indecorous in me to enlarge on the subject.  Lieut.  Colonel Lloyd, from his long residence, and intimacy with a great portion of the Windward Coast, possesses ample information.  And the naval officers, who from time to time have visited it, have, no doubt, furnished every document necessary to complete an effective naval protection.  A regular system of defence, adapted to the jurisdiction of the Sierra Leone, and delegated establishment between Cape Mount and Cape Palmas, are also obviously requisite.  The establishments that would be eligible for the purposes of defence, are confined to the three foregoing principal positions, and they have little to perform that is either difficult or embarrassing.  It may not, however, be considered as going beyond the bounds of propriety to hint, that a great portion of the soldiers charged with defence, should be able engineers and gunners, and a few cavalry might be occasionally found useful.  To complete the entire plan, and exclude our enemies from every point, from Cape Blanco to Cape Palmas, the possession of the French establishment at the Isle of Louis in the Senegal, is an abject of serious contemplation, and no doubt might be attained with great facility by even a small force.  The unhealthy consequences to a military force attached to this place might be greatly removed by superior convenience in the hospitals, barracks, and other departments of residence; and in a commercial point of view, its advantages are too well ascertained for me to obtrude any observations.

The bricks necessary for building may be procured in the country, lime from oyster shells, &c. wood and other materials at a very inconsiderable expense; and as the usual mode of payment, is in bars of goods, instead of money, the nominal amount would thereby be greatly lessened.

CHAPTER IX.

The Author embarks in the Ship Minerva.—­Proceeds to the Rio Pongo.—­Disquisitions thereon.—­Further Observations on the Inhabitants, obtained from Natives of various Nations met with there.—­The Isles de Loss—­Returns to Sierra Leone, &c.

Upon the 4th of June, 1806, I embarked at Bance Island, on board the ship Minerva of Liverpool, bound upon a trading voyage to the Rio Pongo, and other rivers to the northward, and on Thursday the 12th came to an anchor at the upper forks, in the Rio Pongo, being the point at which the branches of the Bungra, Charleston, Constintia, &c. empty themselves; higher up the river are the Sanga and Bashia branches, occupied by a chain of factories, and inhabited by various nations and tribes.  The principal factories for trade are on the Constintia, about 40 miles up the river, Mr. Cummings’s factory, at Ventura; Mr. John Irvin’s, at Kessey; Mr. Benjamin Curtis’s, at Boston; Mr. Frasier’s, at Bangra; Mr. Sammo’s, at Charleston; Mr. David Lawrence’s, at Gambia; Mr. Daniel Botefeur’s, at Mary Hill; Mr. Ormond’s, Mr. Tillinghurst’s, Mr. Gray’s, in the Bashia branch; with various others of inferior consideration.