shall not starve (but this is nothing, I still want content). And when he comes out in public, the Portuguese and I are called out to sit all day in the sun, only our boys are permitted to hold our kideysols or umbrellas over our heads; but then he pays us pretty well for it, sometimes giving us two, sometimes three or four grand cabess apiece, and a huge flask of brandy to drink there, besides one or two more for each to carry home. Most of the ink you sent me being unfortunately spilt, I beg you will send me a packet of ink powder. His Majesty has likewise got from me the greatest part of the paper, having a notion in his head of a kite, which, though I told him was only fit for boys to play with, yet he says I must make one for him and I to play with, so I beg you will send me two quires of ordinary paper and some twine for that use, and a score of matches, his majesty requiring me sometimes to fire his great guns; and I am much in fear of having my eyes put out with the splinters. He has twenty-five cannon, some of which are upwards of a thousand weight, so that a man would think the devil helped to bring them here, this place being about two hundred miles distant from Whydah, and at least one hundred and sixty from Ardah. His Majesty takes great delight in firing them twice round every market day, only now that his people are making carriages for them. And though he seems to be a man of as great natural parts and sense as any of his colour, yet he takes great delight in trifling toys and whims, so that if you have anything of that kind, I pray you will send them me, or any prints or pictures, he much loving to look in a book, and commonly carries a Latin mass book in his pocket, which he had from the mulatto; and when he has a mind to banter anyone out of their requests, he looks in his book as studiously as if he understood it, and could employ his thoughts on no other subject; and much affects scrawling on paper, often sending me his letters, but then he sends an interpreter with a good flask of brandy and a grand cabess or two.--Your humble servant, “BULLFINCH LAMB.” So that on the whole one cannot help wondering why it is that Master Bullfinch--who in the course of his letter shows himself such a selfish individual--cannot settle down and make himself comfortable. Whether or no he ever escaped, the chronicle sayeth not; probably not; and no great matter either, perhaps, considering Mr. Lamb’s unscrupulous suggestion that half-a-dozen of his wretched countrymen might be induced to thrust their heads into the mouth of this Dahoman lion, that he, Master Lamb, might be enabled to escape.