Charles Abbott, who by a curious anachronism, remains to this day the chief proprietor of the Abbott Line of steamers, had (and has) about him something of the explosive radicalism which was often to be discovered in the older sort of English officials and business men; the men who helped, in their unconscious way, to build that which we now direct towards such astounding destinies. Of the New Empire he had a shallow, but a curiously robust disgust. He loved things as he had seen them—as they were: for dreams, for anticipations, he had as profound a contempt as for debt. He had never owed any man a farthing; he had never done business with the future. In feature he was red and a little over-eager; in gestures abrupt and strong; but his violence was balanced by a deep and emphatic voice which possessed a strange power of persuasion, especially over men less hearty than himself. Such a man had not founded his fleet of ships to deal with “niggers.” He had developed it upon the South American trade. A Government subsidy had persuaded him to touch once a month at the M’Korio. He had travelled there once in person, and had carried away nothing but an added contempt for the policy that could deal with such things. Through this unsympathetic channel had Mr Burden been introduced to the Delta. Mr Abbott, though ten years Mr Burden’s junior, had been, almost from boyhood, his most intimate friend; it was an intimacy born of perpetual daily association, meals in common, and a long life spent with few other opportunities for expansion than that afforded by each other’s society. When he had last returned to Europe from a voyage to the Delta he had suggested to Mr Burden—with no great enthusiasm—that there was some little dealing to be had with the aborigines of that marsh, in goods of the sort that Mr Burden handled. Iron rings of a sort known to the trade as “Large Nines,” were in that district not only a rarity but an object of political necessity. Long the symbol of authority upon the heads of the chiefs, they had been manufactured with infinite pains from old ship nails by the natives, or imported at considerable expense from the neighbouring Sultanate of Botu. Our excellent English article, cheaper, more reliable, and more accurately made, soon settled the competition of these rivals. It was impossible, indeed, to accept as currency the valuable slaves which had formerly found their way to the Sultanate; but considerable quantities of ivory were obtainable for many years in exchange for a gross of these goods; and Mr Burden had the advantage not only of securing such a profit as was due to his initiative and skill, but of knowing that indirectly through his efforts, the slave trade had disappeared in a part of Africa where it had seemed inseparable from the soil.