honesty!

I am sorry that their nobler characteristics have so few imitators
among the other tribes of Africa.

CHAPTER XV.

When the rains began to slacken, a petty caravan now and then
straggled towards the coast; but, as I was only a new comer in the
region, and not possessed of abundant means, I enjoyed a slender share
of the trade. Still I consoled myself with the hope of better luck in
the dry season.

In the mean time, however, I not only heard of Joseph's safe arrival
at Matanzas, but received a clerk whom he dispatched to dwell in
Kambia while I visited the interior. Moreover, I built a boat, and
sent her to Sierra Leone with a cargo of palm-oil, to be exchanged for
British goods; and, finally, during my perfect leisure, I went to work
with diligence _to study_ the trade in which fortune seemed to have
cast my lot.

It would be a task of many pages if I attempted to give a full account
of the origin and causes of _slavery in Africa_. As a national
institution, it seems to have existed always. Africans have been
bondsmen every where: and the oldest monuments bear their images
linked with menial toils and absolute servitude. Still, I have no
hesitation in saying, that three fourths of the slaves _sent abroad_
from Africa are the fruit of native wars, fomented by the avarice and
temptation of our own race. I cannot exculpate any commercial nation
from this sweeping censure. We stimulate the negro's passions by the
introduction of wants and fancies never dreamed of by the simple
native, while slavery was an institution of domestic need and comfort
alone. But what was once a luxury has now ripened into an absolute
necessity; so that MAN, _in truth, has become the coin of Africa, and
the "legal tender" of a brutal trade_.

England, to-day, with all her philanthropy, sends, under the cross of
St. George, to convenient magazines of _lawful commerce_ on the coast,
her Birmingham muskets, Manchester cottons, and Liverpool lead, all of
which are righteously swapped at Sierra Leone, Acra, and on the Gold
coast, for Spanish or Brazilian bills on London. Yet, what British
merchant does not know the traffic on which those bills are founded,
and for whose support his wares are purchased? France, with her
_bonnet rouge_ and fraternity, dispatches her Rouen cottons,
Marseilles brandies, flimsy taffetas, and indescribable variety of
tinsel gewgaws. Philosophic Germany demands a slice for her
looking-glasses and b