We left Bathurst more than ever convinced that the sooner we got rid of the wretched station, miscalled a colony, the better. It still supplies hides from the upper country, ivory, bees'-wax, and a little gold. The precious metal is found, they say, in the red clay hills near Macarthy's Island; but the quality is not pure, nor is the quantity sufficient to pay labour. The Mandengas, locally called 'gold strangers,' manage the traffic with the interior, probably the still mysterious range called the 'Kong Mountains.' They are armed with knives, sabres, and muskets; and for viaticum they carry rude rings of pure gold, which, I am told, are considered more valuable than the dust. But the staple export from Bathurst--in fact, nine-tenths of the total--consists of the arachide, pistache, pea-nut, or ground-nut (_Arachis hypogœa_). It is the best quality known to West Africa; and, beginning some half a century ago, large quantities are shipped for Marseilles, to assist in making salad-oil. Why this 'olive-oil' has not been largely manufactured in England I cannot say. Thus the French have monopolised the traffic of the Gambia; they have five houses, and the three English, Messrs. Brown, Goddard, and Topp, export their purchases in French bottoms to French ports. Moreover, the treaty of 1845, binding the 'high contracting Powers' to refrain from territorial aggrandisement (much like forbidding a growing boy to grow), expired in 1855. Since that time, whilst we have refrained even from abating the nuisance of native wars, our very lively neighbours have annexed the Casamansa River, with the fine coffee-lands extending from the Nunez southwards to the Ponga River, and have made a doughty attempt to absorb Matacong, lying a few miles north of Sierra Leone. Whilst English Gambia is monopolised by the French, French Gaboon is, or rather was, in English hands. For a score of years men of sense have asked, 'Why not exchange the two?' When nations so decidedly rivalistic meet, assuredly it is better to separate _à l'aimable_. Moreover, so long as our economical and free-trade 'fads' endure, it is highly advisable to avoid the neighbourhood of France and invidious comparisons between its policy and our non-policy, or rather impolicy.