ng, and six
inches in circumference. The blacks frequently extract the teeth of
these reptiles, even those of the most venomous species, a process
which renders them harmless. In the evening we returned to Freetown.
The black ostler, who is generally a Krooman, performs in this country
a double duty, for he not only attends the horse in the stable, but
accompanies him on his journey, keeping pace with the animal at
whatever rate his master pleases to ride. This would be a very good
punishment for some of our ostlers who are in the habit of cheating the
horses out of their corn. To compel the rogues to share fatigue with
the animal, might teach them to treat them with more humanity. Horses
are sometimes brought to this country from St. Jago, but they do not
live long. A smaller and hardier breed comes from the Gambia, and the
climate seems to agree very well with them. Neither English nor St.
Jago horses live long at Sierra Leone, and the cause assigned for this
is, that the coarse grass, which grows so rapidly in this country, has
too little nutriment in it to support the animal under the exhausting
effects of such a climate; and it is observed that he is continually
though gradually wasting away, notwithstanding his appetite is most
voracious; that at length he partially loses the use of his hind legs,
becomes weak across the loins, and for the want of nervous energy, a
paralysis ensues, and the horse ultimately dies. But if he is given
more stimulating food there is a chance of his doing well; or at any
rate of his living much longer than he otherwise would on such poor
food as he usually gets.

_Saturday, September 29th_.--The Henri Quatre, a beautiful brig,
arrived yesterday afternoon from the Bight of Benin, with 548 slaves on
board, a prize to H.M.S. Sybille. This vessel was afterwards fitted out
as a tender to the Commodore's ship, and well known, as the celebrated
Black Joke, for her success in capturing other slavers. To-day I
accompanied the Rev. Mr. Davy on board. A multitude of slaves crowded
her deck in a state of nudity. The spectacle was humiliating in every
sense, and the immediate effect upon the olfactory nerves was
excessively disagreeable and oppressive. We found the officer who had
charge of the vessel confined to a small space in the after-part of the
deck near the tiller. The pressure of this dense mass of human beings
was suffocating, and the crowd was so great that one poor slave who had
fallen