On one occasion, these boats had been in chase of a vessel for ten hours, and encountered, a few minutes before overhauling her, a violent squall of wind and rain. When the squall had passed over, after night-fall, the strange vessel was, for a moment, descried within long-gun shot of the Perry. A thirty-two pound shot was thrown astern of her, and, quite suddenly, the fog again enveloped her, and she became invisible. On the return of the boats which had succeeded in boarding the chase, the commander regretted to learn that the strange vessel was a Portuguese man-of-war. In the year following, when falling in with her at Benguela, he availed himself of an early opportunity to apologize for having fired, as this had been done under the impression that the vessel was a merchantman; and for the purpose of bringing her to, in order to ascertain her character. The John Adams, after a short stay at Loanda, again appeared off Ambriz, and resumed her cruising. The Perry’s provisions had now become nearly exhausted; and she was ordered by the John Adams to proceed to the north coast with dispatches to the commodore. The land along the southern African coast, from lat. 7° south, extending to Benguela, and even to the Cape of Good Hope, is more elevated than the coast to the northward towards the equator. Long ranges of high bluff may be seen, extending, in some cases, from twenty to thirty miles. A short distance to leeward, or north, of Ambriz, is a remarkable range of hills, with heavy blocks of granite around them, resembling, at a distance, a small village. The “granite pillar,” which shoots up in the air, towering above the surrounding blocks like a church-spire, is a good landmark to the cruisers off Ambriz. They often find themselves at daylight, after beating, during the night, to the southward, drifted down abreast of it by the northerly current. The natives along this coast, unlike those of northern Guinea, who are bold, energetic and effective, comparatively, when muscular force is required, are marked by very opposite traits; softness, pliancy and flexibility, distinguish their moral and mental character. They are mostly below the middle stature, living in villages, in rude, rush-thatched huts; subsisting principally upon fish, and the plantain, which is the African bread-fruit tree. These people present some of the lowest forms of humanity. The temperature of both the air and water within southern intertropical Africa, averages, during the months of August and September, 72°, and off Benguela, on one occasion, early in July, the air temperature was as low as 60°, while in the month of February, the thermometer seldom reaches a higher point than 82°.