nded
over, according to coast-law, to the returned heir.

When the mulatto youth was thus suddenly elevated into comfort, if not
opulence, in his own country, he resolved to augment his wealth by
pursuing his father's business. But the whole country was then
desolated by a civil war, occasioned, as most of them are, by family
disputes, which it was necessary to terminate before trade could be
comfortably established.

To this task Ormond steadfastly devoted his first year. His efforts
were seconded by the opportune death of one of the warring chiefs. A
tame opponent,--a brother of Ormond's mother,--was quickly brought to
terms by a trifling present; so that the sailor boy soon concentrated
the family influence, and declared himself "MONGO," or, Chief of the
River.

Bangalang had long been a noted factory among the English traders.
When war was over, Ormond selected this post as his permanent
residence, while he sent runners to Sierra Leone and Goree with notice
that he would shortly be prepared with ample cargoes. Trade, which had
been so long interrupted by hostilities, poured from the interior.
Vessels from Goree and Sierra Leone were seen in the offing,
responding to his invitation. His stores were packed with British,
French, and American fabrics; while hides, wax, palm-oil, ivory, gold,
and slaves, were the native products for which Spaniards and
Portuguese hurried to proffer their doubloons and bills.

It will be readily conjectured that a very few years sufficed to make
Jack Ormond not only a wealthy merchant, but a popular Mongo among the
great interior tribes of Foulahs and Mandingoes. The petty chiefs,
whose territory bordered the sea, flattered him with the title of
king; and, knowing his _Mormon taste_, stocked his _harem_ with their
choicest children as the most valuable tokens of friendship and
fidelity.

When I was summoned to act as secretary or clerk of such a personage,
I saw immediately that it would be well not only to understand my
duties promptly, but to possess a clear estimate of the property I was
to administer and account for. Ormond's easy habits satisfied me that
he was not a man of business originally, or had become sadly negligent
under the debasing influence of wealth and voluptuousness. My earliest
task, therefore, was to make out a _minute inventory_ of his
possessions, while I kept a watchful eye on his stores, never allowing
any one to enter them unattended. When I presented thi