On the fifth of November we arrived off the mouth of the celebrated Congo river, but the wind being light, and the current setting out of the river with great force and velocity, we came to anchor, and waited for a favorable opportunity to go in. The English steam-brig' Hecate' and one or two other cruisers lay in the offing, blockading the mouth of the river, and, with our own vessel, were the only sails in sight. The Hecate had been so fortunate as to take a large slaver but a few days previously, just as she got out of the Congo, with six hundred slaves on board. The river at its mouth is some twenty miles in width, and runs with the force of a mill-sluice into the ocean; and the current continuing in strength and speed far out to sea, the slaver has greater facilities in obtaining a good offing from the land at this point than from any other slave-mart on the coast. One dark night, and an ebb tide, will take him forty miles down the river and sixty miles from the coast, let him sail ever so badly, and the probability of falling foul of a cruiser at this distance is very small. If he should by chance be discovered in the morning, he must of course depend on his heels,' and the chances are at the present day that they are pretty 'long' and 'clean,' and equal to those of the generality of the cruisers. An instance occurred this very year of one of H. B. M.'s brigs chasing a Brazilian slaver from the mouth of the Congo across the broad Atlantic to Cape Frio.

It must have been a most painfully-exciting chase. The two vessels were in sight of each other the whole time, a little more than three ▾ weeks; and every ruse and stratagem was practised by the slaver to escape the avenging pursuer in her wake. She would alter her course at night, but the Englishman was on hand for this 'dodge,' and by nice calculation and the help of strong night-glasses was sure to be ready for the

race in the morning. Sometimes he would be almost near enough to fire into her, when, by some slight change in the wind or variation in the weather, the slaver would again have the advantage, and creep away from the sleuth-hound at her heels. At last, as they neared the coast of South-America, the strong breezes began to give the cruiser the advantage; and having exhausted all his nautical skill in endeavoring to escape, the slave-captain was reduced to his last extremity, and began to throw his slaves overboard. John Bull was now sorely puzzled, with the slaver almost within his grasp, and the poor victims of his horrible cruelty struggling in the water. Should he continue the chase, and leave the poor devils to their fate, with their shrieks of despair ringing in his ears? A bright idea strikes him: he is within two hundred miles of the coast, and the race must soon be decided. He gives his orders: in a trice the main-yard is backed, up go the yard and stay tackles, and in twenty minutes he has thrown out all his boats, with an experienced officer to command them, with orders to follow with all speed in his wake, and pick up the unfortunate beings as they are thrown over from the slaver. Again he dashes off in pursuit, the slaver having gained already several miles. Every expedient is now put in use to increase the specd of the cruiser: the hammocks are slung on the berth-deck, and shot and other heavy articles put into them; the stays and rigging are slacked the sails kept wet, and the other auxiliaries, such as studding-sails, staysails, ring-tails, water-sails and save-alls, are brought into requisition and made the most of. Such untiring perseverance deserved to be rewarded, and the slaver was taken just as he almost fancied himself in security, close in to the land under Cape Frio.

up.

On the seventh, early in the morning, all hands were called 'Up anchor,' and with a strong south-west breeze, we got under weigh, and passing Shark's Point on the southern shore, stood into the mouth of the river with all sail set. The current was very strong, but our wind was strong enough to enable us to battle it; and after getting well into the river, by hugging the southern shore as closely as possible, we found an eddy current which assisted us greatly, and in five hours we ran up to the anchorage, twenty miles from the mouth, and again dropped the 'mud-hook." Some idea may be formed of the strength and velocity of the current in the river, from the fact of its never having been possible to obtain soundings; leads, lines, and the most improved apparatus for sounding having been broken and lost, time and again, by the mere force of the stream, in endeavoring to reach the bottom.

The Congo is one of the largest rivers in Africa, and for many years it was supposed to be connected with, if not a part of, the mighty and mysterious Niger.' Many attempts have been made to identify the two rivers with each other; and in the year 1816 the scientific corps who composed the ill-fated expedition of Captain Tuckey ascended the Congo, expecting to find themselves, after going a certain distance, in communication with another party that had ascended the Niger with the same object in view. The result of Tuckey's expedition is well known: he lost his own life, and the lives of nearly all who accompanied him, and failed in the great object of connecting the two rivers. Subsequent discoveries in the Niger have shown that no communication exists between it and the

Congo, and that their sources are widely apart; and although but little is known of the Zaire, or Congo, from the discoveries of Captain Tuckey's expedition, it is generally believed, from the accounts of the natives, that at the distance of eight hundred or a thousand miles from the sea it is a mere rivulet, which increases as it runs, from the contributions of other streams, until it attains the vast body of rolling water which throws itself with such irresistible force into the sea at its mouth.

