While Irving displayed the tempting assortment of spirits, trinkets, dresses, and fire-arms, to the eager African, he artfully affected indifference as to the purchase of slaves; being well acquainted with the mode of making a good bargain, even when his fellow men were the articles for which to negociate: so entirely does this infamous trade debase and corrupt every generous emotion of the heart, and blunt every honourable feeling. With the internal assurance, therefore, that the view he had granted of his commodities, would induce the chief, as soon as possible, to gratify his desire of possessing them, Irving waited patiently the summons to attend him to the children of misery he had by fraud and violence collected; and was fully prepared to accompany him, upon his invitation a few days subsequent to the conclusion of the coronation ceremonies. Irving was, however, astonished, when the negro pointed out to him several spacious enclosures, the wretched inhabitants of which were to purchase his selfish gratification, and satisfy his cupidity; for Irving was not then aware that this grandee was, in fact, the creature of his sovereign, acting as an agent and slave-factor, upon the blood-stained gains of which he not only lived in great splendour, but possessed from his riches great power. His house was fitted up with European elegance, and was, in exterior style, something resembling the buildings of the Moors; consisting of courts, surrounded by apartments, beyond the precincts of which were the receptacles of the slaves. The transition from the elegance and luxuries of this African mansion, to the slave-buildings, was striking; and to a heart yet unperverted and unvitiated by the habitual view of uncontrouled power and oppression over the defenceless, would have been most mournful. But such was not the impression made upon either of the present visitants; the one intent upon immediate self-gratification, the other upon obtaining the means to ensure it in future. Nothing could more strongly prove the tendency of this traffic to prostrate every noble faculty of the soul, every tender impulse of the heart, to destroy every sympathy of our nature, than the fact, that Irving, the once generous, kind-hearted youth, beheld, with the cold regard of a mere trader intent upon making an advantageous bargain, above a hundred and twenty wretched beings in one house, all chained two and two, by their hands and feet, and sitting in three rows on the floor! They were of various ages of youth, and different in features; many of them having come, as the grandee observed, "a journey of many moons," that is, many hundred miles inland.