ing tribes flocked to the swampy flats, and as there was
much similarity in the language and habits of the natives and
emigrants, they soon intermarried and mingled in ownership of the
soil.

In proportion as these upstarts were educated in slave-trade under the
influence of opulent factors, they greedily acquired the habit of
hunting their own kind and abandoned all other occupations but war and
kidnapping. As the country was prolific and the trade profitable, the
thousands and tens of thousands annually sent abroad from Gallinas,
soon began to exhaust the neighborhood; but the appetite for plunder
was neither satiated nor stopped by distance, when it became necessary
for the neighboring natives to extend their forays and hunts far into
the interior. In a few years war raged wherever the influence of this
river extended. The slave factories supplied the huntsmen with powder,
weapons, and enticing merchandise, so that they fearlessly advanced
against ignorant multitudes, who, too silly to comprehend the benefit
of alliance, fought the aggressors singly, and, of course, became
their prey.

Still, however, the demand increased. Don Pedro and his satellites had
struck a vein richer than the gold coast. His flush barracoons became
proverbial throughout the Spanish and Portuguese colonies, and his
look-outs were ceaseless in their signals of approaching vessels. New
factories were established, as branches, north and south of the
parent den. Mana Rock, Sherbro, Sugarei, Cape Mount, Little Cape
Mount, and even Digby, at the door of Monrovia, all had depots and
barracoons of slaves belonging to the whites of Gallinas.

But this prosperity did not endure. The torch of discord, in a civil
war which was designed for revengeful murder rather than slavery, was
kindled by a black Paris, who had deprived his uncle of an Ethiopian
Helen. Every bush and hamlet contained its Achilles and Ulysses, and
every town rose to the dignity of a Troy.

The geographical configuration of the country, as I have described
it, isolated almost every family of note on various branches of the
river, so that nearly all were enabled to fortify themselves within
their islands or marshy flats. The principal parties in this family
feud were the Amarars and Shiakars. Amarar was a native of Shebar,
and, through several generations, had Mandingo blood in his
veins;--Shiakar, born on the river, considered himself a noble of the
land, and being aggressor in th