To give a distinct view of the commercial transactions with the Negroes, it is proper to inform you, that the western coast of Africa is divided into several countries and provinces, as Guinea, _Melegote_[5], the kingdom of Benin, and the kingdom of Manicongo. Over all this extent of coast, there are many Negro kings or chiefs, whose subjects are Mahometans and idolaters, and who are continually at war with each other. These kings are much respected by their subjects, almost to adoration, as they are believed to have originally descended from heaven. When the king of Benin dies, his subjects assemble in an extensive plain, in the centre of which a vast pit or sepulchre is dug, into which the body is lowered, and all the friends and servants of the deceased are sacrificed and thrown into the same grave, thus voluntarily throwing away their own lives in honour of the dead. On this coast there grows a species of _melegete_, extremely pungent like pepper, and resembling the Italian grain called _sorgo_. It produces likewise a species of pepper of great strength, not inferior to any of that which the Portuguese bring from Calicut, under the name of _Pimienta del rabo_, or _Pepe dalla coda_, and which African pepper resembles _cubbebs_, but so powerful that an ounce will go farther than a pound of the common sort; but its exportation is prohibited, lest it should injure the sale of that which is brought from Calicut[6]. There is also established on this coast a manufacture of an excellent kind of soap from palm-oil and ashes, which is carried on for the king's account. All the trade of this coast, to the kingdom of _Manicongo_ exclusively, is farmed out every four or five years to the highest bidder. Great Negro caravans bring gold and slaves to the stations on the coast. The slaves are either prisoners taken in war, or children whom their parents have parted with in the hope of their being carried to a more fertile country. For above ninety years after the first discovery of this coast, the Portuguese merchants were accustomed to enter the large rivers by which the country is everywhere intersected, trading independently with the numerous tribes inhabiting their banks; but now the whole of this commerce is in the hands of stationary licensed factors, to whom it is farmed.