ng quite inland,
covered behind the island till a favorable opportunity ensued to escape
with their cargoes of human beings for America. Wydah, the great
slave-port of Dahomi, is but 70 or 80 miles west of Lagos. This city is
most favorably located at the mouth of a river which during eight months
in the year is a great thoroughfare for native produce, which is now
brought down and carried up by native canoes and boats, and quite
navigable up to Aro the port of Abbeokuta, a distance of eighty or a
hundred miles, for light-draught steamers, such as at no distant day we
shall have there. Ako Bay is an arm of the gulf, extending quite inland
for three and a half miles, where it spreads out into a great sea,
extending north ten to fifteen miles, taking a curve east and south,
passing on in a narrow strip for two or three hundred miles, till it
joins the Niger at the mouth of the Nun. It is the real harbor of Lagos,
and navigable for light-draught vessels, as the Baltimore clippers and
all other such slavers, formerly put into it; and Her Majesty's
war-steamer Medusa has been in, and H. M.'s cruiser Brun lies
continually in the bay opposite the Consulate.

Metropolis

This is the great outlet of the rich valley of the Niger by land, and
the only point of the ocean upon which the intelligent and advanced
Yorubas are settled. The commerce of this part is very great, being now
estimated at ten million pounds sterling. Besides all the rich products,
as enumerated in another section, palm oil[7] and ivory are among the
great staple products of this rich country. But as every nation, to be
potent must have some great source of wealth--which if not natural must
be artificial--so Africa has that without which the workshops of Great
Britain would become deserted, and the general commerce of the world
materially reduced; and Lagos must not only become the outlet and point
at which all this commodity must centre, but the great metropolis of
this quarter of the world.

Trade of Lagos

The trade of this port now amounts to more than two millions of pounds
sterling, or ten millions of dollars, there having been at times as many
as sixty vessels in the roadstead.

The merchants and business men of Lagos are principally native black
gentlemen, there being but ten white houses in the place--English,
German, French, Portuguese, and Sardinian--and all of the clerks are
native blacks.

Harbor Improvements

Buoys in the roadstead