Several thoroughfares, upper and lower, run parallel with the river; all are connected, like a chess-board, by cross-lanes at right angles, and their grass-grown centres are lined by open drains of masonry, now bone-dry. The pavement is composed of stone and dust, which during the rains becomes mud; the _trottoirs_ are in some places of brick, in others of asphalte, in others of cracked slabs. Mostly, however, we walk on sand and gravel, which fills our boots with something harder than unboiled peas. The multiplicity of useless walls, the tree-clumps, and the green sward faintly suggested memories of a semi-deserted single-company station in Western India; and the decayed, tumble-down look of all around was a deadly-lively illustration of the Hebrew Ichabod. I passed, with a sense of profound sadness, the old Commissariat quarters, now degraded to a custom-house. The roomy, substantial edifice of stone and lime, with large, open verandahs, here called piazzas, lofty apartments, galleries, terraced roofs, and, in fact, everything an African house should have, still stood there; but all shut up, as if the antique _domus_ were in mourning for the past. What Homeric feeds, what _noctes coenoeque deorum_, we have had there in joyous past times! But now that most hospitable of West-Coasters, Commissary Blanc, has been laid in the sandy cemetery; and where, oh! where are the rest of the jovial crew, Martin and Sherwood? I found only one relic of the bygone--and a well-favoured relic he is--Mr. W. N. Corrie, with whom to exchange condolences and to wail over the ruins. Passing the post-office and the French, Spanish, Portuguese, and American consulates, poor copies of the dear old Commissariat, we halted outside at Mr. Goddard's, and obtained from Mr. R. E. Cole a copy of his lecture, 'The River Gambia,' read at York, September 1881. It gave me pleasure to find in it, 'The man that is wanted throughout the West Coast of Africa is not the negro, but the Chinaman; and should he ever turn his steps in its direction he will find an extensive and remunerating field for the exercise of his industry and intelligence.'