The Sun.
London, England, 1864-09-20 00:00:00

with land free, in the course of a year or two might, by
training some GO boys to habits of industry have rendered
his mission independent as far as native support was con-
cerned. Having been engaged in the formation of two
missions in another part of the country, and having
been familiar with tha history of several, I never knew
a mission undertaken under more favourable auspices.
This would be the opinion of all who have commenced
simlar enterprises in other parts, and it was that of the
good bishop himself. He was so thoroughly unselfish and
of such a genial disposition that he soon gained the confi-
dence cf the people, and this is the first great step to success.
The beat way of treating these degraded people must always
be very much that which is pursued in ragged schools.
Their bodily wants must be attended to as the basis of all
efforts at their elevation, The slave trade is the gigantic
evil which meets us at every step in the country. We can
not move through any part without meeting captured men
and women, bound and sometimes gagged; so no good can
be done if this crying evil is not grappled with. The good
bishop had some 200 people entirely at his disposal, and
would soon hsvo presented to the country an example of a
free community supported by its own industry, where fair
dealing could be met, which undoubtedly would have created
immense influence; for wherever the English name is known
it is associated with freedom and fair play. Some seem to
take a pleasure in running down their fellow-countrymen,
but the longer I live I like them the better. They carry
with them some sense of law and justice, and a spirit of
kindliness, and were I in difficulty I should prefer going to
an Englishman in preference to any other for aid, And as
for English women ~-ther do undoubtedly make the best
wives, mothers, sisters, and daughters in the world. It is
this conviction that makes me, in my desire to see slavery
abolished and human happiness promoted, ardently wish to
have some of our countrywomen transplanted to a region
where they would both give and receive benefit, wb ere every
decent Christian Englishman, whether Churchman or Dis-
senter, learned or unlearned, liberal or bigoted, would cer-
tainly become a blessing by introducing a better system than
that which has prevailed for ages, We conducted Bishop
Mackenzie and party up to the highlands, and after spend-
ing three or four days with them returned, and never had
any more connexion with the conduct of that mission. 'We
carried a boat past Murchison's Cataracts. By these the
river descends, at five different leaps of great beauty, 1,200
feet in a distance of about 40 miles. Above that we have 60
miles of fine deep rivers, flowing placidly out of Lake
Agassa. As we sailed into this fine fresh-water lake we were
naturally anxious to know its depth-10,12, 20, 30 fathoms
—then no bottom with all our line, and John Neil, our
sailor, at last pronounced it fit for the Great Eastern to sail
in. We touched the bottom in a bay with a line of 100
fathoms, and a mile out could find no bottom at .116
fathoms. It contains plenty of fish, and great numbers of
natives. daily engage in catching them with nets, hooks,
spears, torches, and poison. The water remains about 72
deg., and the crocodiles having plenty of fish to eat, rarely
attack men. It is from 50 to 60 miles broad, and we saw at
least 225 miles of its length. As seen from the lake, it seems
surrounded by mountains, and from these furious storms
come suddenly down and raise high seas, which are dan-
gerous for a boat, but the native canoes go easily along the
surface. The mountains on the west were ascended
last year, and found to be only the edges of a great
plateau, 3,000 feet above the sea. This is cool, well wa-
tered, and well peopled with the Manganja and the Maori,
some of whom possess cattle; and I have no doubt but that,
the first hardships over, and properly housed and fed, Eu-
ropeans would enjoy life and comfort. This part of Africa
Las exactly the same form as Western India at Bombay,
only this is a little higher and cooler. Well, having now a
fair way into the highlands by means of the Zambesi and
Shire, and a navigable course of river and lake of two miles
across, by which all the slaves from the Red Sea and the
Persian Gulf, as well as some from Cuba went, and nearly
all the inhabitants of this densely-peopled country actually
knowing how to cultivate cotton, it seemed likely that their
strong propensity to trade might be easily turned to the
advantage of our own country as well as theirs. And here
I beg to remark, that on my first journey, my attention not
having then been turned to the subject, I noticed only a few
cases of its cultivation, but in this I saw much more than
I had previously any idea of. The cotton is short in the
staple, strong, and like wool in the hand—as good as Up-
land American. A second kind has been introduced, as is
seen in the name being foreign ootton, and a third variety
of very superior quality, very long in the fibre, though
usually believed to belong to South America, was found
right in the middle of the continent, in the country of the
Makalolo. A tree of it was 8 in. diameter, like an ordinary
apple tree. And all these require replanting not oftener than
once in three years. There is no danger of frosts either
to injure the crops. No sooner, however,lhad we begun our
labours among the Manganja than the African Portuguese,
by instigating the Ajawa, with arms and ammunition, to, be
