The island is defended by two forts, and we heard that the guns had been dismounted and sent to Portugal, in order that should the place be captured by the natives, it might be the more easily retaken by the slave-dealers. We were not prepared to find so handsome a city as Mozambique is in many respects. We landed at a fine wharf built of the most massive masonry. The palace of the governor-general is a handsome building, erected round a court-yard, with lofty rooms and floors of timber. The roof is flat, and covered entirely with lead. The floors of most of the other houses are of chunam, or lime. All the houses are very substantially built, for the sake of coolness; and many of them look as if at one time they may have been comfortable abodes when the slave-trade flourished, and they were inhabited by the principal slave-dealers in the place. The town is irregularly built; the streets are narrow; there are two large churches and several chapels, and two or three squares, with fair-sized houses round them. As we were passing through the principal one, we observed a pillar of wood fixed in a mass of masonry. We inquired its object, and were told that it is used for securing the negroes when they are ordered to be publicly whipped. I have little more to say about the city of Mozambique, except to remark that it is difficult to conceive how civilised beings can allow the place they live in to be kept in so very dirty a condition. The truth is, that the blighting influence of slave-dealing affects every one, from the highest to the lowest Portuguese; and their whole thoughts are taken up in the consideration of how they can in the greatest degree benefit directly or remotely by it. While the Portuguese government persists in sending out ruined men to govern the country, or under-paid officers, they cannot wash away the stigma which now rests on them of wishing to support the slave-trade in spite of treaties, and their promises to put a stop to it. There are about two hundred white soldiers in the place, all of them convicts, and some doubly convicted of the worst of crimes. There are certain government officials and some foreign merchants, Germans, banyan traders, Arabs, and others; and all the rest of the inhabitants are negroes and slaves, or, as the Portuguese call them, Gentiles. Altogether there was nothing attractive in the place, and we were very glad that we had not to remain there.