The following lines by T. B. Rhodes in his “Bombastes Furioso,” apropos of Col. Titus’ speech in the House of Commons on the Exclusion Bill on the 7th January, 1681, shows that it was generally accepted as a fact that lions abounded along the Coast of West Africa, which was the only part of Tropical Africa known to Europeans in those days:— “So have I heard on Afric’s burning shore A hungry lion give a grievous roar: The grievous roar echoed along the shore. So have I heard on Afric’s burning shore Another lion give a grievous roar, And the first lion thought the last a bore.” The coast-line and the rivers of Sierra Leone were explored by Pedro de Cintra, a distinguished Portuguese navigator, in the year 1462, and this constituted one of the last of the Portuguese discoveries carried on under the direct influence and authority of Don Henry, the founder and father of modern maritime discovery, who died the following year. The record of the voyage so far as it affects Sierra Leone is described as follows:— “On quitting St. Jago we steered southerly by Rio Grande, which is on the north of Ethiopia, beyond which we came to the high mountain of Sierra Leone, the summit of which is continually enveloped in mist and out of which thunder and lightning almost perpetually flashes and is heard at sea from the distance of fifteen to twenty leagues.” In 1481 the King of Portugal sent Susu, his ambassador, to Edward IV of England, claiming title under the Bull of the Pope, and requested Edward to forbid his subjects to navigate along the coast of Africa. England first began to take an active interest in this part of Africa about the middle of the sixteenth century. In 1551, in the reign of Edward VI, some London merchants sent an English ship to trade for gold, ivory, and Guinea pepper; and about three years later Captain John Lok brought back a valuable cargo consisting of gold, ivory, and Guinea pepper from what is now the Gold Coast Colony. Sir John Hawkins landed at Sierra Leone on the 8th May, 1562, and it is recorded of him that he was the first Englishman who gave public countenance to the Slave Trade, which the Portuguese had been carrying on for some years. He brought three ships and took cargoes of slaves from Sierra Leone and other parts of West Africa and sold them to the Spanish settlements in America. After Captain Hawkins returned to England from his first voyage, Queen Elizabeth sent for him and expressed her concern lest any of the African negroes should be carried off without their free consent, which she declared would be detestable and would call down the vengeance of heaven upon the undertakers; but it is recorded that in the thirtieth year of her reign she was induced by the subtle persuasion of some of her subjects to grant patents for carrying on the slave trade from the north part of the Senegal to one hundred leagues beyond Sierra Leone.