some years, and not without
some important and encouraging tokens of success.... The
king, it is thought, is more favorable to Christian missions
now than he formerly was."[61]

And we say Amen!

YORUBA.

This kingdom extends from the seacoast to the river Niger, by which it
is separated from the kingdom of Nufi. It contains more territory than
either Benin or Dahomey. Its principal seaport is Lagos. For many
years it was a great slave-mart, and only gave up the traffic under
the deadly presence of English guns. Its facilities for the trade were
great. Portuguese and Spanish slave-traders took up their abode here,
and, teaching the natives the use of fire-arms, made a stubborn stand
for their lucrative enterprise; but in 1852 the slave-trade was
stopped, and the slavers driven from the seacoast. The place came
under the English flag; and, as a result, social order and business
enterprise have been restored and quickened. The slave-trade wrought
great havoc among this people. It is now about fifty-five years since
a few weak and fainting tribes, decimated by the slave-trade, fled to
Ogun, a stream seventy-five miles from the coast, where they took
refuge in a cavern. In the course of time they were joined by other
tribes that fled before the scourge of slave-hunters. Their common
danger gave them a commonality of interests. They were, at first,
reduced to very great want. They lived for a long time on berries,
herbs, roots, and such articles of food as nature furnished without
money and without price; but, leagued together to defend their common
rights, they grew bold, and began to spread out around their
hiding-place, and engage in agriculture. Homes and villages began to
rise, and the desert to blossom as the rose. They finally chose a
leader,--a wise and judicious man by the name of Shodeke; and one
hundred and thirty towns were united under one government. In 1853,
less than a generation, a feeble people had grown to be nearly one
hundred thousand (100,000); and Abeokuta, named for their cave,
contains at present nearly three hundred thousand souls.

In 1839 some colored men from Sierra Leone, desirous of engaging in
trade, purchased a small vessel, and called at Lagos and Badagry. They
had been slaves in this country, and had been taken to Sierra Leone,
where they had received a Christian education. Their visit, therefore,
was attended with no ordinary interest. They recognized many of their
f