the main coast of Africa.

The voyage was much longer than we expected, and when we were landed
upon the continent it seemed the most desolate, desert, and inhospitable
country in the world.

It was here that we took one of the rashest and wildest and most
desperate resolutions that ever was taken by man; this was to travel
overland through the heart of the country, from the coast of Mozambique
to the coast of Angola or Guinea, a continent of land of at least 1,800
miles, in which journey we had excessive heats to support, impassable
deserts to go over, no carriages, camels, or beasts of any kind to carry
our baggage, innumerable wild and ravenous beasts to encounter, such as
lions, leopards, tigers, lizards, and elephants; we had nations of
savages to encounter, barbarous and brutish to the last degree; hunger
and thirst to struggle with, and, in one word, terrors enough to have
daunted the stoutest hearts that ever were placed in cases of flesh and
blood.

Yet, fearless of all these, we resolved to adventure, and not only did
we accomplish our journey, but we came to a river where there were vast
quantities of gold.

The hardships and difficulties of our march were much mitigated by a
method which I proposed and was found very convenient. This was to
quarrel with some of the negro natives, take them as prisoners, and
binding them, as slaves, cause them to travel with us and make them
carry our baggage.

Accordingly, we secured about sixty lusty young fellows as prisoners,
for the natives stood in great awe of us because of our firearms, and
they not only served us faithfully--the more so as we treated them
without harshness--but were of great help in showing us the way, and in
conversing with the savages we afterwards met.

When we reached the country where the gold was, we at once agreed, in
order that the good harmony and friendship of our company might be
maintained, that however much gold was gotten, it should be brought into
one common stock, and equally divided at last, the negroes sharing with
the rest.

This was done, and at the end of our long journey we found each man's
share amounted to many pounds of gold. We also got a cargo of elephants'
teeth.

We parted at the Gold Coast from our black companions on the best of
terms. Then most of my comrades went off to the Portuguese factories
near Gambia, and I went to Cape Coast Castle, and got passage for,
England, where I arrived in September.

_II