with palm-oil for a
lamp, and a German looking-glass mounted in a paper frame. I augmented
these comforts by the addition of a trunk, mattress, hammock and pair
of blankets; yet, after all this embellishment, I confess my household
was rather a sorry affair.

It is time I should make the reader acquainted with the individual who
was the presiding genius of the scene, and, in some degree, a type of
his peculiar class in Africa.

Mr. Ormond was the son of an opulent slave-trader from Liverpool, and
owed his birth to the daughter of a native chief on the Rio Pongo. His
father seems to have been rather proud of his mulatto stripling, and
dispatched him to England to be educated. But Master John had made
little progress in belles-lettres, when news of the trader's death was
brought to the British agent, who refused the youth further supplies
of money. The poor boy soon became an outcast in a land which had not
yet become fashionably addicted to philanthropy; and, after drifting
about awhile in England, he shipped on board a merchantman. The
press-gang soon got possession of the likely mulatto for the service
of his Britannic Majesty. Sometimes he played the part of dandy waiter
in the cabin; sometimes he swung a hammock with the hands in the
forecastle. Thus, five years slipped by, during which the wanderer
visited most of the West Indian and Mediterranean stations.

At length the prolonged cruise was terminated, and Ormond paid off. He
immediately determined to employ his hoarded cash in a voyage to
Africa, where he might claim his father's property. The project was
executed; his mother was still found alive; and, fortunately for the
manly youth, she recognized him at once as her first-born.

The reader will recollect that these things occurred on the west coast
of Africa in the early part of the present century, and that the
tenure of property, and the interests of foreign traders, were
controlled entirely by such _customary_ laws as prevailed on the spot.
Accordingly, a "grand palaver" was appointed, and all Mr. Ormond's
brothers, sisters, uncles, and cousins,--many of whom were in
possession of his father's slaves or their descendants,--were summoned
to attend. The "talk" took plate at the appointed time. The African
mother stood forth stanchly to assert the identity and rights of her
first-born, and, in the end, all of the Liverpool trader's property,
in houses, lands, and negroes, that could be ascertained, was ha