effects of which she has even now not wholly recovered. It
was during this dreadfully anxious period that those four poor black
creatures were appointed to attend upon us. They have been most zealous
and faithful in their efforts to help us; they have instructed us to
some extent in their simple language; and they have informed us, not
only that they are cast-off wives of the king, but that he was, and
still is, anxious to secure one (if not more) of my nieces for a wife,
and that the only hope of escape from such a fate lay in our simulating
insanity, which, most reluctantly, we have been compelled to do whenever
M'Bongwele or any of his emissaries have visited us. But, beyond our
close confinement and this horrible ever-impending danger, we have no
very great cause for com