Had always told us was true,
that the world has no end; but all at once the world said to us,
`I am finished; there is no more of me!'" They had always imagined
that the world was one extended plain without limit.
They were now somewhat apprehensive of suffering want, and I was unable
to allay their fears with any promise of supply, for my own mind was depressed
by disease and care. The fever had induced a state of chronic dysentery,
so troublesome that I could not remain on the ox more than ten minutes
at a time; and as we came down the declivity above the city of Loanda
on the 31st of May, I was laboring under great depression of spirits,
as I understood that, in a population of twelve thousand souls,
there was but one genuine English gentleman. I naturally felt anxious to know
whether he were possessed of good-nature, or was one of those crusty mortals
one would rather not meet at all.
This gentleman, Mr. Gabriel, our commissioner for the suppression
of the slave-trade, had kindly forwarded an invitation to meet me
on the way from Cassange, but, unfortunately, it crossed me on the road.
When we entered his porch, I was delighted to see a number of flowers
cultivated carefully, and inferred from this circumstance that he was,
what I soon discovered him to be, a real whole-hearted Englishman.
