I joined the front at the ruins of Montobe, at nine o’clock. The situation of this town, which must have been a very large one, is beautiful: it was in two parts, that where we halted being the smallest, and built on a hill shaded with fine large trees, the other is in the centre of an extensive plain, bearing the marks of cultivation, surrounded on all sides, at the distance of nearly a quarter of a mile, by woods; both are plentifully supplied with water, from wells only three or four feet deep, but which, in consequence of being neglected, had fallen in so much that we were obliged to clear them out before a sufficient quantity of water could be obtained. The soil appeared to be better than any I had before seen; it was composed of dark-brown mould, intermixed with white sand and sand-stone. The walls and many of the houses were both strongly and well built with yellow clay, raised from about four feet below the surface, and intermixed with cut straw or withered grass and cow-dung. It was destroyed about twelve months before by the people of Bondoo, in one of their plundering excursions, and many of its inhabitants were either killed or made prisoners (slaves), a fate but too common in this country, where the strongest party always finds an excuse for making war on the weaker, not unfrequently carrying off whole towns of miserable inoffensive beings, without either any previous intimation of their hostile intentions, or indeed any cause given by those wretched objects of their avaricious encroachments. On all such occasions, the only object in view is the attainment of money, as they call it, and in this they succeed by selling their unfortunate fellow-creatures, and, what is still more unnatural, their compatriots, to slave-dealers. A multitude of ideas, bringing with them the conviction of how much Englishmen, and indeed all civilized nations, are favoured by Divine Providence, in enjoying freedom and security against such unwarranted and barbarous practices, rushed on my mind, as we surveyed the silent and awful remains of some human bodies which lay outside the walls of this once respectable and no doubt happy town, the inhabitants of which were torn by unrelenting savages from that native spot, so dear to all mankind. Even the strongest ties of nature riven asunder, and all this to gratify the brutal desires of some neighbouring tyrant, or to enrich a set of savages, who are daily exposed to a similar fate themselves, at least as long as they can find people ready to purchase their unnatural booty.