The river running with such velocity often prevents vessels going up; but as they come here, with the exception of the slave-traders, principally to water ship, this evil is attended with its natural cure, for it is no uncommon thing for ships to fill up with water perfectly fresh and pure just outside the mouth; and in some instances it has been done twenty and thirty miles at sea, out of sight of any land. The strong current often undermines and detaches large portions of the banks, which, being composed of thick masses of tangled mangrove-roots and under-growth closely matted together, come floating down the stream with all their vegetation upon them, presenting the appearance of thickly-wooded little islands. These are often seen at sea, and after heavy rains, when the river is much swollen, they are brought down in such numbers and of so large a size that vessels are very frequently stopped by them. We often saw them a hundred and a hundred and fifty miles from the mouth of the river, far out at sea, and generally swarming with water-fowl and birds of every description. I remember one very dark night, when we were running down the coast to the northward of the Congo, we fell in with one of these islands, our proximity to which was denoted by a most singular kind of loud buzzing noise for which we could not account. A boat was manned and sent in the direction of the sound, and in a short time she returned, having visited a floating island of apparently very large size, and which the officer said was covered with birds, old and young, who had probably been disturbed by the approach of our vessel, or perhaps by the motion of the sea, which was rising, and must have made their floating home very uncomfortable.

Our anchorage in the river was abreast of a little point of land, on which stood a house formerly occupied by two Portuguese traders, both now dead with the fever of the country, and whose graves, roughly and carelessly dug by the hand of some friendly African, were denoted by two little piles of stones near the house. The situation of this house, I should suppose, had been chosen on account of a little patch of beach on the point which rendered it an easy landing-place for boats and I may remark that this is the only place on either bank of the river, for the distance up to this point, where a boat can land, the banks being covered, as in the Dande, down to the water's edge with mangrove trees and dense under-growth. On the beach lay large piles of wood, cut and stored there for the use of the English cruisers employed in blockading the river; notwithstanding whose vigilance, however, many slavers escape with full cargoes of human cattle, and land them safely at Cape Frio.

The Congo river is, and has been for a long time, the largest slavemart on the whole western coast of Africa. Vessel after vessel has been taken by the English, with as many slaves on board as they could stow; still others are fitted out, and often perform their Voyages with great suc

cess to their owners. Every facility is here found for the slave-trader to carry on his inhuman traffic. The native kings and head-men of the different tribes along the entire river are engaged in, and derive their entire support from, the trade in human flesh. They are constantly at war with each other and the tribes in the back country, and every captive taken is sold as a slave to the Portuguese or Brazilian slave-trader. The supply always equals, if it does not exceed the demand; and the price of the slave being comparatively small, the slave-agent has but little risk, save to escape the armed cruisers at the mouth of the river, the facilities for doing which I have already shown. Should he even lose two vessels out of three, and escape with the third and land a full cargo in the Brazils, he clears the loss of the two vessels taken, and in all probability makes a fortune beside. These inducements are so strong, not only when speaking of the slave-trade in the Congo river, but at hundreds of other places on the coast, that I am firmly of the opinion that the united navies of England, France and the United States, if kept constantly on the coast to suppress the slave-trade, would hardly suffice to prevent a stray cargo occasionally being carried off. Such a vigorous blockade would even have the effect of inducing others to take the risk who now think the trade is over-done, or at least sufficiently well done for them to remain inactive; and some, again, would be forced into it from mere necessity, owing to the scarcity and high price of slaves which at first would inevitably ensue. That there are means and ways of putting an end to this odious traffic none will deny. We have declared it piracy if our subjects or vessels are found engaged in it, and treat them accordingly; but we do not from policy interfere with the vessels of other nations, even though they take their cargoes of human flesh on board, and sail in the face and eyes of our naval forces in Africa, as I myself have seen in more than one in

stance.

Nor would I advocate any such interference on our part, nor suggest any alteration or modification of the maritime principle, to uphold which we have already declared war against England herself, that the flag protects the vessel. England, denying this principle, save where the United States and one or two other nations, who are well able now to obtain retribution for an infringement of it, are concerned, without the least hesitation seizes and destroys Spanish, Brazilian and Portuguese vessels engaged in the slave-trade, or who are suspected of being engaged in it, on the ground that they are pirates. Does she treat them as such? We shall see. One of her Majesty's cruisers takes a slaver, with the slaves on board. A prize officer is put on board, and the vessel is sent with the slaves to one of her colonies, and there apportioned out to the residents as laborers for a term of years. The vessel is sawn in halves and sold. Where are the pirate's crew? Hung at the yard-arm or imprisoned for life? Oh! no; they are put on shore at the nearest point, and of course make their way to the nearest slave-barracoon, and hold themselves in readiness to go on board the first slaver that presents herself; and they are rarely any length of time in want of employment. These are the men who man American-built vessels that are sold on the coast for slavers in large numbers, and with perfect impunity.

I believe that there is an Admiralty order that any such slavers as