ithout doubt, a series of professional observations and enquiry into the
temperature and periodical variations of the climate of Africa, and its
diseases, would be attended with the most important advantages to the
science of physic, and might ultimately prove of incalculable consequence
in preserving the valuable lives of our brave soldiers and sailors, exposed
to all the ravages of tropical climates. Advantages that are well worth the
attention of government, which would train up a body of physicians and
surgeons, initiated into the mysteries of the diseases peculiar to those
countries, which might tend to preserve a large portion of human beings of
the utmost consequence and importance to the state; and it might form a
part in the organization of colonial establishments, to attach thereto an
institution of this nature.

CHAPTER X.

_The Author visits the Isles de Loss.--Remarks on those Islands.--Touches
at the River Scarcies.--Arrives at the Colony of Sierra Leone.--Embarks for
the West Indies--Lands at the Colony of Demerory.--Some Observations on the
Productions of that Colony, Berbice, and Essequibo, and on the Importance
of Dutch Guiana to the United Kingdom, in a political and commercial View._

On the 4th of July, I rejoined the Minerva at the Palm Trees, and on the
5th we weighed and passed the bar of the Rio Pongo, steering our course for
the Isles de Loss; and on the 6th came to an anchor off Factory Island.

The Isles de Loss, in the Portuguese language meaning Islands of Idols, are
so called from the idolatrous customs of the natives, and are seven in
number; Tammara, Crawford's, Factory, Temba, White's, Goat, and Kid
islands. Tammara is the largest, but very difficult of approach, and has
few inhabitants; Crawford's has two factories for trade, belonging to
gentlemen formerly in the service of the Sierra Leone Company; and Factory
Island has an American establishment, conducted by a Mr. Fisk, These are
the principal (the others being little more than barren rocks), and they
abound in vegetation and natural productions. Squilly, or the sea onion, to
which great medicinal qualities are ascribed, grows in great abundance in
these islands, and might be procured in almost any quantity. Dr. Lewis, in
the _Materia Medica_, or _Edinburgh Dispensary_, describes the peculiar
qualities of this root.

The positions of these islands are excellent for trade, but exposed to the
predatory excursions of th