paid for in slaves, produced the utmost confusion. Village
after village was attacked and burned, for the Manganja,
armed only with bows and arrows, could not stand before
firearms. The bowman's way of fighting is to be in ambush,
and shoot his arrows unawares, while those with guns
making a great noise cause the bowmen to run away. The
women and children become captives. This process of
slave hunting went on for some months, and then a panic
seized the Manganja nation. All fled down to the river,
only anxious to get that between them and their enemies ;
but they had all left their food behind them, and starva-
tion of thousands ensued. The Shire Valley, where thou-
sands lived at our first visit, was converted into literally
a valley of dry bones. One cannot now walk a mile with-
out seeing a human skeieton—open a hut in the now de-
serted villages, and there lie the unburied skeletons. In
some I opened there two skeletons, and a little one rolled
up in a mat between them. 1 have always hated putting
the blame of being based upon any one else, from a
conviction that a man ought to succeed in all feasible
projects in spite of everybody—and, moreover, not to be
understood as casting a slur on the Portuguese in Europe,
the Viscount Lavradio, the Viscount de la Bandeira, and
others, being as anxious to see the abolition of the slave
trade as could be desired. But the evil is done by the
assertion in Europe of dominion in Africa, when it is quite
well known that they were only a few half-castes the chil-
dren of Portuguese and black women, who have actually to
pay tribute to the pure natives. Were they of the smallest
benefit to Portugal? If any one ever made a fortune, and
went home to spend it in Lisbon, or if any pleasure what-
ever could be derived by the Portuguese Government from
spending £5,000 annually on needy Governors, who all
connive at the slave trade—the thing could be understood.
But Portugal gains nothing but a shocking bad name, as
the first that began the slave trade, and the last to end it-
To us it is a serious matter to see Lord Palmerston's
policy, which has been eo eminently successful on the west,
so largely neutralised on the east coast. A great nation
like ours cannot get rid of the obligations to other mem-
bers of the great community of nations. The police of the
sea must be maintained, and should we send no more
cruisers to suppress the slave trade, we would soon be obs
liged to send them to suppress piracy, for no traffic en-
genders lawlessness as does this odious trade. The plan I
proposed required a steamer on Lake Nyassa to take up the
worry trade, as it is by the aid of that trade that the traffic
in slaves is c =led on. The Government sent out a steamer
which, though an excellent one, was too deep for the Shire.
Another steamer was then built at my own expense; this
was all that could be desired, made to unscrew into 24
pieces ; and the Lady Nyassa, or Lady of the Lake, was
actually unscrewed and ready for conveyance at the foot of
Murchison's Cataracts, when, the people being swept away
in the manner I have mentioned, a work was hindered
which I confidently believed would have entirely changed
the state of the country. It was the steamer Lady of
Nyassa that took me across the Indian Ocean, and in it I
purpose to try again. Were I young again I would gladly
devote my time to the missionary work, but that must be
done by younger men, specially educated for it—men will-
ing to rough it, and yet hold quietly and patiently on. When
I become consul, it was with the confident hope that I
should be able to stop the slave trade. I do not mean to give
up. If being baffled had even made me lose heart, I should
never have been here in the position which by your kinds
ness I now occupy. I intend to make another attempt, but
this time to the north of Portuguese territory, and I feel
greatly encouraged by the interest you show, as it cannot
be for the person, bat from your sympathy with the cause
of human liberty throughout the world. It startles us to
see a great nation of our own blood despising the African's
claims to humanity, and drifting helplessly into a war about
him, and then drifting quite as helplessly into abolition and
anti-slavery principles, and leading the Africans to fight.
No mighty event like this terrible war ever took place with-
out teaching terrible lessons. One of these may be that,
though " on the side of the oppressor there is power, there
be higher than they." With respect to the African, neither
drink, nor disease, nor slavery can root him out of the world.
I never had any of the prodigious destruction of human
life that takes place consequent on the slave hunting till I
saw it; and as this has gone on for centuries, it gives a
wonderful idea of the vitality of the nation.

THE GREAT FIRE AT WOOLMER FOREST.—The
Commissioners of Woods and Forests have issued
bills offering a reward of £lOO to any person or persons, not
being the principal or principals by whom the great planta-
tion was set on fire on Wednesday, the 17th ult., who shall
give such information as shall lead to the conviction of
those guilty. The fires still continue burning in the deep
peat soil of Longmore Enclosure in two places, the
de
is no probability of their being extinguished until the
whole depth of peat is burnt out, or more heavy rains set
in and flood the bottoms.
The Quebec Daily News of the 7th inst. states that the
20-inch Henry gun recently finished at the Federal Fort
Pitt works has been weighed and found to be slightly over
58 tons.