M'LEOD'S TRAVELS IN EASTERN AFRICA. * SLOWLY but increasingly of late
years the attention of English- men has been drawn to the immense resources of Eastern Africa, and to the importance of redeeming that prolific region and its swarming inhabitants from the curse under which they are laid by the degenerate descendants of the countrymen of Vasco de Gama and the great Alburquerque. The Portuguese claim pos- ession of the coast from the town of Lourenco Marques, on the northern side of Delagoa Bay, to Cape Delgado. Within this range of fifteen degrees of latitude lie the mouths of the Zambesi river, where Dr. Livingstone is now pursuing his heroic enter. prise, and southward, just within the Portuguese limits, the mouth of the navigable river Manakusi, supposed to be continu- ous with the Limpopo, which forms the northern limit of the Transvaal Republic. Between the two rivers lie the Sofala river, town, and territory, which Mr. hi'Leod identifies, upon very probable grounds, with the Ophir of Scripture. On both banks of the Sofala, and thence northwards to the Zambesi, the country is one mass of mineral wealth ; gold, silver, copper, and, toward Tete, even iron and coal being found in abundance. Gold is so plentiful that the natives do not value it, but prefer copper for the material of their ornaments. Not less exuberant is the animal and vege- table wealth of this region, and of those lying north and south of it, between the 10th and 25th parallels of latitude. The pearl- oyster is found all along the coast, which is also admirably adapted for the growth of cotton, being washed by the steaming waters of that great ocean current, which subsequently in its course on the east coast of America obtains the name of the Gulf Stream. The vast interior abounds with the most useful animals and plants, from dye weeds to palms and trees that yield choice timber, india-rubber, and gutta percha. The prodigious herds of elephants it sustains may afford some notion of the teeming fertility of the soil. "Last year," says Mr. 1PLeod, "in the short space of three months, the ivory obtained by the Boers, in Zoutpanaberg alone, was computed at 60,000 pounds weight Dutch, or nearly thirty tons ; " and it has been estimated, from the enormous quantity of ivory produced in the Sofala territory, that the na- tives, at one time, must have killed from three to four thousand elephants every year. The Dutchmen of the Transvaal Republic are a living proof of the salubrity of the country beyond the mountains westward of the Portuguese settlements, and of its ac- cordance with the constitution of Europeans. ‘.‘ These Boers are very prolific, many of the women bearing upwards of twenty children. I am personally acquainted with three such mothers ; and, after a careful calculation, I am inclined to believe that the average of the Boer families is sixteen ; and, I may almost say, never less than twelve. It may well be imagined that a people who increase an rapidly, and with whom the south part of Africa Is known to agree remarkably, require only an outport to become a mighty nation."
• Travels in Baster» Africa ; with the Narrative of a Residence in Mozam- bique. By Lyons M•Leod, Esq., late H.B.M. Consul at Mozambique. In two volumes. Published by Hurst and Blaekett. May they soon obtain one peaceably, or by force, if need be, and by the ejection of the Portuguese slave-traders from sites of which they make the worst possible use, to the injury EA the whole human race ! Viler than the Chinese, whose in- dustry they lack, while they equal them in low cunning, perfidy, and cruel hardness of heart, these dregs and off- scourings of Don Pedro's kingdom, blockade the whole coast along which they are squatted at long intervals in scanty numbers, guarding the mouths of the rivers, and hinder- ing all ingress and egress for lawful commerce. Too lazy to use fairly the good things within their reach, they are resolved that the rest of the world shall not enjoy them, and that the grand region, of which they possess the seaboard, shall yield nothing to the world beyond it, except slaves. The traffic in human flesh, which has been greatly diminished on the western coast of Africa, and wholly suppressed on all the eastern coast, except that portion of it which is under the dishonoured flag of Portugal, has there its head-quarters' and is the chief business of the whole white population, including the authorities and the servants of the Go- vernment. To counteract this evil influence' our Government re- solved, four years ago, to establish a Consul at Mozambique, for the furtherance of legitimate commerce and the hindrance of slave- trade. Mr. Lyons M`Leod was the gentleman selected for this office, nd the Government could hardly have chosen one better qualiked-in every way for the difficult mission assigned him. He arrived at Mozambique on the 18th of July 1857, and quitted it on the 18th May 1858, when it had become manifest that it was not for the honour or advantage of his country that he should prolong his residence in a place where he had been subjected to incessant afinoyances and indignities' and where he would have remained' wholly unprotected if two British men-of-war, which had touched at Mozambique, had departed without him. The Governor-General distinctly declared himself totally unable to protect the British Consul, or the consul of any nation professing anti-slavery principles' against the slave-trade party, and there- upon "it was decided, in consultation with the senior naval officer, that the best course was to retire to Mauritius, or even England, until such time as arrangements were made between England and Portugal for the reception of a British consul, in honour and safety, at Mozambique." Thus terminated for a while, soon we trust to be renewed with more cogency, the amicable attempt of our Government to hold Portugal fast to her engagements, and convert her pretended ef- forts for the suppression of the slave-trade' from the shams they have always been, into realities. But Mr. hi'Leod's mission was by no means barren of results ; it was signally the reverse, for it led directly to the suppression of the so-called Free Labour Emi- gration Trade, which was neither more nor less than the old slave-trade under a new name. It was Mr. M`Leod who de- nounced the celebrated "Charles-et-Georges" to the Governor- General, whereupon she was seized and condemned, and it was the facts disclosed upon the investigation of this case that made the Emperor Napoleon withdraw his sanction from the system of traffic under which it had occurred. Slavery has still twenty years to run in the Portuguese settlements, but the slave-trade there is illegal. Let us hope that Mr. M‘Leod will yet have op- portunity to cooperate with Dr. Livingstone and others, towards making it unprofitable and impracticable. At all events, we shall rejoice to hear that he is actively engaged abroad, serving his country with all the resources of his varied and accurate know- ledge, his zeal and ability, and collecting, for our own delectation, materials for another book of travels, as rich in matter and as racy in manner as f he excellent volumes which we now lay down with the heartiest respect for their author.
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