Now through the great Bights of Benin and Biafra, and all along to Cape Lopez Gonzalez, must a captain keep a sharp weather eye to “mind which way the Travadoes drive the Water, for the Sea Flowes from whence they arise,” and be ready to run before the tornado, “which when you see it it is best to hand all your Sail except your Foresail which you may keep in your Brails to command your Ship.” But, above all, must you “weigh with all Speed and get off.” And these are the sinister coasts where men were sold and bought; brave John Hawkins shamed England by trading here; Spain and America loaded the scales that must be balanced with blood. “About thirteen Leagues up River Benin, on the East-side thereof, stands the great Town of Gaton or Benin, ... doubly pallisado’d with huge thick Trees, and on the other Side ’tis strongly fortified with a great Ditch and a Hedge of Brambles. Here the King of Benin keeps his Court, having there a stately Palace.” But the high words cloak a reality sordid enough when the great King of Benin sat in his house of logs and sold meat for the slavers. And peril lurks here at every turn, “for the Ground is so very foul, and the Inhabitants such Brutes, that there is no coming near it.” Peril, again, in possible confusion of the rivers Forcades and Lamas: for many pilots, thinking they are near Forcades, where there is “Fairing in twelve Fathoms good Anchor-ground,” make for Lamas, “running into it till they become shoal, then perceiving their error, but too late, the Ship is lost, and the Men endeavouring to save themselves from being swallowed up by the Sea and Mud, are devoured and eaten up by the greedy Negroes.” Such, for a slaver, should be the proper adventure of the river Lamas. May the dinner of his “greedy Negroes” sit light! Slaves, slaves, and more slaves are all the “refreshment” here, and an honest Yankee trader, who has exchanged his “silesia linnen and basons” for ivory and gold dust, best be off for home by way of the Amboises, Fernando Po, and Prince’s Island, high, wooded, beautiful, and “affording good Refreshment in Abundance”; or, down by Lopez, the “Island Annebon,” where “those that return Home from the Cape are supplied with Abundance of choice Oranges and Pomegranates, as also good fresh Water.” II