you

wealthy fellow now crumbling to dust. What do think these articles were? Umbrellas, guns, spears, knives, bracelets, bottles, cooking-pots, swords, plates, jugs, glasses, etc.

In some places there remained only little heaps of shapeless dust, from which some copper, or iron, or ivory ornaments, or broken pieces of the articles I have just mentioned, gleamed out, to prove that here, too, once lay a corpse, and exemplifying the saying of the Bible, "Dust to dust thou shalt return." I could not help saying to myself, "Man, what art thou?"

Suddenly I came to a corpse that must have been put there only the day before. The man looked asleep, for death does not show its pallor in the face of the negro as it does in that of the white man. This corpse had been dressed in a coat, and wore a necklace of beads. By his side stood a jar, a cooking-pot, and a few other articles, which his friend, or his heir, had put by his side.

Passing on into a yet more sombre gloom, I came at last to the grave of old King Pass-all, the brother of the present king. Niamkala had pointed out to me the place where I should find it. The huge coffin lay on the ground, and was surrounded on every side with great chests, which contained some of the property of his deceased majesty. Many of them were tumbling down, and the property destroyed. The wood, as well as the goods, had been eaten up by the white ants. Among some of these chests, and on the top of them, were piled huge earthenware jugs, glasses, mugs, plates, iron pots, and brass kettles. Iron and copper rings, and beads, were scattered around, with other precious things which Pass-all had determined to carry to the grave with him. There lay also the ghastly

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skeletons of the poor slaves, who, to the number of one hundred, were killed when the king died, that he might not pass into the other world without due attendance.

It was a grim sight, and one which filled me with a sadder feeling than ever the disgusting slave barracoons had given me.

The land breeze was blowing when I returned, and we started for the sandy point of the cape. It is a curious beach, very low, and covered with a short scrub, which hides a part of the view, while the sand ahead is undistinguishable at a distance from the water, above which it barely rises. I was repeatedly disappointed, thinking we had come to the end, when, in fact, we had before us a long narrow sand-spit. Finally we reached the extreme end, and landed in smooth water on the inside of the spit.

The point gains continually upon the sea. Every year a little more sand appears above the water, while the line of short shrubs, which acts as a kind of dam or breakwater, is also extended, and holds the new land firm against the encroachments of old Neptune.

Among these shrubs we built our camp, and here for some days we had a very pleasant and lively time. The weather was delightful; we had no rain, it being the dry season, and we were not afraid of the awful tornadoes.

PLACE. - FISHING, BUT NOT BATHING. -THE SHARKS. CURING MULLETS, ETC.-TURNING TURTLES.-BIRD-SHOOTING. A LEOPARD SPRINGS UPON US.

OUR camp presented a very picturesque appearance, and was very unlike the one described a little while ago, and of which I gave you a picture. Here each man had built for himself a cosy shade with mats, which, by the way, are very beautiful. These mats are about five or six feet in length and three feet wide. We made our walls of them, so that we were sheltered from the wind. Our houses looked very much like large boxes.

As usual, the first day was occupied in making every thing comfortable and in collecting fire-wood, which it

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was not so easy a matter to find, for the shrubs did not furnish much, and we had to go far to get it; afterward it was made the business of the children to gather brushwood for the fires, and the poor children had hard work

too.

We built large oralas, or frames, on which to dry the fish when salted, or to smoke it by lighting a fire beneath, in which case the oralas were built higher.

Some had brought with them large copper dishes, called Neptunes, which look like gigantic plates, in which they were to boil down salt water to get supplies of salt for salting the fish, and to take home with them. Some of the women were all day making salt; when made, it was packed securely in baskets, and placed near the fire to keep it dry.

Every day we had some new kind of fish to eat or to salt down.

As for myself, as I have said, I had brought along an immense shark-hook and a stout rope. The hook was attached to a strong chain two feet long, so that the teeth of the sharks could not cut the line if they should swallow the piece of meat or the large fish put on the hook for a bait.

There were so many sharks swarming in the waters about the cape that they were often almost washed upon the beach by the waves. I never saw such an immense number. The Chinese, who eat sharks' fins, would find enough here to glut the Canton market. In truth, I sometimes trembled when in a canoe at the idea that it might upset, for if that had happened, in a short time I should have been seized by a dozen hungry sharks, been dragged to the bottom of the sea, and there been

devoured. These sharks are certainly the lions and tigers of the water: they show no mercy. The very sight of them is horrible, for you can not help thinking and saying to yourself, "I wonder how many people this shark has eaten!" There is a superstition among sailors that whenever there is a sick person aboard the sharks will follow. the ship, watching for the corpse to be thrown overboard.

I confess I felt a hatred for sharks, and while at Cape Lopez I killed as many of them as I could. Almost every day you could have seen me in a canoe near the shore, throwing my shark-hook into the sea, and after a while making for the beach, and calling all the men together to pull with all our might, and draw in my victim. One day I took a blue-skin shark. He was a tremendous fellow. I thought we should never be able to haul him ashore, or that the line would part. It took us an hour before we saw him safely on the beach. Now and then I thought he would get the better of us, and that we should have to let the line go, or be pulled into the water. At last he came right up on the beach, and a great shout of victory welcomed him. Aboko was ready for him, and with a powerful axe he gave him a tremendous blow that cut off his tail. Then we smashed his head, and cut his body into several pieces, which quivered to and fro for some time. In his stomach we found a great number of fish. If I remember correctly, he had six or seven rows of teeth, and such ugly teeth! I pity the poor man whose leg should unfortunately get caught between them.

Hardly a day passed that I did not catch some sharks, and then for a bait I used to put on my hook a piece of