Cape Lahon was wrongly placed on the chart, and a strong current set us ten miles to leeward. We anchored for a few hours. A canoe, from which I obtained information, pulled very cautiously three times round the brig before its owner would venture alongside, and when he did so it happened to be at the time our men were cleaning arms. Seeing several with cutlasses in their hands, he gave the alarm, tumbled into his canoe, and paddled away as if he had seen the devil. They returned after some persuasion and friendly signs and signals had been made to them, but nothing would induce any of the twelve to venture inside or beyond the hammock-netting, where they perched themselves ready for a bolt overboard on the first symptoms of anything like treachery on our part. Even these savages had a smattering of the English tongue, and could ask very distinctly for rum and tobacco. [Sidenote: Cape Lahon, Oct. 16.] I found out afterwards that their fears were not altogether without cause, as Spanish vessels had been in the habit, when their cargoes were not quite complete, of enticing these unfortunate negroes on board under the pretence of trading, and then kidnapping them; not many months previously their King, with twenty-four men, had been carried off, canoe and all, and sold at the Havana. His Majesty was afterwards restored to his country, but so broken-hearted and dispirited as to be unable to assume the government. His son Antonio now reigns at Lahon. They are a harmless and inoffensive people. In running along-shore, which you may do about half a mile from the beach in 9 or 10 fathoms, the coast has a beautiful appearance. The country is thickly wooded, with trees of every size, colour, and description, and the villages, which are always to be seen where there are a few cocoanuts growing together, give it a lively and picturesque appearance--a great contrast with that of Portendick. A tremendous surf was breaking on the beach, and we did not see a single spot for several hundred miles where any of our boats could have landed. After rounding Cape Palmas, the surf was considerably higher. The canoes were formed much stouter and stronger, and appeared very clumsy after the beautiful light skiffs of Sierra Leone, and what is termed the Windward Coast. [Sidenote: Oct. 17.] Anchored off Grande Jack. The natives came off in swarms, taking us for a first-rate trader. At this place we found that they spoke more English, and consequently were more impudent, fonder of grog, and more avaricious than any of the natives we had yet seen. They brought off cocoanuts, cats, yams, monkeys, and gold-dust (the value of which they understand perfectly well), as well as poultry, limes, goats, and ivory, in exchange for which they took any old clothes, seamen’s hats, marines’ caps, and stole the hand-lead out of the chains. The whole scene of exchange, which took place on deck, being new to us, was most amusing.