Two days afterwards the corvette came to an
anchor off the chief settlement of the Portuguese on that coast.

The town stands on an island, about a mile and a half in length,
situated on a deep inlet of the sea, into which several small rivers
fall. The harbour is of considerable size, its entrance guarded by a
fort, beyond which appeared an avenue of trees on a gentle slope, then a
collection of flat-roofed whitewashed houses, then the palace of the
Portuguese governor, with pink walls, and a considerably dilapidated
cathedral, below which a stone pier, with buttresses of a sugar-loaf
form, runs out into the sea.

"Not a very attractive-looking place," observed Terence to his brother
lieutenant, as they viewed it from the ship.

"Yet it speaks of the bygone magnificence of the once proud Lusitanian,"
answered the poet. "I must write some lines on the subject. The place
is not without interest."

"Those dhows, and low, dark, piratical-looking schooners, have
considerably more interest to us, however," said Adair; "they are not
employed in any honest calling, depend on that; and there lie two
Spaniards and a Yankee. If they have no slaves on board, they will have
before long, and we must do our best to catch them. We must depend on
our own wits, though, for it's impossible to get any correct information
from the Portuguese officers--they are most of them as arrant
slave-dealers as the Arabs themselves. That man-of-war schooner, for
instance, is much more likely to help the slavers to escape than to
assist us in catching them, and is very likely often employed in
bringing off a cargo of ebony from the shore."

The schooner he pointed at was a handsome vessel, with a thoroughly
piratical look about her. However, she formed a strong contrast to the
Arab dhows by which she was surrounded. They were of all sizes, the
largest measuring, perhaps, three hundred and fifty tons.

"If I had to describe a dhow, I should say that her shape was like half
a well-formed pear, cut longitudinally," observed Adair, looking towards
the large craft over the quarter, which lay at some little distance, and
was preparing apparently to put to sea. "See, her bow sinks deeply in
the water, while the stern floats lightly upon it. Large as that craft
is, she is only partially decked. She has cross-beams, however, to
preserve her shape, and on them are laid flat strips of bamboo, which
enable the crew to make their way from one end