the British mind the sort of colonies the “matchless navy” of Great Britain may be called upon one day to defend. [Sidenote: CONTRACT LABOUR AND SLAVERY] Certain apologists of the Portuguese are very fond of comparing the British indentured labour system with labour conditions on the Angolan mainland and the islands. The labour system of the East and West Indies are by no means ideal, but there is a world of difference, not only in the daily management of this labour, but fundamentally. In San Thomé the contracted labourer from Angola is a slave: he calls himself a slave, and the Mozambique free man holds him in contempt as a slave; either he was captured, or purchased on the mainland with cash by the plantation owners just as men purchase cattle or capture wild animals. Every single slave with whom I spoke, both on the mainland and on the islands, gave me the clearest account, replete with convincing detail, of the manner in which he or she had been either kidnapped or purchased. Not a few of the slaves had “changed hands” several times before the ultimate sale to the planter. THE SLAVE’S CASE In the back streets of Angolan ports, on the highways of Lobito and Benguella, and in the shady by-paths of Catumbella, the traveller may at any time penetrate the secrets of the tragedies which attach themselves to the souls of men and women who have lost their freedom. The same tragedies but with attendant secrets darker still, are locked within the breasts of the slaves on the Portuguese cocoa islands in the Gulf of Guinea. There by the roadside, on the banks of crystal streams, up in the cocoa roças, and along the valleys thick with cocoa-trees, the traveller has abundant opportunities for penetrating the secrets of the miserable slaves. [Sidenote: THE VOICE OF THE SLAVE] Behind the mountainous coast of Angola, the town of Novo Redondo hides itself in a hollow, as if ashamed of its history, or perhaps so that its traffic in human beings during past centuries might escape the attention of watchful cruisers. There, amongst a group of slaves and freemen, I met a woman with a story more eloquent than others because it was also so recent, so vivid and so forceful. She had not been long on the coast, for only a few months ago she had for the first time witnessed the Atlantic breakers tossing themselves with their impetuous fury on that strip of rocky shore. The hour was that of the mid-day rest, and the woman was sitting sadly apart from the other labourers. A glance at her attitude, coiffure and other characteristics rendered her a somewhat singular figure in that group of serviçaes, still there was a familiarity which surely could not be mistaken—somewhere in Central Africa those cicatrized arms, that braided head, had a tribal home. “True, white man, I have come from far; from the land of great rivers and dark forests.” “How were you enslaved?” I asked.